Run for the border

9th January 2011
Written by Maureen

Our visas run out tomorrow so we had no choice but to leave our idyllic beach resort and run for the border. After one last walk on the beach, we jumped on a tuk-tuk which sped us to the pier, where we hopped on a longtail boat, which crossed the Phang Nga bay to Ao Talen pier, where we transferred onto a songthaew, which took us to the bus station in Krabi just in time to catch the express bus to Satun on the Malaysian border, where we took another tuk-tuk to our hotel. Door to door in eight hours for a smidgeon over £20.

In fact, in six weeks we’ve managed to explore Thailand fairly thoroughly without resorting to air travel. Luckily, transport here is safe, cheap and efficient. Some of it is fun too.

Thai trains are not speedy, but for long distance travel they are the most comfy. Sleepers are best – between admiring the countryside, you can read, doze, write a blog, doze, listen to music, doze, grab food from passing vendors, doze, then when night arrives be lulled to sleep in your cosy cubicle by the rattle of the train. The buses are excellent too, and roll along unnervingly fast on the country’s excellent roads.

We’ve also ridden in dozens of tuk-tuks and songthaews in all their regional variations: neat ones in the north, cramped ones in Bangkok, and the pick-up style in Koh Yao Noi. In Bangkok, we used the skytrain or the express boat to avoid the traffic, or joined it in metered taxis. We hired a car to drive the Mae Hong Son loop which has more switchbacks than any other road I have ever travelled. On the water, we have taken speedboats, longtails and bamboo rafts. Under our own steam, we’ve rented bicycles and kayaks.

As well as getting from A to B we’ve used transport to explore city districts, tropical islands, ancient temples, glittering caves, secret lagoons and flooded rainforests. And thus far not a single mishap. Nothing has broken down (Madagascar), or collided with anything else (Cambodia). Bone-jarring discomfort (Nepal) seems well behind us.

In fact, there is only one mode of transport that we haven’t taken. The one ubiquitous mode of travel in Thailand, and perhaps the whole of South East Asia: the humble moped. Maybe next time!

Tomorrow we finish our run down into Malaysia. We need to take a songthaew to the Tammerlang pier, where we catch a longtail boat to Kuala Perlis across the border, then a local bus to reach the main road where we catch an express bus to Butterworth. That’s where we catch the ferry to Penang, and no doubt a tuk-tuk to the hotel district. Are we nearly there yet?

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 10th, 2011 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Thailand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.