June 20, 2001 - Wednesday - Kota Bharu, Malaysia to Krabi, Thailand
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| Malaysia - Thailand Border Crossing |
I was on my own again. I boarded bus 29 to head to the border town of Thailand and arrived uneventfully. I was lucky that a local on the bus knew I was getting off there because I probably would have stayed on the bus. The Thai Immigration Control was way more chaotic than the orderly Malaysians. I left Malaysia on foot and walked to the train station 1km away after getting my passport stamped.
On the way there, I changed money and got some maps from the Visitor Center, which had a better exchange rate than the banks for the Malaysian Ringet. I hopped on the train and met an Aussie named Grant who was semi-friendly but a bit on the introvert side. We chatted briefly and I asked about going to Krabi together and he told me about his other travel mates sitting a few seats back - an Aussie and a Belgium.
After we got to Hat Yao, we got off the train and boarded a taxi to a mini bus to go to Krabi. I finally met the other two traveling with Grant - the other Aussie was named Michael and the Belgium named Dirk. We started chatting and Michael seemed like the friendlier one of the bunch.
We got to the hotel where we boarded the mini bus and thanks to Michael's bargaining skills (by appearing to be very desperate to them) they charged us 300 Bhat each for the ride. We later found out that they ripped us off because they normally only charged 150 Bhat for that ride. We harassed Michael about it for the next few days.
Michael and I exchanged some of our music during the long ride to Krabi. It's weird how some popular songs never make it to another continent. We arrived in Krabi late and spent a while looking for hotels before finding one within our budget of 100 Bhat (about $2.25). By that time, we were knackered and just took showers and went to bed. Michael had his pants out that he's been storing wet and it stank like some nasty stale sweat in his room.
;)
