The first day of 2013, Tope and Mutsa left the ferry at Koh Samui to start the marathon journey home and I stayed on to Surat Thani with a plan to head to Krabi.
I cried most of the way to Surat Thani once we said bye, I hate goodbyes for so many reasons but this one made me seriously wonder why I was still going onwards by myself. The company, the sharing of jokes of risky times, exhausted moments and of course great food made the previous two weeks hard to beat. I really had to convince myself I was going to get back to enjoying doing this by myself again. I could not even go to the ladies in peace without worrying about my luggage or planning when the next window of opportunity was.
The journey to krabi was straight forward enough the ferry ticket I bought was in fact a ferry to Don Sac and a bus to Surat Thani bus station, aside from demanding the second minibus that only had me on it leave now instead of 20 minutes later it was pretty uneventful. The bus took three hours as planned, at the other end the songthew driver charged my 60 baht instead of 15 to get to my hostel, then tried to drop me off 1km too early. Google maps and a data connection saved me again, I refused to get off until he took me to my hostel as promised when I showed him the address the first time.
Im slowly realising my hard headedness and desire to not just be swept along by smiling Thai’s is an asset on this trip as I’m quite sure I would have no passport and a poorly made Thai suit and substantially less money by now.
Krabi town is defiantly the perfect rest stop…the is little to do but visit a night food market, get a massage, hang out in a WiFi spot or visit the many beaches on the Andaman sea islands, so you don’t feel bad if you do nothing much at all!
I stayed at Pak Up hostel which was perfect for two nights at 270 baht per night, good bag storage spaces, and a roof top bar. I shared a 10 bunk dorm and met some fun people, two of them from Canada, we laughed ourselves to sleep one night we gassed so much.
The weather was not perfect for the beach and I had hopped enough beaches in Koh Phangan so I was ready for a massage and a cooking class. 🙂
Smart Cook Cooking school
A school based in Chiang Mai with a new location in Krabi, we had Ivy as our teacher, young fresh faced and very sweet, there was only 5 of us in the session so we got lots of attention.
I made all the foods of Thailand I think I may miss:
Spring rolls
Tom Yum Soup
Papaya Salad
Pad Thai
Penagan Curry
Mango with Sticky rice
I was most impressed with the curry if I’m honest it tasted like the stuff I had been ordering for the past month.
We ate all our food in a lunch then dinner sitting, I was then dropped back to the hostel.
Preparation for Singapore
Train tickets printed, I planned my stop in Hat yai before my 2 train 20 hour marathon to Singapore on the 4-5th January. I decided to head to Hat Yai 4 hours by bus on the 3rd January to break it up a little.
I wanted to organise this, myself as the bus station was close enough I got a songthew to the bus station then tried to buy my ticket, the lady on the counter typed into her calculator a figure 70 baht more than I had read it should be online.. I was not comfortable and told her how much I was told it should be, she showed me it would be the same price for all people to do this journey by showing me other tickets. I paid for the ticket and waited at lane 13 where the bus was due in 20 minutes. The bus (a blue rickety one) came, I queued up, the lady who had taken my money ushered some Thai people on the bus in front of me while telling me to wait. 4 people got on the bus, then she said no more, its full.
Now, if you know me what is fair and just is of importance to me, I can’t help it, stuff like this winds me up.
I went to sit down, I looked at the bus and could see a seat so I doubled back, this time a different lady told me the bus was full, I told her I could see a available seats, she said no, I said no I can see. She then pull a different sly type of smile one my good friend had warned me about and pointed to a Thai man behind me who sauntered into the bus.
Red flag to a bull. I went off, she ignored me, the bus left, so I followed her back to the counter, back to the lady who I bought the ticket from. She told me all those people had tickets before me, which was BS, they were buying them on the bus. I was cussing at this point, and woman behind the counter was raising her voice to trying to prove her queue point with another farrang, the only other numpty at the bus station with a frickin ticket.
I relaxed and waited for the next bus, now the next one was more like the bus I expected my ticket to be valid on, it was double decker and air con. I queued, I was told no, not to get on by several people whose business it was not but had heard the previous kuffufle. I asked why and no one could answer that question. I checked the bus was going to hat tai with a passenger, I got on the bus with someone pathetically trying to stand in my way. We were going to play the convince Samantha why she should get OFF the bus game instead because me being told to just sit there like a lemming was getting boring. Remember, just cause their smiling does not mean they are being nice. The bus conductor had no problem with me being on the bus, took my bag and put it in the hold. People paid on the bus. The whole thing ruined my memory of krabi..silly woman.