jarno’s / trul’s page

For my trip from Koh Phangan to Penang, Malaysia I bought a combined ferry and bus ticket. The journey is about 700 kilometres over land, excluding the 3 hours ferry ride from Koh Phangan to mainland. The lady at the travel agency was sure that it would be by VIP-bus, though I spoke to Francesco in advance who told me that it was by minibus: no problem. I had to say bye bye to paradise early in the morning. Here is the itinerary for that day:

• 6.00am: 7/11 to buy some snacks for that day.
• 6.30am: got picked up near 7/11 by a nice big jeep.
• 7.00am: at the ferry pier on Koh Phangan, exchanged my voucher  for the real tickets.
• 10.30am: get off the ferry and took a big bus from don sak pier to surat thani
• 11.30am: arrive at travel agency in surat thani
• 11.50am: tuk tuk to other travel agency where we were promised we could have a fast lunch
• 12.20pm: I ordered just a basic fried rice and they gave it to me as take-away. After having one bite the driver said, “ok, let’s go”. And so we did: on our way to the next town in Thailand: Hat Yai. After 5 minutes he started complaining in the minibus that I was not eating fast enough. He said that the air-con would not work properly if I would be eating. Haha, right. The guy drove like crazy, as normal in Thailand. Though this was one of the worst and reckless drivers I had on my trip until now. He almost killed a dog and, due to late braking and lots of rain he almost caused a couple of accidents.
• 2.30pm: 20 minute stop for some food and toilet
• 4.30pm: arrive in Hat Yai, filling out the Malay customs form.
• 5.00pm: depart with new minibus to the border
• 6.00pm: arrive at Thai-Malay border.
• 6.30pm: in Malaysia, through customs.
• 9.00pm: arriving in Penang where I got dropped off at Blue Diamond guesthouse where I knew that Francesco was staying.

The time difference between Thailand and Malaysia is 1 hour: I arrived at 10pm local time. I was very tired because of travelling so long so I decided to blindly check in for one night at the same place as Francesco. He was in a dorm for 10rm (roughly 2.50 euro per night). To my surprise I had to carry my own mattress upstairs to the room and I did not get any sheets. The toilets and showers in this place were horrible.  An Australian guy and Francesco joined me for a walk and a beer. Jeez, beer is expensive here (about the same as in Netherlands). This since it is a Muslim country, meaning there is sin-tax on alcohol.