Bali’s lovely. Lombok’s also very nice. I can’t possibly (and you don’t want me to) cram a full account of the last two weeks into a blog post, so have a look at the pictures below and we’ll fast-forward to an account of our entertaining border crossing from Malaysia to Thailand.
After four boozy days in Penang, pretending to be real backpackers (drinking until 6am, wasting the day in bed, etc), we booked an escape over the border to Hat Yai in southern Thailand. And finally had one of the travellers’ journeys of which legends are made.
Our 11:45 transport arrived at 1:30. After rushing us out of the hostel as if we were the ones holding everything up, the driver expressed surprise and irritation that the two backpackers he was picking up from a backpackers’ hostel had… y'know… backpacks. There was very little space for luggage on the ‘bus’ (on the small side of the mini variety), but we managed to drag the bags over the other passengers and squeeze them, along with ourselves, on to the unoccupied back row of seats. Which was fine, until there turned out to be three more pickups after ours (including an angry Polish woman who’d already been put on the wrong bus once and was in a rush to catch a ferry).
Wedged into the glorified hatchback, with our bags now blocking the only escape route, we raced down the motorway. After pulling over once, possibly to check the tyres (no explanation was offered), our next stoppage was police enforced. We think Jenson Button was flagged down for speeding, but all we heard from the front seat was “now we have a big problem”. Luckily, and unexpectedly, he wasn’t marched off in handcuffs, which would have left us somewhat stranded. After a 10-minute chat with Malaysia’s finest, he jumped back in and resumed motoring like a maniac. Lesson learned, eh?
Our third stop was just after a set of tolls, when Button abruptly pulled into a car park and legged it to the toilet like the lawyer in Jurassic Park. Leaving everyone else shut in. Very sorry I missed the chance to emit a high-pitched “HE LEFT US!”
Upon finally reaching the Malaysian side of the border, Button turned around, shouted “Passports!” and disappeared with them. After briefly seeing him in the vicinity of a booking office, I finally spotted him again half an hour later: just finishing his sit-down meal in a cafe. With 12 passengers sat on his bus. He came back and handed over some partially filled-in Thai entry/exit cards, then demanded 2 ringgit (about 40p) each for the privilege. Hope it covered his lunch.
More fun and games took place at the Thai border post, where our favourite chauffeur bluntly enquired if we knew how to “zig zag” and implied that the Europeans needed to bribe immigration with 200 baht (about £4) in our passports - or, inexplicably, we could just give it to him. We figured we’d try our luck with the officials, without the “incentive” - and he still tried to get us to hand him money in the queue. Unsurprisingly, no cash had to change hands.
Finally we made it over the border, at this point five hours into our four-hour trip. Our Polish friend got very agitated when there were two more stops (one at a non-existent money changer that looked suspiciously like a McDonald’s; the other when three Thai girls decided to hop out and go shopping at a market). This bout of eastern European fury ensured there were no further delays, and we were deposited in Hat Yai around 7pm.
I doubt she caught her boat.
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