Diamond Plaza Hotel Hat Yai

Today after the speedboat trip with Edele I met up with Leigh and Mo at Kuala Besut bus station, said our goodbyes and ended what had been a thoroughly enjoyable chapter in my travels. They got a taxi and shortly after they left I got the local bus (complete with air con!) to Kota Bharu. After an hour and a half I arrived there, in this town with seemingly little character. I was stressing out about the fact that if ...

... dusty street modestly never daring to meet my blue Farang eyes, men with the inevitable skullcap and in pale djallebas share the same sidewalk with slutty dressed young women whose Thai accent betray their place of origin, memberes of the Isan clan of females, literally thousands of them populate the streets, standing in front of small seedy looking hotels, outside Hallal restaurants, their dark oriental eyes assessing me openly and bluntly ...

... I had seen in Asia. Our introduction to the barrage of taxi drivers we would find all over SE Asia came at the Hat Yai trainstation. We walked. Backs on back we trekked our short trek to an apparantly 4 star hotel. The pool wasn't up to par but we made the best of it, and the rooms were amaller than we were used to. Living this high ...

... I'm pretty sure was taking a ****. Koh Lipe: For us, almost the perfect little island. Small enough to walk around the entire thing in half an hour, just one little village, no real roads, basically just a couple of large sidewalks and a handful of scooters and enough civilization to provide Internet and a choice of restaurants without being overun by mega-resorts or 7-11s. Some might like a little more action, others might say it's already ruined, but as Goldilocks ...

nur 1 nacht hemer i dere sehr malayisch aghuchte stadt verbracht. ussert de vilne ässens- und wareständ isch eus keis highlight ufgfalle. vil chinese hets und daher vil restaurants wo haifischflosse-suppe abütet. jede wo de film shark water xeh het kriegt bi dem ablick d wuet im buuch. so hemer bi tagesabruch de zug richtig suede nach sungai golok gno. waehrend de fahrt ...

... Tag damit zubringen, Thaizigaretten zu rauchen und Nuesse zu kauen. Wir sind dann mit Koy, ihrer Schwester, Schwaegerin und deren Kinder ins Museum in Nakhon gefahren, mit anschliessendem Picknick. Ein sehr schoener Tag. Am naechsten Tag war das traditionelle thailaendische Neujahr Songkran, bei dem ueberall Kinder mit Wasser und Farbe bewaffnet am Strassenrand stehen und Leute auf vorbeifahrenden Pickups damit bekriegen. Ich stand mit den Kiddies und der ...

... signed and I waited in 'no mans land' a small duty free section that's Thailand/Malaysia....a tense moment on the way back....an Armed Malaysian Border guard asked to see our passports. As I handed mine to him he asked, "Where are you From?". I proudly replied, "United States of America, Sir"..which got my passport a second look over and a dirty look from the guard....guess we aren't well liked over ...

... us as there was no boot space - used for extra seats. Even though our driver barely spoke a word he must have been experienced with the rout due to the regular stops and how quickly we made it through the boarder check points. We even picked up another traveler on the other side before continuing on through Malaysia. We arrived in Penang around 8pm. The whole day we had been with out a proper meal - just a few snacks and a bottle of water each. Wondering about ...

... you get beneath it's exterior it's extraordinary and certainly not ****. We don't know Andy and Kerry so I'm just gonna go right ahead and say - 'Andy and Kezza, Chumphon isn't ****, you are...Chumphon is beautiful'. Okay not beautiful...authentic. The people are really friendly and smiley and the food is just amazing. We ...

... didn't have any sleeping arrangements. My guide book says that th**e are lots of them around the main train station. I was planning on trying to catch an ov**night train or find a place around th**e. I asked the driv** to drop me off at the train station. It was 3 am and the place was completely dark and des**ted. I was kinda ******. H**e I was in a foreign country, in a foreign city, for the first time, and I don't speak a lick of Thai, not even a simple thank you ...