Montien Hotel Hatyai Hat Yai

... are stops at random cities for unspecified amounts of time, stops at the driver's family restaurants, etc...The best part about today was that not only did it take 13 hours to get here, but since I was the only foreigner on the last bus, the driver offered to drop me off where I wanted, but because he spoke no English I couldn't get him to understand where the guesthouse I wanted to stay at was. It was a ...

... a restaurant, but we did find a huge night market right next to the bus station. The market had food vendors, and stalls selling every imaginable thing, including our favorite thing-used clothing! We picked up a few items after some hard bargaining but grew weary of shopping while carrying 40kilo packs. So, we headed to an air-con bar and had plenty of cheap beer to make the trip ...

... throughout the day - on my book, my shirt, my lunch, my wife, etc. So I decided to get a shave. Now, while there didn't appear to be any barbers in the village there were a number of spa/massage/hairdresser places along tourist row. So I thought I may as well ask. Looking back, it shouldn't have gone any further than the woman hesitating, asking me to repeat myself twice, then looking confused and a little embarrassed before her and her co-workers stepped aside for a ...

... on the map. But in fact, it is not small at all. There was only one place open to stay overnight on the island but after 30 minutes on a long dusty but very friendly walk ( all the kids were waving hello, all the people were smiling to welcome us, or to laugh at us cause we were walking), when it became dark, we called it a quit and begged some people to take us there with their motorbikes. The road was actually not a road, it was a very narrow, full of ...

... of them are jacking up their prices. We met a tuk-tuk drive along the way when we were settling down to figure out where our hostel is. And he insisted that Cathay Guesthouse was expensive and its not worth staying there, and he suggest that we should stay in another hotel that he deemed good. So we went ahead and check it out and it was dodgy, the reception looked run-down and the locals stay there, wei had a ...

... there crazy enough to want to do it!! After 5 minutes of this type of wrangling between us, we heard splashing, cursing and agitated voices from the end of the corridor. "See, Jo told me." It's the guy from the reception. Idiot!!!" True enough, a knock door led to the night porter pering into the peephole. Jo opened the door (regardless of my advice) and we were asked to pack up and move downstairs to another room. We gathered our sodden belongings after hastily dressing ...

... any more kindly about Singapore. But then I had an encounter that made me look at S'pore from a different perspective. I was in a subway station, and I went to the counter to ask for change. The guy behind the glass asked me if I was Japanese. "Of couse he thinks I'm Japanese," I thought, and I replied that I was Korean, not Japanese. He told me that I spoke really good English. When I told him that was because I had lived in America all ...

... relaxing. Apparently Thai Massagesfind all the spots that really hurt (did not know I had that many) and work on them. These women had very strong hands, and made sure we got our moneys worth. We walked out cooled off, but quite sore and felt as though we just fished a 2 hour work out. We walked back to the station, got some take away food, and boarded the bus.

... about this large but innocuous southern Thai city, and the countryside around it, was their reverence of their monarchs. Large pictures of the King and his Queen (I presume) abound. He's on every banknote. A little Saddamesque at times but I think these guys are actually loved by the masses. I'll have to do more research during my travels here. Here's another couple of cute photos I can't use anywhere else. The baby ...

... all that bad. We finally made it through to Malaysia where we and travelled for a further 11 hours on the main bus. By the time we got to singapore we were so knackered we could barely walk, we bumped into one fella who claimed to think up the 'Yorkies Not For Girls' slogan, which was nice, but even nicer hed showed us to a good hotel where Sheldon slept the ...