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Taman Nagara to Thailand
Entry 20 of 22 | show all | print this entry |
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8th of October 9.30 am, we were both sitting on our bed trying to decide our next move, Do we stay here in Taman Nagara for one more day,or shall we catch the 2.30pm bus to Kuala Lumpur? While we were deciding our hostel manager was filling us with bus times and destinations. our problem with catching the 2.30 bus was we would get to K A at 7.30,not a great time for trying to find accommodation. Then our hostel guy tells us that the 9.30am bus doesn't leave until 10am ( any ideas on what comes next ? ) yep thats right we stupidly decide to pack our bags and rush to the bus station all in 20mins !!! we get to the bus as it starts its engine,we sit down as he pulls away, 30mins into our journey i realize that neither of us checked that the bus that we got on was the right bus, we were suppose to go to a town called "Jerantut" but we both fell about laughing when we past sign pointing left to Jerantut and we went right we both said "typical". Luckily after an hour we came to the sign for jerantut, and realised we were heading in the right direction after all! once we got off the bus we caught another bus to the next town an hour away. Once we jumped off of that bus, we walked up to the ticket window to ask for the next bus to kuala lumpur and it left in 10 minutes....... great! this was going smooth......a little too smooth for our liking! So another 2 hour bus trip to KL. once there, we jumped onto the monorail, a train above the roads, and get off at a place called Sentral KL. This building is massive. All forms of transportation leave from there. Local buses, national buses, trains, metro ,taxis, (and maybe flights). It first looked chaotic, but it was just really easy to use and plan your next trip. We contemplated saying in KL for 2 days or so, but in the end decided to try and jump on the train leaving for Thailand that night. Lucky for us there were seats available for the 14 hour train trip to Hat Yai in Thailand. I say seats, it was a carriage full of beds. It cost us 100 Ringgits which is about £16,so cheap enough! We met 3 girls from Cardiff in our carriage,just a couple of beds down from us. They were studying as medical students,so Helen was talking nerd stuff with them,whilst merlin was yawning away! The beds were comfy,although Helen did sleep much better than merlin,as the train was a lot more 'bumpy' than the trans siberian trains. The train left Kuala Lumpur at 8pm and arrived in Hat Yai, thailand, at 10am. We wanted to go to the quiet islands to the south of the country, but we are out of peak season, so the islands just shut down,and we couldn't get to them. So we end up sharing the price of a minivan with the Cardiff girls to a town called Krabi. Once there, it began to hammer it down with the monsoon rain. But the hostel we were dropped off at was a bit pricey,so we waited for the weather to calm down and we walked through town to find cheaper and better accommodation.... which we didn't find!
We walked down to the water front and found people selling boat trips to the islands. But then we got chatting to some other couple who said that there was a ferry port about 3 kilometers away where the tickets maybe cheaper. So Helen's ears pricked at the sound of saving 40p so we i mean Helen decided that we should walk to this ferry port, we eventually get there 2hours later ! to find that the place is shut. There was only a security guard sitting in his little booth, so he thought he would try to sell us some tickets, at 450 baht same price as the first place, so frustrated,tired,hungry and angry we start to head back in the nearing darkness,the security guard did offer us lift on his scooter for 100 bhat or a ride in 4x4 for 200 baht but merlin decided that it was time for helen to pay for her silly mistakes so he started to march her back at high speed on our way back merlin noticed a what we call " normie"which is some one like our selves. he speeds past on a rented scooter heading towards the ticket office, it wasn't long before he whizzed past again having a good look at us. He soon turned around and stopped next to us and asked if we wanted a lift to the main road which was about 30 minutes walk...... yey! So all 3 of us are squashed onto the scooter and off we go! We were so happy that he had stopped. He was from Germany we think. So we jump off and start the 30 minute walk back to the town. It was pitch black by the time we stumbled into a little restaurant, where we had a beer and a game of pool........
On the way back to our hotel we pass the German lad sitting in a cafe, so we stopped and thanked him once again. When he dropped us off he went in a different direction to try and get some information on boat trips so he passed on the info, so he was very handy! hopefully the next blog will be about phi phi island and how easy it was to get there....
to be continued in the next episode of helen and merls travel disasters.
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