Well the journey from Penang to Krabi was done by Shuttle bus. The bus turned up at 8.30 in the morning. It was basically a minivan with air cond and about 8 cramped seats. There were a few fat Chinese on board who seemed to feel they had the right to spread themselves over the little space on board.
Its funny how a little space to put your legs can be all important on a trip like this. The bloke next to me had commandeered the spot where I could put my right leg so I had to put bot legs into the spot on my left. I decided first stop I would get back in early to get my right leg into his spot next time in.
Fortunately I got it so he had to spend the trip in the same position I was in when I first got on. Ha ha ha.
The trip involved stopping at the border in Kanger PadngBesar and get our passports stamped for outgoing before crossing the border and processing incoming to Thailand at Padang Besar. This was a straight forward process but as I am traveling overland only a 14 day visa is issued at the border. If I had traveled by Plane a 30 day visa is issued on entry, so my sojourn into Thailand will have to be a quick one. The plan is to travel up to Bangkok then cross over to Cambodia before my time is up. I can then come back in again at a latter time. You can do this as many times as you like but not spend more than 90 days in Thailand in total unless you apply to get a longer term visa.
Once over the border we continued onto Hat Yai the most major southern most town in the country.
Apparently Hat Yai and surrounding provinces have been known for violence between Muslim and Buddhist communities with insurgent bombings gang shootings and even be-headings. In 2006 there was a bomb attack here and at the airport where a Canadian tourist was also killed. Anyway not the safest place to hang my hat so I was glad to be moving on.
I had to wait here for about an hour before a sawngthaew, which is a small open truck with bench seats and a little roof on top for cover turned up. This I wasn’t prepared for and as no one spoke English wasn’t sure what I was in for. I certainly hoped I wasn’t traveling the rest of the way in this thing. To my relief I was dropped off at another bus station where I got in another mini van to complete my journey onto Krabi arriving around 5 pm in the afternoon.
