I hadn't been reading the news for a few days in KL, and hadn't received any warning bulletins, so Chok Eng's warnings about multiple bombings in Southern Thailand since June the 15th came as an unpleasant surprise. It seems that there was rising insurgency in heavily-Islamic areas of southern Thailand - more than 60 bombs have gone off, there have been shootings and beheadings. This wouldn't have been such a problem if I was going to Thailand via the west coast but since I was going via the east coast my path would be right through the affected areas...
On reflection my route through Malaysia was not ideal - a more efficient overland route would have been Singapore -> Johore -> East Coast -> Kota Bharu -> Jungle Railway -> Gemas -> Melaka -> KL -> West Coast -> Thailand
In Kuala Terengganu, Chok Eng's brother and sister-in-law (who very kindly took me out for a seafood dinner and showed me some of the town) gave me even stronger warnings about what to do once over the border in Sungai Golok - check with Customs to make sure that the motorcycle taxi I took was safe to use. Don't walk to the station. Leave in the morning. Don't stay overnight, and if I absolutely had to, don't leave the hotel after dark. Expect heavy security round the stations.
So I travelled from KT to Kota Bharu, wandered around the town (managing to pick up my second dose of Travellers' Diarrhoea as a farewell present from Malaysia), took a bus to the border in the morning, and crossed into Thailand on foot.
For a town under siege, Sungai Kolok was fairly relaxed. There was a military police post by the station, and some uniformed personnel armed with whistles patrolling the station. I did see more security - razor wire and SMG-wielding military police - at some of the stations on the four hour trainride northwest to Hat Yai.
Hat Yai (1 night): apparently a popular destination for Malaysian men who can't obtain foot massages in Malaysia. It's supposed to be a good town for food, but unfortunately TD and appetite don't go together. Otherwise it's a place to stop on the way to somewhere else.
Krabi, pronounced "gah-bee" (1 night): a town on a river. It's supposed to have a lot of good beaches nearby, but It's rainy season, so it needed to have more than that. I was originally going to spend a couple of days here, but saw a poster for Phang Nga, and instead of doing a daytrip from Krabi or Phuket, with the consequent hours of unnecessary travel, I decided instead to go there the next day.
The town of Phang Nga is quite a distance from the sea - the land its on is flattish, but its surrounding limestone hills and outcroppings rise near-vertically - so it feels very much like a valley.
Tapan (Heaven and Hell) Cave: Imagine Hieronymous Bosch was commissioned to decorate Disneyland... Before the cave there's a series of statues of black-skinned demons/natives performing gruesome mutilations, eviscerations, and other tortures on white-skinned victims. It's unpleasant, but... silly (the faces of the figures are rather cartoonish). At the back of the cave is a Buddha statue - to get there you follow river-side paths and cross three rusting iron bridges. Above the heaven (cave) and hell bit, there's a huge concrete green dragon - undecorated but traversable inside. At ground level (the "hell" part is in a hollow) there's lots of statues of (Gautama) Buddha, as well as Hindu gods including Ganesh (again, the faces are cartoonish). The place appears much less than it's meant to be - its redeeming feature is its small cliffside temple - a steep climb up concrete steps - with a good view of part of the valley.
Phung Chang (Elephant Belly) Cave: Legend has it that an elephant killed by a spear wound became a mountain here; its tusks (on either side of its "head") being two outcroppings perhaps a hundred metres tall, and its wound becoming the cave. It was a fun though shortish trip - the cave's an underground river channel, and you take a rubber dinghy up the first part, a bamboo raft up the second, wade the final distance to where a natural formation resembles an elephant complete with "eye", and then return down the river. On the journey, my guide Thon pointed out many other simulacra, a number of which were also elephantine.
Phang Nga Bay Cruise: Along with Maria and Terena, two UK backpackers, I went on a cruise around Phang Nga Bay. The cruise followed a wide channel through mangrove forests (minor channels were blocked off with a few wooden stakes - it felt not entirely dissimilar to the level design of many First Person Shooters ;-), passed through one sea cave twice, and then through another. The mangroves stopped, and we were on the sea, with an overlap of islands masking the horizon. We passed an island where we later had brunch - a Muslim fishing village, with a gold-domed mosque that came into view from behind the island's peak. From the boat, we also saw cave paintings in an underhang that were reportedly 3000 years old - their figures were distinct and they were in remarkably good condition for being in such proximity to the water.
"How do you like my island, Mr Bond?": The focus of the cruise was Ko Khao Phing Kan (Leaning Mountain Island) and Ko Khao Tapu (Nail Mountain Island). This pair is called "James Bond Island" by everyone, as it featured in the movie of "The Man With The Golden Gun". "Leaning Mountain" refers to a flat inclined rockface that forms one wall of a chimney. Standing before it on the small main beach, you feel all off-balance. There's also a bat infested cave entrance (depth unknown) on the facing wall of the chimney but there was only limited time on the island. The beach is crowded with stalls selling junk. If they had any business sense at all, they'd sell Martinis, Sean Connery* and Christopher Lee t-shirts, and replica Berettas (you can get them in Hat Yai) or hire out costumes for photos.
[* I know that Roger Moore was in TMWTGG but, honestly, how many would wear Roger Moore?]
