 |
| In an Art Gallery - Old Phuket |
Crossing borders - from one world to another
Leaving Penang, an avoided catastrophe
We had our first adrenalin kick in Penang. We booked the cheapest and fastest bus to the border... but it was at 5am from Butterworth, which
was much further away from our place than expected. We planned to
take an Uber, but we realized just before leaving that it was
impossible in this area! So Charles became our hero: he took us very
quickly to a taxi in the middle of the night and when we found it
(after quite a long time), we drove really really fast to the bus
terminal.
“Rushing rushing?” - “Yes, rushing, rushing!”
At
some point, we sincerely thought that we will miss our bus specially
because the taxi driver couldn't find the entrance of the bus
stand... but we reached on time! Our good Karma is apparently still
efficient.
New decoration in our passports!
After a night in
the bus we arrived at the last stop before Thailand. Everything
happened so fast: we took a taxi, we crossed the Malaysian border
without any problem, we just waited 15 minutes in the queue to
receive a stamp in our passport (both of us didn't need a visa for
Thailand) and … that's it! It looked like a very common procedure
but we were personally very happy (and very proud!) to cross our
first border together by foot and to have our first stamp in our
papers.
 |
| At the border |
First impressions of Thailand
We arrived earny in the moning, we didn't sleep so much in the bus, the weather was beautiful, the streets were incredibly alive... we were all the more amazed by everything!First
of all the most surprising for us was the difference between the two
sides of the borders. We spent our last minutes in Malaysia on a
long, straight and very quiet road in the middle of the countryside.
As soon as we entered Thailand, the atmosphere was the diametrical
opposite. We had the impression to come from a non man's land to a
little city (with a lot of trucks). On this side no English was
spoken but we saw amazing smiles on every single face!
 |
| Thai side of the border |
We had
breakfast (with a lot of difficulty to ask “without meat”) and
the ladies of the food stall were very friendly with us, laughing all
the time and trying to wish us all the best for our time in Thailand.
Therefore our first steps in Thailand were very positive.
 |
| Our first noodles soup! |
Discovery of Phuket
The (very) long way to Phuket
After the border we were looking for a
bus and we finally found a mini-bus. We were expecting a trip of
around six hours but… it was way longer. We left at 11am – and
many hours and a bunch of kilometers lafer, we reached Phuket! Around
9pm, our new and awesome couchsurfer, Qindeel, from Pakistan, came to
pick us up at the bus station: we were so happy to be outside of the
mini-van after so many hours of traveling! Nevertheless, it was
really nice to have a big and linear overview of the (green!) area
around us – it is impressive how much the landscape is gradually
changing.
 |
| From Qindeel's appartment |
An overview of the place
We spent the first day (Sunday)with
our host: he mad us a tour of Phuket. It was very practical to have a
car to move around: indeed Phuket is not only the city, but also all
the area around (forests, hills, beaches…). We saw the Big Buddha,
the most famous beaches and temples of the area and we stopped at
some very nice viewing points of Phuket to admire the beautiful
landscapes.
“It is how we imagine the paradise in Europe”
Moreover, we were lucky regarding the weather: most
of the time, it was sunny but not too hot and once we got a proper
monsoon rain which lasted only fifteen minutes! Therefore we could go
swimming in the ocean and we were very happy about that!
 |
| The Big Buddha |
 |
| Hannah and Julie... very happy! |
 |
| One of the beaches of Phuket |
 |
| Small statue of an elephant |
 |
| Viewing point - an idea of paradise? |
 |
| Before the rain... |
During the
night Qindeel showed us an animated street with a lot of bars, a lot
of people and a lot of music in Patong beach. The atmosphere was
insane and kind of unreal – but we were quite shoked by the image
of the women there. We finished this beautiful day with… an Indian
dinner! After few days of noodles soup and fried rice, we were
indescribably happy: we had proper and amazing nice vegetarian and
vegan food with Qindeel, we ate without spoon, like a month ago, and
we could watch the finals of cricket… Pakistan vs India!
 |
| Sunset from the car |
--
--
--
 |
| Partry-party! |
Walking in the old town
 |
| Visit of the Old Phuket |
On Monday, while
Qindeel was working, we spent time in the old center of Phuket which
is not so big – therefore we could easily roamed around so as to
see the interesting places. We found again some street arts, we
understood what is the “sino-colonial architecture” all the
guides where talking about, and we visited (again and again) Buddhist
temples.
 |
| Hannah looking for the way |
 |
| Street art |
 |
| Annd even the tiffin box, like in India! |
We are up to become experts of temples… or bored
because of the amount we can see everywhere? Anyway, we have to
insist on their charm: gold and colorful, they mark the atmosphere of
each city and their traditional shape (completely different from all
what we could see in India with the Hindu temples) structures the
streets with a lot of peace and harmony.
 |
| Golden gate of a temple |
 |
| Offering commonly found in the streets |
 |
| Temple of Old Phuket |
In the middle of the
afternoon, we came back trippling with a motorbike taxi driver (who
overtaxed us, of course) so as to have time to prepare our papers for
the Chinese visa, to plan our couchsurfings and to pack our
backpacks. We even found 5 minutes to enjoy the swimming pool of
Qindeel's place before leaving for the bus station!
 |
| Graouh |
Bangkok-Express
An early morning in the capital
Around 7am, we
reached Bangkok with a very fancy bus (A/C, food, water and blanket
provided – almost like a plane!) to visit for a day. We chose
not to stay longer due to the timing of the buses, our
worries about the Chinese visa and we didn't have a
“big-city mood”. However, we really enjoyed the couple of hours
we had there, even if we had to carry our bags (we are traveling
light, therefore it was not such a big deal). Before exploring the
capital, we found wifi for administrative organization, which is for
now not so bad, in a coffee shop. We got ready and looked for the
metro. Let's go to the cultural center!
 |
| In the bus of Bangkok |
A cultural and golden walk
Such a touristic day!
The
unavoidable Grand Royal Palace amazed us a lot: even if it was
insanely crowded, the place was huge and very impressive. We wandered
around during quite a long time, exploring all the gold buildings of
the Palace.
 |
| Grand Royal Palace from outside |
 |
| And inside ! |
 |
| Golden statue inside the Grand Royal Palace |
 |
| Flowers used for blessing |
We took also the time to visit Wat Pho, a temple (Wat
means “temple”)… by
accident without
paying! Indeed we just took an other way to have a different point of view of the main building, after ten minutes we started realizing
that we were inside the complex! We
spent quite a lot of time there because of the extension, the beauty
and the harmony of the buildings… and also because we were waiting
for each other at different exit during more than half an hour…! Anyway, we
were very blessed to enjoy the paintings, the architecture, the
uncountable golden statues of Buddha of
this peaceful place.
 |
| Inside ... |
 |
| ... Wat Pho |
-
 |
| Golden Buddhas inside the building |
Lunch & stickers!
As you can see, food is
for us an important topic and a nice preoccupation. In Thailand, we
were used to soups, rice and fried vegetables (and we like to add a
lot of chilly!). We know that the specialties of the country are
based on meat (chicken, pork, beef and fish), but we try as much as
possible to keep our veg diet, especially when it is just the two of us.
 |
| Noodles soup! |
In
Bangkok, we really wanted to find the mango sticky rice we saw in
Phuket, but we unfortunately couldn't. However we had a nice lunch
close to the river… and there, we chose to stick the first of our
friend's creations! Fernanda, the lady of the food stall where we ate
was very proud to have your sailor on her board! Thank you!
 |
| Fernanda's sticker |
 |
| The woman of the food stall |
Going around before leaving
Bangkok for us was also walking
in the streets, chilling in a park while watching 20 students
training for a kind of surprising dance, writing some postcards to
our friends, drinking cold coffee during an unexpected rain, taking a tuktuk after bargaining with as much aplomb as possible, enjoying
the smell of street food, seeing the sunset drying the wet
streets of the capital… Yes, it is true that we didn't see a lot of
Bangkok. Nevertheless the overview we had was much more than satisfying.
 |
| Saranrom Park |
 |
| One more temple from outside before leaving |
 |
| Huge sculpture in the middle of a street |
Reaching late the HUGE bus terminal.
Finding
the right office to pick up our tickets.
Getting
confused by a change of bus.
Trying
to communicate with people.
Buying
some snacks for the journey.
Being
tired and happy.
Leaving
Bangkok by night.
North,
always to the North.
 |
| The sunset drying the streets of Bangkok after the rain |
