Thai Chapter

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

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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

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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

Laos, we are coming!