Afraid of dark borders

“What time does the earliest bus leave to Sungai Kolok tomorrow?”, I asked the lady at the Krabi bus station, about 3 miles north of the center of town, where we were staying. To get to the station, Agnes and I had nearly walked the whole distance, setting out a few hours earlier thinking we’ll catch a ride on one of the many local minibusses or taxis driving around, ceaselessly honking and yelling (TAXI! TAXI?) for passengers. But alas!, we took a wrong turn, ended up in no-man’s-land, until finally a local on a scooter took pity on us and told us to hop on, taking us the final half mile to the station, with Agnes in the middle and me in the back, hoping the rear suspension holds.

“9 o’clock”, she answered.

“And how long is the ride?”, I asked.

“7 hour.”

We looked at each other and nodded. That would put us in Sungai Kolok, a town in Southern Thailand on the Malaysian border, at around 4 o’clock +/- (in all reality, only +) 1 hour, which was still a few hours before sunset, giving us enough time to catch a taxi or bus to Khota Bharu, our next stop on the Malaysian side of the border. The dark gives any locale, especially an unknown one, a mysterious and sometimes frightening air. Both of us were unwilling to cross a border, especially one requiring walking and a change of transportation, after dark.

We left the next day on time at 9 in the morning, heading south towards Malaysia. The hours ticked by, and when we arrived at Hat Yai, which I knew from studying a map to be around the half way point, at 3pm, I knew there was no way we were making the border at the time we thought we would.

Cats

Thus far, Thailand seems to be a haven for (sometimes not so) stray cats. There are cats everywhere, some of them very sickly and emaciated. Others, it seems, are 1/2 adopted, sporting colorful collars and having a dish of dry catfood to come "home" to in front of store fronts.

As we know, populations of species will naturally align themselves to the available energy of their environment. Barring any external influences, such as natural predators (or as we'll see, sterilization programs), if a species' numbers get too high, their population will collapse, only to grow again, and collapse again, ad infinitum.

(Incidentally, Honi Mundi once attended a NPS ranger talk about the subject in Rocky Mountain National Park, where the lack of natural predators forces the park to cull and sterilize the local caribou population)

Luckily, on Ko Phi Phi, the Lanta Animal Welfare organization periodically sets up shop to remove the uteri and testicles of unsuspecting cats.

Garbage Monkeys

Upon arriving  at the main pier at Ko Phi Phi, visitors are immediately herded through a impromptu toll booth where the government extracts 20 baht (~70 cents USD)  per person. The justification for this is to keep Ko Phi Phi clean. Having seen otherwise beautiful beaches and tropical paradises ruined by litter in other areas of the world, we were OK with paying this fee. Nonetheless, knowing how government bureaucracies work, we were a bit skeptical as we passed our crumpled and damp bills to the uniformed official.

The moment we needed to throw something out, we realized that our incredulity was not unfounded.

First few days on Ko Phi Phi Don

Getting to Ko Phi Phi, an archipelago just east of the resort town of Phuket (which Honi Mundi wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole) was quite a journey, consisting of a 12 hour overnight bus ride ...

... during which a tire blew ...

... followed by 3 hours in a Toyota Commuter van packed full with sweaty backpackers and their oversized backpacks ...

Will Smith likes it dirty

... like thousands of red hot ants crawling all over  ...
... like being immersed in a pool of vibrating ball bearings ...
... like an appendage waking up after having fallen asleep ...
... like a light electric current coursing through your body ...

2 Tourists, 1 Toyota Commuter

The Van

If you've ever been outside of the United States and Canada, you've seen one of these:

It's a Toyota Commuter Van. Like a Tijuanan hooker, while it serves a legitimate purpose, you don't want to spend too much time in one. Only tourists, masochists, and their friendly guides/drivers/dominators would ever submit themselves to spending an entire day bouncing around in  the back of one, knees by your ears, ass hurting, feet and forehead sweating, all the while cursing the operator who sold you the trip. How did we end up in one you ask? Well, we're tourists (maybe closet masochists?). Allow me to explain.

Russian, Wat?

After an over-stimulated first day in Bangkok that left us down and jaded, we woke up refreshed at 3AM after 9 solid hours of sleep on Monday morning with nowhere to go. We creatively killed some time, strapped on our sandals, and headed towards the river to start our day by catching a ride on the commuter ferry.