Lot’s of hellos… Too many goodbyes… Time to plan the next trip!

1. Battery life – To ensure battery life, under no circumstances engage your headlights when travelling after dark. It only gives the smaller road/pavement users an unfair advantage. Do however test your lights when approaching large intersections. Rapid flashing reduces the chance of having to wear out your brakes, thus saving you money.
2. Indicator use – Only use your indicators when travelling in a straight line. They are not required when performing turns and lane changes. As heat & humidity give mind reading abilities to all, pedestrians will know what you are intending anyway. This has the added benefit of saving your battery (see rule 1)
3. Horns – In order to be certain your horn is in full working order, please test it at least once a minute. More if you are in a bus.
4. Congestion reduction – Where ever possible, mopeds should have at least one family on at all times. Failing this, please ensure one large sheet of glass or 7 gallons of filtered water.
5. Road position – Drive on the right… Should this prove difficult to achieve due to other road users, please feel free to use the left, or the pavement. If pedestrians get in your way, remember they weren’t meant to be there in the first place. The pavement is a third road lane, or a place to leave stuff.
6. Traffic lights – Red lights are purely advisory. If you need to go through them, please do. Amber lights before a green are a signal to start testing your horm (see rule 3)
7. Priority – If anything smaller gets in the way, test your lights (see rule 1). If anything bigger gets in your way, adjust your road position (see rule 5)

* – These rules are subject to change without prior knowledge.

The plane was almost predictably delayed by a biblical downpour of rain. If I hadn’t experienced similar cloud-bursts virtually every day since Phuket, I wouldn’t have believed it possible for one place to be that damp. The flight arrived 90 minutes late in Jakarta, and after the easiest visa application ever, it was time to get to the town centre – 35 kilometres from the airport. After much bartering with a taxi driver I was quoted a price in the region of sensible and we were off, accompanied with personal in-taxi music. The driver’s one tape was a collection of 90′s house classics, remixed as happy-hardcore. Right… The traffic soon slowed, and then stopped. Apparently as it does every single day in the capital of Java. Which makes it strange that the driver tried to suggest the journey had been unpredictably long and therefore he deserved a tip. I left.

The following day was a whirlwind trip into the old town, where I experienced the most chaotic traffic I have ever seen. The use of indicators is apparently outlawed, whereas the use of a horn at all times is practically obligatory. First major spin out of the day, and I’m thinking Jakarta isn’t for me. Coupled with bedbug bites, and I’m not loving Java on first inspection. Bangkok – which I love – is interest wrapped up in chaos. Jakarta was just hassle drenched in pollution. Definitely time to move on, and the choice was Pangandaran on the south coast. Nothing like beach to clear the mind of THAT.

Following extensive and world class research into travel options, the train plan was discarded. Apparently the connection from Banjar is always a pain – overcrowded, smoky and generally scary. I therefore went for a direct coach from Rambutan station. The following morning, I awoke early in order to make the 9am bus, or at the latest the 10am one. The guest house staff pointed me in the direction of the bus that would arrive at Rambutan, and I was off. After a couple of false starts with the Jakarta bus and 4 interchanges in the city – 9 o’clock having come and gone – I was shown to the Pangandaran coach. The ticket man confirmed the coach was direct and would leave at 10am. This left me with 90 minutes to associate myself with the local hawkers before the coach actually started moving at 11:30am. Not really a start associated with a trouble free journey.

The presence of people selling assorted crap on public transport in south east Asia is a way of life. This journey was no exception. Made available at one time or another were doughnuts, water, cigarettes, lighters, magazines, more doughnuts (which seemed make up half of all the items on offer), fried stuff, squeaky toys, back scratchers (???) and scissors (clearly a useful item on a 7 hour bus trip). The magazine sellers plan was to drop his wares on top of each and every person on the bus and walk away, in some hope that the potential customer would be suddenly interested. He also broke out his vast collection of 4 English phrases – in fairness more than my Indonesian – every time he approached the only foreigner on the bus, namely me. “I don’t know where you’re from”, “Get off the bus”, “No smoking”, “One hundred”. Delivered without pause for breath between sentences. I didn’t buy much.

As the coach made it’s way out of the station entrance all of the staff – excepting the driver – departed through the front door and promptly started cajoling people onto the now snail like vehicle. A further half an hour later and we gained speed onto the interstate road and the journey really got going. For some 6 hours, including a prayer and food break, the journey passed without incident…

With the light fading, we pulled up to the side of the road, and the driver, his cohorts, and various passengers disembarked. I took the opportunity to stretch my legs and stood around watching the staff mess around at the back of the coach. Not an uncommon sight in this part of the world. When the driver appeared from the back of the bus carrying a rather large and oily part of the engine, my hope of reaching the beach that day took a little nose dive… One of the passengers, noting my ashen like face, looked up and stated matter of factly “Not good”. I agreed. He then suggested we would arrive at our destination at either 3, 9 or 6 o’clock. Without specifying a day, he seemed to be hedging his bets somewhat. However, 20 minutes later we were beckoned back onto the coach, which they actually jump started.

Off again and presently we arrived in Banjar. Where the coach terminated. The term “direct” has never meant so little to so many. My friend from the break down stop wandered up quietly and revised his estimated arrival times to 11, 8 or 2 o’clock, which now covered most of the next 7 hours. It was now completely dark and my one option was the local bus, which I thought I had masterfully avoided. It turned up, I was rushed on and we sped off into the night. I had no idea if my bag had been loaded on the bus or stolen and the ticket man’s assurance that it was in the boot were not too calming. The overcrowded, smoky and generally scary journey took about 45 minutes, dropping me somewhere. One helpful moto driver told me it was 20km to the town, and would take a while to get there. This was a blatant lie because 10 minutes, one more mini “toys out of pram” incident and one full guest house later, I had arrived, 13 hours after I started. Good times at last.

You would have thought I would have learnt by now.

Aside from the splendid old town, Melaka was just a lovely destination to visit in Malaysia. I met some amazing people, and had the piss taken out of me most of the time I was there, which made me feel quite at home. I had the best Curry, Sate & Laksa I have ever eaten. All ridiculously cheaply too. My budget did go slightly awry during one night of Vodka & Redbull, but that is another story. As a world heritage site, I believe it puts Luang Prabang in the shade.

Simply put, I loved Melaka, and was very sorry to leave. If you happen across it, head to Discovery Guest House. Mr Teng is a most gracious and generous host. Say Ed sent you…

Here ends the shameless plug for Melaka & Discovery.

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Not a bad way to spend a Saturday night if I’m honest. I’m not planning on becoming religious though.

On getting into Eugene’s car, with approximately 3 inches of leg room, he suggested we “buckle up” because there was going to be some speeding… We arrived, after a couple of stops and without any speeding, at a flower farm and were shown to a small village in the valley below. We wandered into a room adorned with a several pictures of the pope and a small table at one end… The room was populated with several of the local migrant workers who worked on the farm and close to a thousand flies. Eugene started getting dressed in full religious garb, and it became clear there had been a tiny break down in communication. Apparently we were slap bang in the middle of a Malay/Indonesian Roman Catholic Mass…

Not being religious, and not being able to speak any of the 5 languages used in the service I was a little lost. However, throughout the ceremony the assembled congregation regularly broke into polyphony a cappella, each of which was beautifully performed and very moving.

After the service, as an added bonus, we were all taken to dinner. And we weren’t allowed to pay either.

A chronological listing of the multiple modes of transport employed by yours truly in an attempt to leave Thailand for the most recent time.

1. “Taxi” truck. Disturbing my latest bout of relaxing on Chalok Ban Kao beach, Koh Tao
2. Ferry to Chumphon. Chumphon isn’t on the coast, so we didn’t actually catch the ferry there. I did however feel slightly better than I did on my previous boat trip, so that’s alright then.
3. Coach to Chumphon itself. Nothing much to report there really. It was a coach. Although the driver did – at the very first t-junction – go the wrong way…
4. Sawng Taew transfer to Chumphon train station. Too many people, not enough room…
5. Night train to Butterworth. After arriving at the train station and attempting to buy a ticket, the very helpful ticket girl informs me, “We have no tickets to Butterworth!”. “Nothing at all?”. “No, but here’s what you’ll have to do… Buy a ticket to Hat Yai [which is still in Thailand]. Then, get off the train and run [she mimed running to me in case I wasn't familiar with the action, which in all honesty I'm not] to the ticket office to get your onward ticket.”. “Errr, OK!”
6. Actual train to Butterworth – The dash to the ticket office was a pain free experience, as it turns out… The next train – which happened to be the same one I was on in the first place – arrived at Padang Besar for border control. One pain free border crossing and an hour of sitting around on the train and we’re off again…
7. Ferry to George Town – The seventh and final leg of the 25 hour epic passed by without anything funny happening. So there.

Later, on the evening of the party we set off for Haad Rin in a rather rickety taxi boat. Made of fibreglass, our beast of a boat looked like it had been through the wars a bit and had a nasty looking repair job that may only have been held together by prayers to Buddha. The weather had taken a change too, and the previously mill-pond like sea was rising and falling with some vigour. The trip itself was like a low budget fair-ground ride, with no safety equipment. Rounding the head-land to Haad Rin, we were treated to a view not dissimilar to a tropical version of Blackpool illuminations. Neon lights, fire shows & people along the length of the beach. The prayers to Buddha obviously worked and we were deposited on the beach in one piece.

All of the stories we had heard were by and large true. There was a constant stream of people trying to sell me one thing or another. The sound systems were so close together that you couldn’t hear one without another interfering. There was, at any one time, multiple people using the sea as a toilet. Broken glass, empty buckets and casualties decorated the sand. We spent some time wandering the beach enjoying the sights, including people trying – and failing – to play flaming jump rope. That never gets old…

I decided to avoid the scary prospect of a bucket hangover on my trip to Koh Tao the following day, so stuck to the natural safe choice, of Chang… The next few hours passed in somewhat of a blur – there was dancing and I became the proud owner of a hat – and the trip home was a little less memorable than the trip there.

I enjoyed every second!

We wait. I ask the nearest bungalow tout when the ferry leaves. “When it’s full” comes the reply. “When is it meant to leave? Isn’t it meant to be 8am?”. “Ah, Thai time…” laughs the tout, without once trying to sell me something. A nice bonus. The large number of passengers are from here ferried. Onto a collection of buses for stage 2 of the journey. An hour or so later and we arrive at a proper ferry terminal and are rushed on to leave at around 10:30.

I think maybe I could have got a full 2 (or 3) hours more sleep and had a shower. Which would have been nice on the 2 hour ferry journey around the Gulf of Thailand in 35 degree heat and an over-bearing sun. I nearly fell asleep and I sure as hell smelt not unlike some of the bins on the boat. It was actually totally uneventful as it goes, and I made it to the island in one piece.

Next step… Survive a full-moon party. My first!

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