Bye Bye Malaysia - Hello Thailand

Another day, another adventure could be an alternative title to this one.

After 2 nights in Langkawi, I had made my choice to leave Malaysia and head to Thailand. It was a hard decision as the place is a little paradise with plenty of entertainment around and a very laid back feel in general. This is an island after all. I should be back here, maybe... I will be in Malaysia again in February anyway, on my way back to Europe. Future will tell. For now I was set for another long journey towards Krabi.

Bye Langkawi.

A taxi picked me up at 7:20am at the hotel. One last stop en route to the ferry terminal as we were picking up another person. And I would be travelling all day with Lee. He is travelling solo just as I am and heading to Phuket (that would add at least 3 hours compare to my already long journey... can't even imagine how happy he was to finally get there).

Anyway, we got to the ferry terminal by 8am, had a coffee, waited a little at Malaysian immigration, embarked at 8:45, left at 9, arrived in Tammalang at 10:30, passed through Thai immigration, took a songthaew to the local bus station, arrived right on time for our bus at 11am and left...

Because we would travel during the day and it was hot and sunny outside we did not suffer so much from extreme cold that is usually ruling Thai buses... The drivers in South East Asia are hardcore fan of air conditioning, and it is common to have polar temperature in these rolling things.

I arrived in Krabi bus station in the middle of the afternoon and said goodbye to Lee - one advise he gave me could impact tremendously my travels in the next weeks... more on this soon :) - Where was I exactly, I had no clue. Where would I spend the night, I had no clue. One sure thing, we were NOT in Krabi town... I went for the easy was and took a taxi to the center where I would have much more chance to find an accommodation for the night. Finding a place took me very little time... After 15 minutes walking around, I had a winner. The place looked clean, very close to the markets - the fresh food market and the night market - and cheap.

Perfect combination.

I was finally ready for what I had patiently waited since February: a Pad Thai in Thailand!

And the best place to find one was at the night market.

Going through the shacks on my quest, something I did not expect at all happened at 6pm sharp. A loud Thai music was blasting in every direction and EVERYBODY stopped whatever activity they where doing. At first I wanted to laugh out loud then I realised it was probably the national anthem and stayed quiet. Google confirmed that it was indeed the national anthem and that it was played twice a day at 8am and 6pm. Not being aware of this at first, I thought a second I was taking part in the world largest Mannequin Challenge... It was that intense!

Night Market Krabi seconds before National anthem being played.

And around the corner it was... The Pad Thai Shack! A special one as the recipe was upgraded to a egg wrapped pad thai. It was absolutely delicious.

This is how it's done. That simple.

As I like to say in Thailand: one pad thai a day keeps the grumpy face away. 

Pad Thai egg wrapped.