Bussing between Borders

OK!

So on with the story, After the shower, we boarded the bus to Hatyai. For anyone looking to bus between Thailand and Malaysia, you must stop here. This is the final city before the border and all buses come to an end here. You can book a bus from Phuket to Penang, but you will still stop here to change buses. You will catch a 6am bus that will then cart you off across the border and to Penang. I think our entire trip was about 1000Bhat (for like 17 total hours of transporting between the two cities)
A bit about the buses. The first bus we took left at the latest time possible...somewhere around 9:30. We had already researched this option well in advance and since it was cheaper than a plane and planes to Penang just weren't in plenty, we would actually save time if we took the bus for that crazy amount of time. Our bus was a two story affair. We were on the top story. Immediately, before the bus even pulled out, they started playing a comedy show on a large 30 something inch television mounted at the front of the bus at the highest possible volume to best entertain the transporting visitors. What they were thinking? I haven't a clue. If you are going to take a bus for 6 hours in the dead of night you should be prepared to sleep on the bus...Not be bombarded with flashing colorful lights and obnoxious raucous laughing through out the entirety of the trip. Now someone just needs to tell this to the Thailand bus systems. I managed to get some sleep. Though whether it was from the state of the shower or the fact that I went to sleep with my hair wet, I became disastrously ill and in addition accumulated an ear infection.

We arrived in the wee hours at Hatyai and waited for our transport company for our trip across the border to open ( about 6am) wherein we went and slept on their benches inside. We got on out bus more or less around 9am.
This bus is more like a van. Extremely similar to the vans you might take on a tour booked in Thailand to see their sites, like Tiger Temple and the floating market. It had three rows of seats plus the captains chairs and it was nice and cramped.

At the border, you have to exit the bus and officially check out of Thailand. Get your passport stamped have the van checked, you know the whole nine. You rejoin the bus on the other side of the Thailand border. And then you cross about a mile or so of land and then check into the Malaysian side. It is a slight bit more difficult affair on this end, where they have you remove your bags from the van in order to scan your belonging for threats and then they proceed to stamp you and send you on your merry way. Once reunited with the van there was one final check where a military guard approached every vehicle and inspected their occupants one last time.
I want to say that around 2pm we arrived in Penang.

A personal guide to taking a shower in Thailand

Here is a more interesting story.

My partner and I were going to set off on the night bus to go to Malaysia the following day. Now The border is not open at night so we took the night bus to the nearest city to the border that we could get to and arranged for more transportation the following day. This sounds all well and good but there is something I have no quite mentioned. We check out of our hostel early in the morning and we spend the day at the beach and in the water and exploring the beautiful hot wonder that is Thailand, without another shower.
Smelling freshly of sea water with an overnight bus all booked and not arriving at another place to sleep and shower for some 40 hours, we set out in search of a shower. We inquired if our hostel would let us take one, but no sadly the rooms had already been attended to and unless we pay the full price for another nights stay, even if it is for only an hour to take a shower, then showering was just out of the question. We inquire around a bit and then get to the bus terminal and inquire there as well. And discover that yes! they do have a shower! Lucky me!!
So they point us in many directions and we wandered and just couldn't find what we were in search of. So we had someone take us there. It turns out they take us to a food stall outside of someones house. We look at this forlorn and empty stall devoid of all nourishment that was perhaps available earlier in the day and stare dubiously. So we did the next logical thing. Inquire the people in the house seemingly associated with the stall. It was very interesting seeing as their house seemed to be half patio that was surrounded by other food stalls. But once inside the food stall sancutary, you could see that a good amount of the living, or perhaps more for entertaining, quarters were open air. Which may actually make sense in the Thailand heat, while trying to save on air conditioning. At first they stare at us being the silly gaijins we are. We spoke to someone who spoke exactly no common language with us and she turned us away. Though upon leaving a man approaches us and asks as to what we are asking after and then said Oh yes, you can in fact take a shower here! Delight!
So it was perhaps 20 or 50Bhat and we are lead to the shower. For whatever reason I was thinking something like a Japanese bath house. A big-ish room for showering that could accompany multiple people. You know big spaces, multiple people, profitable. But we are lead to a closet like bathroom under the stair well that accompanied only one person.
In addition to that there was no shower head. You would simply fill up a bucket and dump it over you head and body. Inside the room, you were  accompanied by a toilet without a seat cover and two huge American-sized garbage can basins full of stagnant water for a purpose that I could not fully divine. So one by one we took our showers in this persons home who may or may not sell their shower service to smelly night riders, but did so for us. A great way to make a quick Bhat I suppose.
Nevertheless, we were clean and ready for Malaysia in no time with an additional story under our belt.

So that you can get a visual of what I am trying to describe to you, the place looked a little like this, minus the toilet seat and functioning shower head. It had a lower room and the place wasn't so clean. The building that we were in was a good 20 years old or so, making the grout condition terminal and the tiles yellowed with age. But with that said, it was not really unclean in comparison with many of the other places that I have had the chance to venture.

Speeding along the Phi Phi islands

One of the best things you can do if you ever find yourself in the Phuket or Krabi area is to take a detour along towards the Phi Phi islands.

The island itself (the main one where you are bound to stay) is nothing short of a complete gaijin haven. Literally, you will not find this many foreigners in one place that clearly out number the natives in just about any other place in Thailand. So the down side of that is tough luck on the cultural aspect of the area. There is pretty much no culture or traditions left for the island.
However, what it is really known for is their preservation of everything surrounding it. Next to Phi Phi island, you will find Phi Phi Lei which is another island that is uninhabited for the most part and well preserved. Additionally you will find a series of islands, beaches, and caves that are magnificently preserved and available for touring. This is one of the things I highly recommend about going to the Phi Phi islands. Book a tour. Don't do this online, since you can actually get a lower price by bargaining on location. I think I paid 250Bhat (like 7-8usd) for a half day trip through a bunch of islands, caves, and swimming/snorkeling adventures.
My trips details went as such:
We left at 2:30 on a long tail boat stopping to see and feed monkeys just at the tip of Phi Phi island. And then we toured past Viking cave, where a number of local inhabitant reside without electricity, running water, plumbing, or really any privacy. We then proceeded into a cove for swimming times. The water was crystal clear and perhaps 4-5 meters deep. I could not reach the bottom on a dive when trying. A good number of boats were there with all the occupants swimming. The men and all their manliness decided that jumping, diving, and propelling themselves off the boat bow in twisting interesting positions was a good use of time, always trying to out do one another.We spent perhaps an hour in this pool before moving to the next. The next area was another alcove nearly encircled by small direct upshooting islands but in a much larger scenario. Here we spent an hour or perhaps longer snorkeling. The gear was provided for us and away we went. The water was again extraordinarily clear and there were man fish to be seen. There were giant clam-like things bigger than my head, spots of coral and colorful fish. Out of the few places I have been snorkeling ( Key West, Langkawi, Hawaii...) I think only Hawaii topped this experience in means of beauty. For the wind down, we headed over to Maya bay. A completely natural beautiful pristine beach that is secluded and romantic...now if only all of the other tourists weren't around...On the way back, the boat drivers provided us with pineapples and water and also with the opportunity to see the sunset of the island from an ocean point of view. They held the boat in water for us to admire its beauty.

An alternate breath taking sunset can be seen from one of the view points from the top of the Phi Phi islands. A special tip on getting there: if you follow the signs you are taking the long way. And it will take you way too long to get there. Through mud and mosquitoes and too many kilometers to successfully hike in flip flops. A word to the wise though, there are stairs to the view point. They are located near the end of all the hubbub and hostels. You actually climb right past a bungalow styled hostel and right to the top, where there is a convenience store type of thing.

Appropriate attire

One of the things that I found incredibly annoying but was helpless against, was the dress code.

You may think Thailand has no dress code, and for the most part, you are correct. Among the absurdly busy streets you will see people dressed in all variety of manner, but one factor seems to remain constant, that there is a sincere lack of clothing. Especially in comparison to Japan! Women wear skimpy or sheer outfits and men will walk around without shirts. The heat is an unforgivable force that unclothes many a people.

Regardless of the great heat monster, whenever you enter a place of sanctuary or of great religious value, you must cloth yourself.

I went to the kings palace and adjoining temple in a shawl and knee length sundress. Upon entering they pulled me aside and informed me I was not allowed to enter until I was properly clothed. I looked at them a bit puzzled and they directed me to a side building at the entrance upon where they will loan you appropriate attire for entrance. For me, it was a shirt. They did not think that my shawl was adequate enough coverage for their temple.
I went inside and the man behind the counter informed me I had to pay a 200Bhat deposit which would be returned to me upon the return of the shirt. Unfortunately they do not break money, so when I said all I have was 1000Bhat they greedily took that from me. The shirt they gave me reminded me of a janitors garb it was a very starched rigid looking fading yellow thing. It buttoned up and was probably 4 sizes too big. I swallowed my pride and any good looks I had going for me that day and exited. My partner upon seeing me went into fits. I am pretty sure there were tears. When we got along the side of the walkway to take a picture with the palace in the background the fits began to reoccur. Needless to say I could not swallow my pride for long enough. I marched back into the building removed and returned the shirt and demanded my money returned. It was no problem. Though I originally had my doubts.
Instead I was carrying about a light rain coat and garbed myself in that for the duration. (I did not do this at first because it was too hot to wear and my skin would stick to it with sweat).
Others who wore too short of skirts or shorts had to borrow traditional style Thai wrap skirts to cover their bare legs. I even saw men dressed as such, but I am pretty sure they were just in it for the kicks.

the grand palace and white jacket

This experience at the Grand Palace was overall an interesting and enlightening experience. However I can point out one other where it was not exactly of the same nature.

As always in Thailand you need to beware of being scammed. Many of the temples in Thailand are not so strict as this temple certainly I can say I entered many other temples without the jacket and not a word was spoken to me (though it may not have been the most respectful thing but man it was hot out). But one temple in particular grates.
Tiger Temple, which I mentioned earlier in the blog, you must travel many hours to get there (3-6 depending on how awesome your driver is), it is a long journey. And once you get there you expect to enter. As well you should! You just paid to get there after all and paid the entrance fee of 600Bhat. But no. Peddlers upon the entrance of the park block your way proclaiming tht this is a temple, a sacred place, and you must clothe yourself properly. Whether they work for the temple or not I have no clue. But they will try to bar your entrance unless you buy from them. Certainly they are within reason, but not so friendly as the clothes lending Grand Palace. They cannot exactly bar your entrance in all accordance with the Buddhist customs which are extremely peaceful, so I am under the impression that they are just trying to leech off unsuspecting tourists who would easily fall prey to them, but likely with the blessing of the temple itself. Which might I point out, there is no real temple there. There is no Buddha you can pray to and leave offerings at. There is no indoor building or physical temple. There aren't even that many monks there; the ones handling the tigers are all either volunteers or well tiger handlers. It is just an open air zoo with no barring of animals behind gates and fences.
And of course these t-shirts that these peddlers try to sell you are no just plain but have to say Tiger Temple all over them so that they can charge the extra dime for authentic location garb.
Personally I did not fall prey to this and read about it on another blog before hand and brought an extra shirt. Which of course they were displeased about and argued about the length of the sleeves saying that theirs were more respectable because the sleeves were longer. Needless to say, they were still trying to scam me; anything with sleeves is acceptable (mine was a normal womens t-shirt and they were selling mens which of course have longer sleeves).

you can see that I am wearing a shirt over a shirt

So beware and bring a spare t-shirt if you don't want to be scammed or unpleasant looking in photos!