After
two weeks we left Satun for Trang, 150 km to the north. Trang is a one size
bigger town and less connected to Malaysia. At first the tourists were a shock
for us. In 5 minutes we encountered more than in two weeks in Satun. But in the
end it turned out they all stayed within a 300 meter radius of the train
station.
We
were in Trang the two days prior to Chinese New Year, and that was a major event.
Every night roads were closed for stages and a market with food stalls - way
more upmarket than your average Thai night market. Clearly people went there
for a night out, to see and be seen, all dressed up. It was very busy but it
had a pleasant and calm atmosphere.
From
Trang we made a day trip to Kantang. Kantang is in the mouth of the river
Trang, some 30 km south. For centuries it has been a main port with a mixed
Malay, Chinese and Thai population. It used to be the second port after
Bangkok, and had a rail connection with Bangkok. The glory days were 100 years
ago when local entrepreneur and ruler Praya
Ratsadanu had good connections with hte royal family, had an eye for the
welfare of the people and had innovative ideas. he secretly imported and
planted the first rubber tree from Malaysia (after a Brit had illegally stolen
the seeds in Brazil). The impact of that is enormous and everywhere: the rubber
tree is the ruling crop in southern Thailand.
There
is one daily train from Bangkok to Kantang, via Trang, so we could board it.
The final half hour of a 17 hour ride. The train had already emptied and took
us through very rural land.
The
train station of Kantang is the original wooden building, well maintained, with
all the original details. One room now is a museum, a side building is a nice
coffee shop.
We
walked to Praya Ratsadanu's former residence. A
wooden villa of two floors, lots of verandas, spacious and airy layout, and
probably very luxurious for the time. It was poorly maintained but had old
furniture and old photographs that were rather interesting. Most striking was
the huge dining table on tte back veranda. It was surrounded by lush forests
with the deafening sound of crickets.
We
walked down to the river. The roads ware wide and way more traffic than we
expected. When we say the port we understood why: that was rather big and the
quay was stacked with dozens of containers in transit. Obviously this was still
the main Thai harbour on the west coast.
Krabi
After
three days we traveled another 150 km north, to Krabi. Wow, this was réally
touristy. Whole groups passed by. I
hadn't seen so many in years. Swedish, French and Russian families; bus loads
(literally) of backpackers; elder hippies on scooters; Dutch couples...
Apparently Krabi town was not just a hub for the islands in the Andaman Sea,
but also a destination in itself.
And
on top of that half of China and half of Malaysia seemed to be here. We had
underestimated the effect of Chinese New year and the subsequently long weekend, and the bad luck that our itinerary
took us to the most touristy spot in the most busy weekend. The consequence was
that we could not find a decent hotel the day we arrived, and that it took us
hours and hours of looking around and asking around to be able to move into a nice
place the next day. For top-season rates.
Despite all of that Krabi was a nice enough small Thai
town, beautifully located on the river with a promenade along the bank and a
mangrove forest across the water.
From Krabi we made a day trip to Railay. Railay is a
small pinunsular 15 km from Krabi. The land side is closed off by steep lime
rock formations. So it can only be reached by boat. The far end is another
steep rock, but inbetween the two rocks is a valley with beaches on both ends.
We took a long tail boat from Krabi promenade. The rocks rising out of the azul
sea in a vertical line were quite impressive. And wherever the rock wasn't
vertical, it was covered in green jungle.
The valley however was built up to the max with
restaurants, shops and resorts. Thousands of tourists crowded the one available
km. It was just too much, an artificial recreation park with nothing Thai about
it.
We had a coffee on the eastern bay, where we had landed.
This was the side with mangrove. the first time this trip we saw mangrove in
the water instead of on a mud plain. Tree tops in the sea. We walked to the
western bay, that was more beachy. I sat in the shade under a tree for a while,
while E. went swimming in the crystal clear sea. She said it was one of the
most beautiful spots she had ever swum. Meanwhile it got more and more busy
with people arriving by boat from Ao Nang, the next coastal strip, and because
the rising tide made the beach more and more narrow.
Ayutthaya
We
were running out of time. We were still 800 km from Bangkok. Hardly less than
the 900 km we had travelled since Kuala Lumpur. With just three days until our
Amsterdam flight would leave Bangkok, we had to fly the remaining stretch.
For
the third time I had not succeeded in travelling overland from Malaysia to
Bangkok. But there is no reason not to try a fourth time...
 |
| Coffee shop underneath fly-over opposite Don Muang |
We
took a domestic flight from Krabi to Bangkok's old and legendary Don Muang
Airport - now for low cost carriers.
From there it was an easy train ride to the old town of Ayutthaya, 60 km north
of Bangkok. There we spent a couple of days. The temperature
was rising to the mid-thirties, it was getting seriously hot. From
Ayutthaya it is also an easy transfer with public transport to Bangkok's new Suvarnabhumi airport. And then a long long flight to
Amsterdam...
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