Had Yai to Krabi, Low Season

Ao Nang Beach Peace

Hat Yai Central Hotel provided me with 2 nights of comfortable stay for 520 baht a night. The hotel is tired but functional providing me with a clean, firm bed, air conditioning, tv, refrigerator, ensuite bathroom, free wi-fi in the lobby area, no breakfast (noodle and rice food outlets abound in the immediate vicinity) for this price. 

A tuk tuk to the bus station is about 40 baht. Several tuk tuk's are forever hovering at the entrance the Hat Yai Central Hotel.

Arrival at the Hat Yai bus station by 9.20am gave me several options on a bus to Krabi. I opted for the 9.50am departure and paid 169 baht for what was forecast to be a 4-5 hour coach ride to Krabi. The coach was clean, air conditioned and adequately roomy for my large size. Comfortably roomy for the Thai size.

I asked the young ticket master on the coach to 'tell me when we were in Krabi and I should alight from the coach' which he appeared to understand.

It worked out ok... he summoned me pretty much when I was thinking I needed to get off (a little like I always awake to wait for the alarm clock to sound). What followed was one of those akward ten minutes when you look for a way forward and nothing immediately appears. You subject yourself to a mixture of do-gooders and opportunists plus a few village idiots who just openly gawk with an open mouth and rotten crooked teeth. The village idiots are the only ones you can easily identify.

After listening to some alarming facts about how far away and inconvenient a trip to Ao Nang from Krabi was going to be I decided to follow my nose. I'd seen a couple of buses head down a nearby side road and noticed a bus station sign pointing that way also.

My luck was in... less than ten minutes walking brought me to the Krabi bus station and a regular service large tuk tuk took 60 baht from me for the onward road trip to Ao Nang.

I became part of the daily transport process as the tuk tuk netted the patronage of 6 well behaved and smartly uniformed school kids from outside a Krabi town school and deposited them one by one at various points along the well tarmacked road to Ao Nang.

I had been to Ao Nang before and as we came along the main drag adjacent to the beach my memories returned. I was the only passenger remaining and I waved the driver on up the hill away from the Ao Nang beach toward the bungalows that I remember being nicely presented and positioned in a garden setting when I visited a few years back.

There it was! I recognised the frontage from the road. A tap on the tuk tuk cab glass produced a 'thank god' like smile from the captain.

Adam's Bungalows (25 Moo2 Ao Nang Beach, Krabi, Thailand. Tel: (+66) 0757 637 667, email: adambungalow@hotmail.com)  had rooms and offered me discount on their book price. I paid 400 baht a night for the bungalow with clean firm bed, fan, ensuite cold water bathroom. My veranda looked out across their garden and one of the tall rocks that make up the Ao Nang geography looked over me from the distance.

I could relax again :-)

Footnote: £1 = 50 baht.

New Hoover Loses Border Case

The New Hoover Coach Service runs from Jalan Yan Kalsem in Ipoh, Malaysia to Had Yai in Southern Thailand twice every 24 hours. My departure time: 1pm in the afternoon. The cost: RM40. The message: Be wary of transport staff who spit big twirling banana like gobs.

Let me tell you what inconsiderate unthinking traveller enemies some transport staff can be. 

Everything ran smoothly up until the Thai border. Here, of course, one has to alight the bus and, as I understand from previous journeys, walk your case or luggage with you through the immigration channel and be prepared for a Thai customs inspection, post immigration. Once past customs one finds and re-boards the coach in the car park.

On this occasion I alighted the bus, passport in hand, prepared to pick up my back pack from the hold of the bus and make the route described above. Not necessary our Chinese loud mouth co-ordinator (not) informed us. I have seen this guy before on this service. My previous estimation of his customer care skills set them at around minus thirty. Let's undertake to re-assess that a few paragraphs farther through this short tale.

Myself and a handful of other passengers made a variety of grateful aah's and oh's then skipped happily and lightly to the immigration booths. There were no queues and I didn't see anyone get any immigration hassle. There were no customs personnel at the inspection stations beyond the immigration booths. In our ones and twos we made our way into the car park where our red and black bus stood doors shut, waiting for staff and passengers before it embarked on it's onward journey.

As I approached the bus Clmc (not)'s Malay colleague was walking away from the bus and informed me that my backpack was at the other end of the complex and waved his hand in the direction of the place that the bus had set us down. 

I was confused but thought I had better check it out. At the point the bus had set us down my backpack lay in the road with a couple of other cases. I picked up my backpack, looked around to make sure I wasn't about to get sniper fire from a Thai customs officer, and then proceeded to walk toward the bus. It still wasn't open. Myself and a few other individuals stood around like lemons wondering what the delay was about. 

Then I spotted Clmc (not) chewing away on a bag of something as he swaggered toward the vehicle. He spat, voluminously, then opened the drivers door and deposited his bag into his compartment. Without a word to anyone he then opened the passenger door and climbed into the drivers seat, chewing and, I suspect, building up to another big twirling banana like gob.

People climbed into the bus oblivious to the potential bag/case issue. I hovered at the entrance and asked if he could open the hold so that I could re-insert my bag. With a 'what sort of fool are you?' bark in his terse response I was told to bring it on in.. 'there aren't that many people in the bus', you dork (he inferred).

I did and as I did I asked if he knew why it was left in the road at the point the bus set us down. The question was dismissed as idiotic and too lowly to be considered by Clmc (not) super intelligence. I took my seat. 

As the bus moved to depart the car park I said to the two ladies behind me.. 'Do you have hold luggage?' to which they nodded and I followed with.. 'Have you checked it's back in the hold?' to which they said they didn't need to remove it. I followed with ... 'I didn't remove mine but I found it on the road at the point the bus set us down for the immigration check' to which they showed some surprise but pooh poohed the need to react.

Had Yai was another hour away. A Thai monk  and a couple of other rice padi types were allowed to depart the bus at about half way. The light was beginning to fade. 

The first port of call in Had Yai was the bus station. The two ladies made their way out of the bus. The Clmc (not) was already running around getting his paper stamped and behaving ignorantly in the bus station. The ladies asked for the hold to be opened. It was empty. They were livid. I was right. The Clmc (not) should have been shot. There was a lot of shouting. The Clmc (not) that should have been shot climbed into the drivers seat, threw the door close switch and drove off leaving the ladies without their cases, without a plan, without help. You bastard, I thought.

Re-assessment of his customer care skills failed. None were found.

New Hoover, disgraceful.

If you are reading this because you are thinking of making the Had Yai - Ipoh or Ipoh - Had Yai trip by coach, I suggest you don't use New Hoover or if you do, watch out for this complete imbecile.

Footnote: I have seen one of the ladies at the shopping mall this morning. She was smiling and spoke to me. They called the police who drove them back to the border where the bags were retrieved from the roadside, undamaged. The police then drove them back to Had Yai.