Travel Log—Traveling Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand: A mirrored reality

The land of smiles is something that I have always been looking forward to travel to, instead of spending days lazing and walking around the metropolitan Kuala Lumpur; MJ, my best friend, and I hopped on a train to the border and crossed over to the Southern Thailand.

Our first glimpse of foreign land was of Singapore, we were swamped with the contemporariness, efficiency and the overwhelming sense of being in another faraway place. The thing with Singapore is not only its clean and possibly too conventional structure, it was a place so different from where we were born, raised, and bred. For instance, the efficiency of the MRT wowed us albeit its expensiveness. This is something I would actually be happy to pay more if this thing existed in our island in the south, Mindanao.

Everything was organized and you always get what you pay for, albeit not really when we only paid half the price for our bus tickets to Malaysia. For SGD10, we got a comfortable double seats with separate charging ports, there was also a back massage feature! The bus travel to Malaysia was long and uneventful, on a highway similar to NLEX or SLEX. I was sleeping the whole time and woke up every hour to check if we’ve already arrived only to find out the same scenery of palm trees spread vastly, occasional gas stations, and subdivisions all over again within the seven hour trip.

We arrived famished but wide awake with curiosity and excitement as we found ourselves stepping off the bus in Berjaya Times Square. The modernity of the place isn’t far from what Manila looks like except that it had free WiFi everywhere and the bus stop is actually in front of a mall. That doesn’t happen in Manila or anywhere in the Philippines, what relief when we actually found out that we can go directly to KL Sentral from where we were actually standing.

This was the first time that we’re travelling by train. MJ and I were perfectly ready for the whole ride and imagining the scenery only to find out we’re going to miss out on this as we are travelling at night. The rest of the night was uneventful (thankfully); the train, as opposed to what everyone said in the travel forums, was clean, efficient, and safe. We haven’t booked our seats prior to our traveling dates, so we got the Gold ETS tickets and these were seats only and has 15 stops, priced at 76MYR.

As we got off at the last station at 4:50 in the morning, we met a Filipino couple who were also backpacking with their one year old daughter. They were on their way to Bangkok and missed out on cheap flights so they ended taking up 18 hours of train travel to the capital. We walked around the station while waiting for the border immigration gates to open up.

Both borders of the countries shared the same name, Padang Besar. Although on the Thai side, it was spelled with a Z as in Padang Bezar. Funny how we tweak things however small to justify uniqueness.

The morning hasn’t quite started yet when we crossed borders, the only sign of life and business as usual were the lights of the immigration offices of Malaysia and Thailand. Malaysia has the same time zone as the Philippines, while Thailand is one hour behind ours. This led to a funny discussion if which time do the southern Thai people, especially those living in Padang Besar, follow? Also, do we get a jetlag if we cross the border?

We left the already busy Malaysia with their early morning routines, people were already crossing borders on their way to work, some on foot others on vehicles. It was an unusual sight for us who came from an archipelagic land. What if we had neighbors too that would require us to travel every now and then to their country, losing every page of our passport to cross over?

Again wide-eyed and excitement filled us in the stillness of the small town called Padang Bezar, we lugged our backpacks and the couple with their trolley and daughter around town to find the bus terminal. We were swamped with touts even as we were walking between the no man’s land offering us songthaew’s (Thailand’s version of shared taxi) for 100THB each, when we can perfectly walk between borders without any hassle at all. So the scam repertoire, which Thailand is infamous for, has begun and welcomed us.

The orange hue filled the skies and the environs are wet with the dew probably from last night’s drizzle made Padang Bezar a little bit cold in the morning. We walked out of the immigration office and found a slightly multi-subtitled signage in Thai, Bahasa, and even Arabic and it all said: Welcome to Thailand.

The charming quaint town in the south didn’t differ much from any town in the provinces in the Philippines. This was the conclusion that MJ and I had as we sat in the minibus for six hours on our way to Surat Thani. The houses, streets, and even the government offices are very much alike in terms of façade and structure; the only difference was the Thai words emblazoned in their places.

I am quite interested in the structure of the houses; of how they leave their footwear in the doorsteps, some neatly arranged others in topsy-turvy heaps. How are they not afraid to lose their footwear and just leave them outside still baffles me. The cages hung outside of their homes, some of them have birds in it, and others don’t. How their rooves have a pointed structure but this is certainly most alike with the other Asian neighbors: Philippines has this among the Muslim community, the Chinese with their pagodas, and the list goes on. There’s also some sort of pagoda that you can find at most homes, always placed in the corner on their front yards (if they have one). Somehow, these observations brought me back to the thought that we are in a foreign land.

We arrived at 7am and with the time difference, it was 6am. The place looked like a ghost town, with small businesses: hotels (a bit run down), a deserted train station in the town center, food stalls abound the place but were still closed. Probably, I could write about that alley that we were about to take as suggested by the map on our smartphones, on our way to the bus terminal, only to meet about 5 to 8 fat and oozingly fat cats lazing at the doorstep of the owners house. MJ could not be torn away from them, I had to drag her away as if she was lured by the magic of these cats.

As we continued on our way, we met a throng of monks in their orange garbs silently walking barefoot in the quiet town. I immediately took out my phone to take a quick snap in the hopes that this isn’t a social faux pas. All of us took a frenzied photo op sessions on the passing of the monks, it’s as if they were some touristic attraction that everyone should not actually miss, especially if one is in Thailand.

A few steps later, we found the bus terminal with the lone bus that leaves the town daily to the big city, Hat Yai. To our surprise, the bus looked like a thousand years old and looks like it won’t make it to the next town. There was nobody inside except the driver and the only passenger. Both of them smiled and greeted us as we neared the bus, we asked them if they were leaving soon and both looked at us with puzzlement turns out they only understand minimal English. We spoke to them again in what seemed simplified English and pointed us to the other terminal for the minibus if were in a hurry. We left the terminal and walked towards the other.

It comes out as a surprise to me that the people in Padang Bezar know only minimal English, some of them don’t even speak the language at all. Coming from a country where almost all of the population understands and speaks English, I was bringing this given to an entirely different land and the privilege of understanding and speaking the most common language comes out as a less daunting task.

It was still early in the morning and there were only a handful of passengers waiting to be transported to Hat Yai, including us. Buying the ticket was quite an effort as the driver of the minibus don’t understand and speak English, the other locals too. We resorted to sign language, pointing to our wallets and the ticket stub and surprisingly the primitive way of communicating was effective, they gave it to us for 50THB.

The Thai countryside looked closely alike with ours, I said closely because most of the houses are situated near the boondocks or somewhere at the back of the main road. Though there are still houses in the main road. The roads and infrastructure are extremely alike in the poor provinces in the Philippines, they all need fast-tracking in terms of design and construction. There were potholes and most of the time our heads bump toward the ceiling of the minibus as we pass by potholes too big to avoid. The comparison doesn’t end, in a way they become constructive and tells more about the difference and similarities of living in an island in the south and the correlation of being budget-deprived by the government.

Arriving in Don Sak Pier en route to Koh Samui, MJ and I expected that the long lines to board the boats will take at least an hour as this was the case in the Philippines, much to our surprise it took us less than 20 minutes to board. There was no inspection of bags (security is in question, we’re Filipinos who are used to sticks poked into our bags in public places) and we that we only need to feed our boarding cards to the turnstile, how cool is that?

The boat wasn’t bad at all, it was the weather that bothered us so much with the heat reaching 40C, there was no question that we will sit inside the AC seating accommodation among the other partygoers err backpackers of our age. We seemed to be the only Filipinos on board, feeling our uniqueness we found that the Thais also love afternoon telenovela, only that their actors are as white as snow as if they come from China or anywhere else with ultra-white skin. Believe me, I thought it was a Chinese show at first.

The party island of Samui, and the other island called Phangan, are notoriously known for hedonistic partying during the Full Moon. Throngs of western backpackers and holidaymakers come to the islands to get wasted on scheduled Full Moon Parties. However, MJ and I were lucky not to come on this parties as they can be crowded, touristic, and prices tend to get expensive. We were lucky to reserve a bungalow in a resort that’s by the beach. However, we didn’t find the beach all that interesting, apparently I still think we have the best beaches still.

The songthaew’s hardly come by, or they’re all hiding from the heat. Arriving at the port, there was no other option for us but to rent a motorbike. Luckily, I learned to ride one when I was in Siquijor a year ago with a friend. This was my first time driving internationally and on the left lane at that. Lugging with us our backpacks, we slowly drove to our destination that was 16km from the port, so says our smartphone map.

Upon arriving safely at our accommodation, we were greeted by the owner and was kind enough to get us settled in our rooms first. The next agenda was Thai street food. MJ has to have the street food, prior the trip she was tagging me with several videos on Thai street food and of course, missing it is inexcusable.

As expected, there were the insects and they fried! MJ however did not eat one. I would not even dare eating one too, not even to save my life. What we loved the best was the milk tea, of how ubiquitous and cheap it is. I especially loved the green tea that we got from the sidewalk stall in Phangan.

Markets are the best way to know the innards of a place, I prefer to see the action in the early mornings and late at night when they’re about to close. This gives me the feeling that I had completely won its acquaintance in a way that everyone else never had.

The best market we went to was perhaps the Phantip Night Market in Phangan, it was filled with what we want to eat. Apparently, MJ and I are big foodies and Phantip did not disappoint. It was filled with interesting choices, from Greek to local Pad Thais with a twist. The thing is, the place was filled with tourists like us, forbidding us with a more authentic interaction with the locals. The second best night market was still in Phangan, it happened in their main street and most stuff sold were clothes and food. Here the choices abound and occasionally some handmade stuff are found, for instance there were handmade cards and accessories that were sold at tourist prices.

Phangan’s roads were like chicken gizzards, they are all over the place. Blind curves to totally steep roads, it all made me believe in the afterlife. Apparently, I claimed a souvenir from one of their blind curve by falling down on our bike. I was a bit “lucky” as the travel forum members said that most of the people who are involved in accidents in Phangan die from internal injuries. I’m a tough weed, apparently.

What to do in Samui and Phangan besides drinking and possibly dying from motorbike accidents, you might ask. There are tons of temples and waterfalls to check out. Some of them are located in steep areas but all the same worth the look. The adventure lies in these areas and not in the bar of your hotel.

Returning back to Malaysia proved to be a herculean task, with injuries to boot and some miscalculation on our part, we should have booked in advance the train back to Kuala Lumpur. Good thing there was still a train that went as far as Butterworth and from there rode a bus to Kuala Lumpur. #