Water Lily (Eng.): Travelogue 2023/4 Satun (Thailand)

Satun

We stayed for two weeks in Satun, that small town in a remote corner of south Thailand. This time it started less quiet and dusty than we were used to. The 27th Master Athletics Games were being held here, with participants from 13 countries - mainly Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Iran. For that, a grand night market had been set up with countless food stalls - nice - and a stage with loud music that blared through the whole city until late at night - not so nice.

During the first week, we shared our resort with 22 civil servants who had come from Bangkok to issue passports. Our receptionist had only just managed to keep a cabin for us. It was a young group who chatted very quietly in the evening before going to bed early.

There were also more foreign tourists in Satun than in previous years. Up to 10 a day. Because the boat to Langkawi only went once a day now, people from eg Krabi had to spend the night here instead of being able to continue the same day.

It didn't matter to us, we had wonderful days, where our main concern was where to drink coffee and where to eat.

There was no sleeping in, from half past six there was a concert of birds trying to drown each other out. One with bright melodies, the other with screams.

We took morning walks through a spooky mangrove forest, where crabs and mudskippers moved through the mud of tidal streams when the tide went out. We walked through the countryside with plantations of rubber trees and oil palm trees. We passed karst rock formations where monkeys were swinging between the trees.

Other mornings we had a choice of several nice coffee shops. Only the opening times were quite irregular so more than once we stood in front of a closed door.

For lunch we usually went to one of the two vegan lunch restaurants: Chinese buffet with lots of tofu and seitan dishes.

Twice a local friend took us out for lunch. Then we were picked up by a car with a driver and came to restaurants where we would not have been able to order something vegetarian on our own. Really something different.

In the afternoon we sat on our porch or by the pool. No shortage of animals there either. In addition to the various house cats, there were squirrels, iguanas, birds of prey, lapwings, sparrows and butterflies. A little further on was a large bright blue bird, not a kingfisher, but what was it?

At half past six the sun set and from the distance came the sound of several mosques, just out of sync. It seemed as if they were singing a quadrophonic canon. Moments later, the sound of thousands of crickets and a few frogs with deep bass voices began.

We cooked dinner at home a few times, in the kitchen of our resort. But my favorite restaurant is a curry restaurant where the waitress recognized us after three years, and even knew what my favorite dish was.

That was typical of the many heartwarming friendly smiley Thai we met.

From Satun to KL

In the last 8 years we have crossed the Thai-Malaysian border 6 times. Each time in a different place or with a different mode of transport. A new border crossing could still be added to the list.

The first stage was a very short one (as we also started with short stages in Kerala) of 40 km to the Thale Ban National Park. There we stayed in a beautiful spot in the shadow of the huge wall of a karst mountain. A stream with some waterfalls ran through the garden. In the garden there were coffee plants that had grown into trees and then had been cut back. The flowers smelled wonderfully sweet.

The owner had arranged a car for the next day to take us across the border. The car had both Thai and Malaysian license plates; the driver spoke both Thai and Malay, and he knew just about every border official and police officer we met along the way (and there were quite a few, but they were all equally cheerful and friendly).

We crossed the border at Wang Prachan, and were dropped off 20km further at Padang Besar station. There we took a slow train south. The local trains also run quite fast here, up to 120 km/h. But after fifteen minutes we heard a few loud bangs and the lights and air conditioning went out for a while. After that we barely trudged through the beautiful landscape at a walking pace. We missed our transfer and ended up arriving in Taiping two hours late. There had just been a tropical downpour. All we could do was looking for our hotel (which we still knew from 8 years ago, and luckily they still had room) and getting a bite to eat.

The next day all trains to Kuala Lumpur were already fully booked, so we had to take the bus. Unlike the train stations, the bus stations are located way out of town, so we lost a lot of time with pre- and post-transport. The bus itself was spacious and comfortable and took a nice route through the mountains.

All in all, it had been a couple of long and tiring travel days. But luckily we still had four days in Kuala Lumpur to recover. The pleasant hotel room with a rooftop swimming pool did help. So we had plenty of opportunity to enjoy the excellent coffee and food, and to explore hidden backstreets in this mega-city.