After reading Wayne Kerrs epic travels in the Australian outback I knew I had to do something that would beat or equal that, yes I know they done 12,000kms, but it took them a bloody long time didn't it, anyway this is my journey from Penang to Pattaya and it took me no where near as long.
This journey will involve tales of drug users, monks, sexy girls, Thai toilets, rice fields, paddy fields, loads of bloody rice fields and loads of bloody paddy fields, poxy bloody rubber plantations after poxy bloody rubber plantations, but I perservered with my endurance test, yes travels on bike, tuk tuk, train, mini bus and car, oh, and a normal bus, you will get to see the views that I saw, see what I ate, see where I had a poo poo, sounds loads better than a drive in the outback already don't it
It weren't though, Planes are really good and generally cheaper than going by road or rail, still we all do dumb stuff at times.
First stop is get down to Chulia Street and get the 25 Ringgit minibus from Banana Guesthouse, this takes you across the border into Thailand and then onto Hat Yai, seats 9 of us in the back but you always live in hope that they are having a really bad tourist season and it will be half empty, it never is though so when you finally pick up the middle eastern and Burmese travellers that will be going with you that have brought everything they have ever owned onto the minibus it is crowded and poxy well cramped, little did you know that your Thai driver would find others somewhere in Malaysia to help fill up his minibus and make you more cramped than you could ever believe possible.
We set off on our epic journey across Asia with just 4 of us in the back, I was so happy, my legs are like pretty long so I do need a bit of leg room and my dream had finally come true, but, then we stopped at another guesthouse for another pick up, real cute Scottish girl who I wouldn't mind being crushed up against for a while, yep this travelling lark sounded pretty damn good to me at this time, but then things started to go down hill a bit yep, it was the time the driver was getting desperate, time for him to hit the main bus station in Penang, not the small one under the Komtar, but some big beasty one out by the bridge, he parks up outside and gets out, hmmmm, he then comes back and opens the passenger door to get his cigarettes and lighter, OK, we know we are in for a bit of a wait so we all get out to have a cigarette, quite a few cigarettes later he has a full minibus and is ready for driving off to Hat Yai.
And off we go, we got 4 normal size big westerners, 4 Burmese with everything they own in the world and a little 45 kilo Thai girl, the 45 kilo Thai girl decides she wants to recline her seat, now there really aint no room on these mini buses and sitting behind her with his knees jammed against her seat is one of the farangs, she is smashing the seat against his knees, he is smashing the seat, eventually he starts shouting at the dumb bitch in German, she then had the audacity to complain about him in Thai to the driver and about how nasty and selfish he was as she only wanted to recline the seat, I think both the driver and his helper had been through this before and the helper let her sit up front while he sat in her old seat keeping it in the position it is supposed to be kept in.