I knew this was going to be a long day, so I set off before dawn. It was going to be a long day because I wanted to head straight through the deep south of Thailand as quickly as possible. Sure, the separatists don't target tourists as a rule, and sure, there haven't been any attacks for a while (I think), but a bomb is a bomb and I don't want to end up as the exception to anybody's rule. It doesn't make for a good epigraph.
I'd hoped to escape much of the traffic but it seems that much of Georgetown also gets up before dawn, so I had to contend with the dawn rush hour. On the plus side, the bridge from Georgetown to Butterworth looks lovely in the dawn light.
From there it was a good 100km up to the Thai border, which wasn't something I was looking forward to. However, I adopted my favourite look of helpless but benevolent incompetence, and a kindly customs officer shepherded me through with minimal fuss. Note to American readers: yes, kindly customs officers do exist, though not in JFK. In Singapore they even give you sweeties.
To tell the truth I wasn't looking forward to it because I knew I didn't have the right documents. One necessary document was the bike's registration card, to prove you own the vehicle you're temporarily importing. I don't have one. I have a letter from the Singapore Land Transit Authority telling me I had registered the bike and they'd forward the registration card soon soon, but the registration card never actually turned up, and I hadn't chased it up. A minor detail, but the sort of detail that tends to excite bureaucrats. I shouldn't have worried, as with the help of my kindly customs officer, things went smoothly. I could read the expressions on the customs clerk's face: a frown as she realised this wasn't the document she was looking for; a sideways glance at the smelly bearded biker who she knew couldn't be relied upon to speak a word of Thai; another frown as she realised how hard this was going to be to explain in her limited English; then a 'what the hell' expression as she decided it must be ok if another customs officer was looking after me so closely, so clickety-click and a temporary licence to import a motorcycle appears off her printer. Job done. Kindly customs officer, whose job it should have been to search my luggage, decided instead to move part of the barrier to let me through to Thailand. Marvellous. Onto the bike and off up the road before anyone changes their mind.
Just then, Buddha himself floated by on a lotus blossom to bless my journey.
Which was nice.
Up the highway for a while, through Hat Yai (the epicenter of the separatist violence) as quickly as possible, then off onto smaller roads to head towards Krabi. These roads were glorious - rolling by-ways through luscious greenery
...lined with trees dripping flowers...
...of all sorts of different colours...
...then through Krabi and out onto even smaller roads towards the beach at Ao Nang. The closer I got to Ao Nang, the more dramatic the scenery got
...so dramatic, that I missed the turning for Ao Nang and went 10km in the wrong direction. So turned round, missed it again, and went another 10km back the way I'd come. Eventually, after spreading the (again, 1 to 1,500,000 - oh for a proper Ordnance Survey) map across the petrol tank with a puzzled look and attracting a friendly helpful Thai driver to explain what had happened, I realised that it wasn't the dramatic scenery that made me miss the turning, it was the fact that there were absolutely no signposts on it and it was so hemmed in with shops it looked like a small alley. 100 yards down the road there was a GREAT BIG signpost telling you that you were on the right road, but somehow nobody had thought to put one at the junction itself. I'm sure there was a very good reason at the time.
Finally, into the rapidly expanding resort of Ao Nang in time to get the necessities of life: shower a day's worth of mud, grit and exhaust fumes off my face, a beer, and a barbequed squid while watching the sunset.
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