CROSSING THE BORDER TO THAILAND

This morning, I woke up very early. I waited for sunrise  at around 7.15 am to go for breakfast. It's Coffee, eggs and toasts which cost  less than 2 dollars.

After checking out of the hotel and with a cabin bag in tow, I walked about 1 km to Kota Bahru Bus Station. I embarked on Bus 29 which took an hour to reach Rantau Panjang, the border town between Malaysia and Thailand.

I cleared  Malaysian Immigration and went through Malaysian Custom which was not manned at all. After exiting the immigration building, I walked to the bridge towards Sungai Kolok. It’s about 100m long and led me straight to the Thailand Immigration Centre. I filled up the immigration form and got cleared and went through the customs. Similarly, it was not manned and one could have brought in anything.

The walk to Sungai Kolok Railway station was about 1 km. It was quite an exhausting walk especially having the pull the luggage and carry a haversack.

There were no tuk tuk taxi at all. The only available taxi was motorbike. To walk to the bus terminal would be another 3 km. I have no choice but to ride a motorbike taxi to the bus station. I asked the driver and he gladly obliged to drive slowly. The ride cost 40 Bahts.

At the bus station, I paid 200 Bahts for a 2 hours ride on mini bus to Pattani. The bus was full and was really cramped because of luggage. The trip took us through the restive Narathiwat province where there are many security checkpoints along the entire journey. However most were not manned.  

The journey took us through some rubber plantations as well as rice fields. Many patches or farmland seem to be furloughed. This place seems to be sparsely populated except for occasional towns. Otherwise the road conditions are good with moderate traffic. As for the population, they are visibly Muslims as manifested by the tudungs worn by the women.

I arrived in Pattani Bus station around 1pm. Again I have no choice by to take a motor bicycle taxi to my Hotel.

Pattani has long and complicated history which involved the British, Japanese, Thailand and Malaysia. On religion it was initially Hindu Buddhist and then became predominantly Muslims. It’s also the place the Japanese army landed to start its thrust against the British in Malaya. It’s also believed to be the earliest landing of Chinese immigrants from China on the Malay Peninsula way before they came southward to Singapore.

There is a Chinatown in Pattani and Chinese temples. Of course, there are also Buddhist temples. However, it’s the mosques that dominate the landscape in Pattani.

Pattani is situated on the eastern coast of Thailand with the Pattani River flowing through it. Geographically, it is natural that the main industry of this town is fishing.  You can see brightly painted fishing vessel berth along the river banks.

 

This fishing boats are also rigged with very bright lights to attract fishes to the net. The candle power of these light must be bright enough to light up a football pitch. Any body flying over the Gulf of Thailand or Eastern Southern coast of Cambodia would have noticed thousand of bright lights on the sea.