Visa run to Malaysia

  Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia Monday, April 6, 2015

During our first month on Koh Tao island, Jody's Visa Free time in Thailand was due to expire - remember she got here at least 2 weeks before everybody else. When you enter Thailand from any border, UK people get 30 days here visa free. Jody's free 30 days were almost up so a dash to the border was necessary to get a proper visa. Bryan decided to go with her even though he still had some free days on his 30 day visa exempt stamp. but it saved us going separately. Jody had already done some investigating and Penang in Malaysia seemed to be the a)easiest b)quickest c)cheapest place to go so she booked our bus ticket and we caught the night boat to Surat Thani. Now Jody had seen the night boat our friends Kiki & Per left on so expectation was pretty low. But when we found our bunk we were quite pleasantly surprised. The middle deck was kitted out end to end with bunk beds. Doubles down the middle isle and singles along the sides. This boat was new too so it was all fairly clean and probably not enough time for the cockroaches to have infiltrated it either! And it had Air conditioning - luxury! The only downside were two young Thai lads whom even after lights out and everyone was trying to sleep, still insisted on texting on their phones and it drove us mad everytime a message came back there was an audible ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! sometimes less than a second apart. Grrr! In the end Jody got up and asked them to put their phones on silent which they did and were apologetic but you think they would have realised. Funny thing was as she returned to our bunk, someone shouted out "thank you". After that we slept very well considering and woke at 4:15 when the lights came back on to tell us we had arrived at Surat Thani. We were off fairly quickly and sorted into groups before cramming into the back of a jeep bus to the tour office where we could get some breakfast. It was only 4:45 by then! Our bus to Penang came along and at 6:30 am we were off again - but only to Hat Yia. A town quite close to the border and another tour office to wait for another bus. This time a 1 1/2 hour wait but it was so hot it wasn't possible to walk to anywhere interesting. The border crossing into Malaysia was fairly painless and we remembered going through here before when we first went Off On Our Own four years ago. We were in Penang by 4pm and found our hotel - The Tune Hotel in Downtown Penang easily enough. We are getting quite used to the standard they offer now but we have to say, this one definitely needs to be on their list to redecorate sometime soon! The grubbiest one we have been in so far for sure. As we were early we decided to find the agent whom had been recommended to get our 60 day visas for us - Jimmy. It wasn't hard to find Jim's Place. and after just a brief chat, us handing over a fair bit of money and our passports, Jim said he would take care of everything. Job done! There was a strict order to abide in the process. Applications had to be in by 11am and could be collected at 2:30 pm the following day. So this being a monday evening we could do nothing more than sit back and wait until Wednesday. So we went off to explore Penang again. This is now our second time here, we decided to hit old haunts and we found the Reggae bar we had enjoyed last time but walked on to find the Indian restaurant we loved before also. We wandered around some side streets for a while with no joy. Bryan had his google maps going and we still coul//test.offonourownagain.com/?p=6856 <![CDATA[

 

After thanking him profusely, we walked a few yards and there it was. The best Indian restaurant in Penang. We went in and sat down and immediately a man was with us presenting a menu. We ordered loads! We had both said on the bus earlier we fancied Indian tonight as we hadn't had a proper Indian curry since leaving India in September last year so we were really making up for it now. And we ate every bit of it in what was probably record time. Proper Indian curry - not some westernised version we get in Europe. It was divine! From there we waddled back to the Irish Reggae bar (a combo we see a lot funnily enough) and ordered Guinness. Last time we did this, Jody got the sneezes and we had to leave. This time though, all went well and we got chatting to a man sitting on his own.Turns out he was from Yorkshire and teaching English to young children in Phuket. He told us a story about when he suddenly realised they were all reciting the days of the week with a Yorkshire accent -  Mun-de, Tews-de etc.  Very funny... On Wednesday we checked out of our hotel and made our way over to Jim's Place and bang on time, our passports turned up with the appropriate 60 day Thai visa in in.However we were very alarmed when Jim told us all to put 200 baht in our passports (that's about £4). When we asked why he told us it was to bribe immigration at the Thai border. Eh??? Bryan went outside and rang the Thai Embassy in Bangkok to see what they had to say about it. He was horrified when the man at the Embassy told him to pay the bribe! The immigration laws state that you must have 20,000 baht cash (£400) per family along with the proof of onward travel out of Thailand, to be able to enter Thailand. If you don't have these things then the bribe is to get them to overlook it. The rest of the crowd waiting to get on the bus were not happy about it either and we all grumbled all the way to the border. There were Americans, a Russian, Spanish and an Irish chap on the bus with us. We had decided that we were going to refuse to pay any bribe and would get to the front of the queue so we were not behind others that were paying. Our plan started off well and we were in front of everyone else. In the queue at immigration though, we were all talking and we declared we would not pay any bribe. Then everyone else said well if it works for you we will not pay either. So, Bryan went first. He handed over his passport and you could see the confusion on the woman's face when she couldn't find the money in his passport. She kept looking through the passport, looking at him, smiling, looking back through his passport again. This went on for ages and she called her boss over. Bryan asked "what's the problem' but she couldn't outright ask for the money! Her boss then demanded 2,000 baht from him (£40) with Bryan acting dumb and as if he was not understanding. This charade went on for a while and in the end Bryan got his cash out of his pocket and showed he had enough funds to enter Thailand. He got his passport back then it was Jody's turn. She did the same, acted dumb, handed over an empty passport and waited it out. The woman clearly wasn't happy was frowning and shaking her head but she stamped her passport but held on to it. They were also demanding to see money from her now. Jody kept repeating Bryan had the money. Family money. They saw it. Then the boss told Jody she had to go in the office off to one side. So still acting dumb and wondering what on earth was coming next she went int the office. She almost had to suppress a laugh out aloud when she realised the man just wanted to show her a poster. He didn't speak very good English and this poster on the wall stated each family needed 40,000 baht to cover their stay in Thailand. (well we knew that was wrong for a start it had been reduced some time ago to 20,000) So apologising and saying she was sorry that if they wanted to see more cash they could take her to a cash machine and get more out.They seemed to accept this and said "next time - you know now". OK she said and they let her rejoin the queue to get her passport back. We were in! Phew what a fiasco. She sent a thumbs up to the person next in the queue and we waited on the other side for the rest of the people on the bus to clear immigration. When they came through we asked them all "did you pay the bribe?"  Oh of course they all did! Unfortunately by not making a stand, they don't help the next lot of tourists through here. Well our destination that first day was only Hat Yia. We found our hotel - the Tune of course! (and then found out it had just 3 days before changed its name to the Red Planet) but essentially still a Tune and probably the nicest, smartest and most modern one so far. After a long hot day on the road it was great to have a good hot shower and a comfy bed again. We went for a walk to find food and found .... an Irish pub, of course! Even better we found a huge market selling hundreds of water guns all ready for Songkran - Thai New Year. At Songkran everyone chucks water over everyone else and you all end up soaking wet and enjoying yourself. The practice seems to have moved up a notch and instead of small buckets, everyone uses big super soakers. So we picked up 4 guns for less than a third of the price they were charging on Koh Tao. The following day should have been fairly straightforward - a trip up the country to Surat Thani to get the 4pm ferry to Koh Tao. We left at 8:30 so bags of time. Until the bus broke down!! Grrrr! Eventually a new bus came and we were on our way but we literally only made it to the ferry with minutes to spare. They were already boarding and we still had to get our tickets and make it down the very long jetty. But we made it, that's the main thing and we were so glad to be back on Koh Tao - Home! [gallery columns="4" ids="7159,7162,7164,7165,7167,7169,7172,7176,7178,7180,7183,7185"]