Surrounded by water
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2010
1
132
155
Trip End
Ongoing
Songkhla, Thailand
Friday, December 3, 2010
In the four hour journey down the east coast of the deep south of Thailand we encountered a bit of a storm. Since we left Nakhon in glorious sunshine I was unaware that the seat I had chosen leaked from the roof above it and from the ground below it leaving me almost sectioned off from the rest of the passengers by a river at my feet!
The monsoon was certainly in full swing down here as I stepped off the bus in Trang completely dripping from head to toe. The other passengers had mildly received a few drops of the downpour but since there were no spare seats on the rest of the bus, I'd chosen my seat and now I must sit in it (a bit like the metaphor; you've made your bed.... etc) 'but not to worry,' I consoled myself - 'at least you can change in to the nice dry clothes in your backpack.'
But I spoke too soon. As the driver opened the luggage compartment, the water flowed out of it like a waterfall and splashed at my feet as I looked on at my bag, which was sopping wet through, in pure disbelief. The rain was still pouring outside and there was no sign of it stopping anytime soon so I took my soggy backpack and hauled it in to a tuk-tuk as I squelched in to my seat on the way to the hostel.
As soon as I entered my room I set about putting up the washing line my Dad had given me with the knots he'd shown me how to do (he made sure I was proficient before I left!) and then placed the two fans in position of maximum effect for reaching the entire line. As soon as I was satisfied I went downstairs to check in where I noticed they had a tumble dryer! Hallelujah! The lady looked at the wet clothes that I was still wearing (I had nothing to change in to) and told me it was completely free! Yippee, I thought so I ran upstairs and took all of my clothes off the line to bring downstairs.
That was the moment she changed her mind, she wanted the equivalent of around two pounds per kilogram to dry them! No way. After much huffing and puffing and a lot of time later, I had returned my clothes back on to the washing line to dry. By this time it had stopped raining so I left the fans to do their work and set about on exploration mode of the city.
'The great city on two seas' as the lonely planet calls it just looked the same as any other coastline with the longest concrete bridge in Thailand dividing the Thale Sap and the Gulf of Thailand sea. If it weren't for the bridge I would not have been able to tell where the freshwater ended and the salt water began. For me it looked like one sea surrounding the coast and the other sea on land where thousands of puddles lay on the concrete roads and pavements. It was however, a huge multicultural place where Thai's, Chinese and Malays resided with Buddhist temple's and Muslim mosques scattered around the area.
Unfortunately by the time I got back to my room, the clothes were so wet they had dripped on to my bed sheets causing them to remain damp for the entire night. As if that weren't enough for a restless sleep, the high pitched squeaks that I had assumed generated from the fans actually belonged to a family of bats that were sharing my room with me; and I thought the smell was just from the damp clothes! So that's a new animal to add to my list of roomies!
Even though they did smell and squealed at a very high pitch throughout the night, it was actually fascinating to watch them as they hung from the corner of my room with their wings folded around each other in a protective embrace; I just had to make sure that I didn't sleep directly beneath them - for obvious reasons!
