Visa runs, Mbappe stuns and squeaky bums

More often than not, when we are leaving a country and headed somewhere new we always seem to get a little too drunk the night before we are due to travel. This time would be different though, wouldn’t it?

Our Visa in Thailand was due to run out on the 19th of December and a week earlier we had booked tickets for the overnight sleeper train from Hua Hin to Padang Besar on the Malaysian border. We knew we were cutting it fine and would be exiting on the day our visa expired but that was fine, we had it all planned. At Padang Besar we would cross by foot into Malaysia at the train station immigration point and from there try to find a bus or taxi to take us to the ferry point and then sail on to our final destination of Langkawi.

Come the night of our train we were well organized. Bags all packed up, our apartment all clean and tidy for our return, passports-check and our Grab booked to drive us down to the train station. Off we went on our merry way to catch our 14 hour train to the border.

A few years ago you could enjoy a drink on the Thai overnight trains and it was always great fun, having a laugh and sharing some SangSom with the locals. That changed a few years back when they brought in a new law prohibiting alcohol on trains so for once we planned on a very sober night before traveling. But it was about to change.

Once at the station I checked the board for our train. I couldn’t see it and Dani hadn’t been able to find it online the previous few days but we know what it’s like with transport here and it had most likely changed to a different number as there was a train scheduled to leave at the same time as ours. I thought it best to check at the ticket office though just to be sure.

“Sorry train cancelled, flooding down South, line is closed” was the response we got showing our tickets. Bugger, that’s not really great when we have to be out of the country the next day. We sat outside the station like little lost souls frantically searching on our phones for other options to get us to Malaysia. As we both checked all the routes it started to sound like that scene out of The Beach. “Hua Hin to Hat Yai, Hat Yai to Surat Thani, Surat Thani to….” but it all just kind of broke apart at every turn due to this flooding. The only guaranteed way to make sure we would leave Thailand before our Visa ran out was going to be a flight out of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, 230 km away. Not ideal but workable, we can do workable.

With our flight from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur and Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi sorted we decided to book an early 6am bus from Hua Hin to the Airport. We could have got a train up that night but our faith in the rail options was wearing thin at this point and we just wanted make sure that we made it.

So that was it we were sorted, a lot lighter in the wallet now compared to a £20 train but job done, now what? Oh what’s that, the World Cup final is on? Maybe we should have a few beers watching the match then straight to bed ready for our our 5am start the next day.

We had been sensible for a change and had only had about 3 beers when the game reached the 70 minute mark. Argentina were looking comfortable, Messi was gong to have his moment and we were going to have some well needed sleep before a long days traveling. Then suddenly Mbappe decided otherwise, he decided that maybe it was time he started to get involved in the game a bit more and involved he did.

As the game suddenly sprang to life and transformed into the greatest World Cup Final ever more beers were opened and the vodka came out to play as well. What a night, what a game, what drama, what? We have to be up in 3 1/2 hours? Damn! Time for bed.

The six alarms that we had set between us didn’t even touch the sides of our conscience, we drifted on through them contently in our slumber. “Shit!” it was 6:40am, we had missed the bus to Bangkok. I felt a little sick inside at the thought but we had to get up, get ready and get to Bangkok somehow.

We messaged a guy that we used for a private taxi from Bangkok to Hua Hin when we came back from Vietnam a couple of months ago. It was early-o-clock, we weren’t hopeful of a reply and we would be cutting it fine for making our 2:15pm flight but we had to try. Thankfully the guy responded and said he could get a car to pick us up at 7:30, outstanding work. It came at 7:50, I started to get twitchy again, the hangover didn’t help me, but at least we were on our way at last.

We got as far as 10 minutes outside of Hua Hin when we pulled into some services. It’s a bit soon to be stopping given our situation I thought but I was sure our young racer of a driver would make up the lost time for us. As I popped to the toilet he was stood out the back smoking a big fat joint. My shoulders slumped again but we had to laugh, it’s about all we could do at this point. As we crawled out of the services and slowly limped along the highway in a stoned haze he decided to put a film on his phone to watch. That’s right, our driver is stoned and watching a film while we glide along at a leisurely pace without a care in the world, tum-te-tum.

Every so often he would sniff something from a pillow and we would speed up a little then it would wear off and we would revert back to stoner speed again. Occasionally he seemed to wake up a little more, usually when we were about to crash into the back of something which was nice of him I guess, we were still alive, this was a good thing. We ground our way slowly to Bangkok, through the traffic jams, inch by inch, mile by mile until we finally saw the beautiful sight of Suvarnabhumi Airport appear in the distance.

Thankfully our check in desk was empty, I guess everyone else was checked in by now. Immigration was quick and easy and that was our main job done, we had officially exited Thailand in time. There was a sense of relief and before we knew it we had boarded and were up in the air headed to KL, hopefully in time to catch our connecting flight to Langkawi.

Immigration at KL transit was extremely slow. Only one immigration officer working and a snaking queue of people waiting to get through. He seemed to really enjoy asking everyone a lot of questions as well. “How long are you staying for?” “Can you show me your flight ticket out of Malaysia” It really didn’t help us with only about 20 minutes left until our flight was due to go and we didn’t like the thought of having to answer any questions, we certainly didn’t have any onward transport booked out of Malaysia yet.

Without asking us a single question he stamped our passports and once through a quick security check we were sprinting through the terminal like maniacs. Wheezing like Archie the asthmatic ant (Credit to Blackadder for that one!) we arrived at our gate, the one furthest away in the terminal from where we passed through immigration. Annoyingly our flight was to be delayed by 3 hours, some technical issue apparently. We were given a new gate and plane, I guess thankfully, I didn’t want to be on the one that was deemed unsafe to fly.

15 hours after we left the house we finally touched down in Langkawi, game over, job done, thank you and goodnight. Well almost.

We are usually pretty smart when we travel now, aside from everything above that is. When we have two checked bags we always mix our clothes up so that we both have some in each bag, you never know when one might not make it through. This time we only had one checked bag, Dani’s, which had all her clothes in. The handful of clothes I had along with our gadgets were crammed into a small day pack on my back. By this point it was reasonable to assume that if anything else could go wrong then it probably would. As we stood watching the belt like eager contestants on ‘The Generation Game’ it became clear that Dani’s bag had not made it. We spent the next half an hour in the tiny, hot lost baggage office before we were finally on our way towards a well earned pint, albeit with Dani in the same clothes she had been wearing all day.

What should have been a simple, uneventful border crossing to Malaysia turned into yet another memorable idiot induced escapade. It’s nice after the event, when you can look back at these things and laugh and things always work out for us somehow. If you travel enough you will always run into situations like this. Yeah the two of us didn’t exactly help the situation but it’s all part of the fun.

Dani’s bag turned up the next day. Four days later we managed to get a new Visa stamp back in to Thailand as planned and returned to Hua Hin the cheap way, the way that we had planned on going. A ferry from Langkawi to Satun, bus from Satun to Trang then an overnight sleeper train from Trang to Hua Hin. It was a fun little break, catching up with friends and drinking far too much was great but it was also nice to be back in our own digs on Christmas eve. After a whirlwind few days we felt ready for a nice relaxing Christmas.