THE PREPARATION

The preparation to a trip into the unknown... to all things exotic and erotic!!!

Now that you all have a general idea about the build-up for the trip, we’ll start discussing about the actual trip. Raj informed me about the trip to Thailand and asked me to contact Selva �" the organizer of the trip. I called Selva immediately and booked myself a place. The group was leaving from Penang and I was from KL. Selva told me that some people were leaving from KL and I could join them. He gave me Siow Peng’s contact number. I contacted her and she was kind enough to book a ticket for me to Penang. We decided to meet at the bus station to take the bus to Penang.

Like every other country in the world, Thailand also insists that Indian passport holders should have a visa before entering the country. I contacted Thai embassy in KL and was told that I can get a visa on arrival. I didn’t realize this one piece of information was going to change the whole course of this trip.

I started preparing for the trip. I borrowed the snorkeling gear from Raj, got some medicine, some casual clothing, a bag, torch and a camera. Everything was ready and I was all set to go.

On the day of departure, I left to the bus station with my gear. It was 11’o clock in the night and the bus was at 11:30. I couldn’t find the bus at the designated platform. I enquired at the helpme desk and what the lady told was not very helpful. She replied in Bahasa �" the national language of Malaysia. As my understanding of that language was pathetic, I just assumed the bus was late and went back to the platform. It was 11:20 and the bus was not there yet. I enquired the passengers standing nearby about the bus and got the first shock of the trip. As it was Chinese New Year, the buses were leaving to Penang were leaving from another bus stand on the other side of the town. I had to take a shuttle to that bus stand. They had been announcing about this change and even had a notice board. I heard the announcement and saw the notice board as well. But, I couldn’t understand a word because it was in Bahasa. I ran outside the bus station only to find the shuttle bus leaving. After running about 50 meters, I caught up with the bus. The bus driver was kind enough to open the door for me at a traffic junction. Inside, I met Siow Peng and Tina. They were trying to reach me at my house to inform about the change.

We reached the new bus station and there I met chea and Janice. I got inside the bus and was snoring even before the bus started. As I was partying the previous two nights, I was pretty tired. I don’t remember anything else in the bus. Somebody woke me up when we reached Penang. We went to a restaurant for a cup of Kopi-Thare �" coffee. We waited for Selva to pick us up.

Selva came with the bus and it was already full. We were the last to join the group. Selva, JT and Forest were the tour organizers and Zambri was our Bus captain. We all got to know each other and started our journey towards Thailand. We stopped at a place called Changlun to change currencies. The value of Thai baht is the same as Indian rupee. Then, Selva informed that we would be using a checkpoint called Wang Kelian. There are many checkpoints between Malaysia and Thailand. The main checkpoint called Kayu Hitam is always busy with traffic. Wang kelian was not a very popular checkpoint and hence we decided to use it to avoid traffic. We reached Wang kelian, which was in the middle of nowhere. It was in the middle of a jungle surrounded by mountains. There was absolutely nobody except the immigration officials and us. My trip to Thailand took a new course, when I gave my passport to the Malaysian immigration.