Wednesday June 30th 1982
With me feeling slightly better, the three of us decided to head further north and boarded a bus heading to a fishing village called Krabi. The white-knuckle journey lasted four and a half hours. The bus driver didn’t appear to have a will to live, and we had several near-misses throughout the drive. He eventually stopped and let us off the bus in the middle of nowhere. We were around 5km outside of the village.
We waited for a while wondering what to do next and decided to start walking. A little while later a pickup truck offered us a lift although we could only communicate through sign language and had to trust these people would take us to where we wanted to go – not that we were sure where that was!
I was still feeling weak when we arrived, and the realisation dawned that I was a long way from home in a country where people didn’t speak my language, or I, theirs. My head felt muddled.
Thankfully the truck dropped us in Krabi and we headed to a small hotel mentioned in my guidebook called Veung Thong. After a fair bit of sign language, we managed to secure two rooms.
We walked around the village, people smiled but it felt a little oppressive. The village consisted of tiny wooden homes (shacks). Black and white televisions appeared to be the only luxury these people had.
We paid a fisherman to take us for a ride on the river. Falcons soared in the skies above. The wonders of nature made me feel glad to be alive.
Everywhere we went we were followed by curious people who obviously hadn’t seen many foreign tourist before. I can’t say I like being centre of attention although it was funny when people burst out laughing at us! Physically, I feel a lot better today.
