The intrepids reach Thailand!

Yala station - see the armed guard? He spent the journey with several of his compadres on our train, walking up and down with his not insubstantial weaponry - fortunately he was always smiling, although I've heard Hitler was often quite chipper so that doesn't mean anything.

We cross the border on foot, from Rantau Panjang in Malaysia, walking across the Thailand/Malaysian border into the Southern Thai town of Sungai Kolok. We have not heard pleasant things about Sungai Kolok – mainly used as a party town and sex stop by Malay men – although the people we encounter there are friendly, curious and helpful to us.

We catch the train to Hat Yai, a bigger city further north and pay just over £1 each for a train journey of 6 or so hours. Crazy! We travel 3rd class, which is wooden seats and wide open windows and in the mad scramble onto the train we are lucky enough to get seats. Some of these seats spontaneously collapse as the journey progresses catapulting unlucky passengers with hilarious swiftness to the floor, and prompting the entire carriage to burst into fits of laughter that echo on for quite some time!

A typical Thai station - yes that means I didn't note down the name of it - why don't ours look like this? Apart from the fact that it would be harder to get the palm trees, I mean.

We had been in several minds about the border crossing here as there has been political and religious strife in Southern Thailand over the past few years and the train stations on our route are still considered a target by the Thai government and the border crossing here is not recommended by our guidebook or the FCO. But several Malay people we met in Kota Bharu assured us that they have done this journey many, many times and the level of their knowledge about transport links reassures us so we decide, in the spirit of adventure to give it a go – and we’re fine!

The train journey was amazing and although many travellers don’t do this journey this way round (most people fly into Bangkok and do this bit in reverse if heading to Malaysia), I would strongly recommend it. I had been both eager and nervous about Thailand as many people describe it as wildly hectic (although many who have also done Indonesia say that there are a lot of similarities), but travelling in and up through the South has been a perfect introduction to the people and to the rural scenes of Thailand.

A proud Thai father insists that I take a picture of his son feeding the monkeys - and with a grin like that, how could I refuse? The monkey wasn't impressed by my efforts though and refused to cooperate.

From the train, we are treated to our first glimpses of the rolling lush green hills and fields of southern Thailand, where bright blue birds flit low across the landscape, white cranes (they look like cranes, but I have to say that an international twitcher would know better) stalk loftily among laconic cows (I saw one cow with a little bird sat on his back!), stray dogs look up from dreams disturbed as we pass and the largest spiders I have ever seen hang ominously from their webs set between power lines.

On the train, we are treated to the consistent curiosity and stares of our fellow passengers, who giggle, gawp and even photograph us during our journey. We are also somewhat of a novelty to the armed guards who walk up and down the trains (a response to the trouble in the south, along with armed guards at every station), who pause at the beginning of the journey to shake our hands and take us under their wing, offering to close the window for me when I was being blown to smithereens and then laughing hysterically when I tell them I actually like it!

Having scared off a lot of smaller monkeys to secure this watermelon, he now doesn't really know what to do with it......

We stay only one night in Hat Yai, but enjoy our time wandering the streets of this city and eating in its cafes and restaurants. The day after our arrival, we head off on a local bus to Songkhla, only 25km away, a seaside town we want to visit before heading to Bangkok and making our way to the Cambodia border over the next week. My time is ticking by and we are keen to be in Cambodia for my birthday (so far I cannot talk about my birthday very much as it makes me think of home and a little sad, but I comfort myself with the thought that I can have another birthday when I get home so that no one misses it).

Songkhla, apart from its strange absence of restaurants - tonight we ate in a brothel bar, but the women were very friendly and kind to us and the food was lovely, and the band played us a song in English, which was lovely – is a functional fishing village and you are never far from the smell of the sea, by which I mean the smell of rotting fish (I think I smell a dead fella.......).

The beach wears a cape of white sand and shimmering blue water rushes to the shore. We were too hot the first day we went there so are returning tomorrow to see the statue of a mermaid that the beach is famous for, and to pick up some Chang Beer t-shirts on which we have all rather firmly set our hearts.

Our first Thai temple, I loved it here, and couldn't take my eyes off the tree on the left - a perfect place to indulge your fascination with simple things....

Yesterday though, we hung out at the beach and spent some time with some great monkeys at the base of Khao Tang Kuan or Monkey Hill. They are very tame and are fed by hand by the locals but one glimpse of their sharp little teeth convinced me that feeding them was something I would rather leave to others, and instead I watched the babies cheerfully romping down the slopes. Today we spent some time walking round the local markets and practicing our Thai – we are trying to learn numbers so that we can more effectively barter – so far we have thoroughly mastered both ‘thank you’ and ‘hello’ and the sheer delight people take at our laborious and clumsy efforts make it all worthwhile.

A statue outside on of the temples today - this reminds me of the demon god who holds the wheel of life on my thangka (a Buddhist painting) at home

These the flowers and scarves that Buddhists drape over the hands of the statues - that's just one of his giant hands!

We also visited some of the local temples. Here, being a monk is a sort of national service, and almost every young Thai male spends at least three months in service as a monk. The temples are beautiful and their architecture and decoration intricately ornate and detailed, as well as being very well maintained and clearly cared for. Buddhists make up 75% of the population here and comprise both Thai and Chinese Buddhists, but there is also a strong Muslim community. We passed many Chinese temples on our walk through the old town, and many houses and shops have Chinese style shrines outside with candles burning constantly.

This is one of the carvings on the entrance to the temple and a good example of the ornate decorative architecture that seeks to remind of Buddhism in every detail - providing an opportunity for contemplation and meditation wherever you look.

A smaller shrine within the temple grounds - inside are tiny figures sat in prayer.
I loved this.

A detail from one of the temple doors. Elephants are big in Thailand - well, obviously elephants are big wherever you find them, but I mean they are a symbol of fortune here.

As ever, though, it is the people who make our journey and everyone here has been very friendly to us. Unlike Malaysia and Indonesia, we have more opportunities to meet and speak to women here, who are more confident and curious about talking to us. Men prefer to honk at us from passing bikes or cars – by which I mean they beep their horns, not that they honk like geese – but the few we have spoken to so far are very friendly. I am glad too that the lack of English spoken here gives us a strong incentive both to pick up pidgin Thai more quickly and to become more creative in our communication, often using mime to the hilarity of the locals.

Thai is very hard though, even when you have the words phonetically, as it is based on five tones, which, when used incorrectly, can change the meaning dramatically, so we learn most from practicing with local people, who laugh uproariously as they correct our pronunciation.

Food is our one main issue as we have yet to encounter a strong understanding of vegetarianism and almost everything is cooked or served with meat or fish. Despite this, we have managed to track down veggie tempura served with sweet and sour chilli sauce and fried rice with vegetables, both of which I have delighted in!!

A statue outside a cafe in the old town and a small homage to Songkhla's famous mermaid, which I hope to see tomorrow.

Our hostel in Songkhla is the Romantic Guest House, one of the most luxurious yet as both our rooms have huge double beds and – get this – television!! Although there are only two channels featuring English (BBC World Service and Aussie channel) speech, I actually spend most of my very late nights – it’s so very, very hot and it makes me an insomniac but as yet does not seem to make me tired in the day – watching a combination of music channels and movies badly dubbed in Thai. For the record, you really don’t need to know what actors are saying in movies – you can either pick it up from the visuals, or even better, just make it up in your head. I have got quite addicted to a number of Chinese soap operas shown back to back in the early morning in this way...

When I haven’t spent the night avidly watching my luxury tv or writing, I’ve been surfing the web for our travels, which has been a bit of an adventure in itself. I found a wifi connection to surf from my room quite quickly, but it came and went intermittently. So after sitting in every conceivable part of the room, I tried every floor (4 of them) of the hostel, several unoccupied rooms (or at least I assume they were, they don’t lock the unoccupied ones so I just snuck in under cover of dark in the early hours of the morning without bothering with the light – if anyone was there, they were too terrified or bewildered to say anything) before I finally struck lucky.

This is what happens if you ask Angie to hold your camera while you're busy buying flip flops in the market. She takes random photos of herself. She likes to call these 'Pictures of myself on holiday on my own' and I doubt she is expecting me to upload it to the web. Actually, as we all have some rather incriminating shots of each other I may be setting a dangerous precedent here...

While investigating the front of the building, I discovered that if I held the laptop out of the window, I got a fairly good, fairly reliable connection so I’ve spent the early hours alternating between sitting in front of this window, and if it cuts out climbing through it to a small balcony to connect from there.

The nicest part is that from this window I can see the Theravada Buddhist temple on top of Monkey Hill, where we are hoping to visit tomorrow, if it does not rain again. Moreover, I get to experience the sounds of Songkhla live and unleashed, with its cacophony of fighting, howling stray dogs, motorbikes that ride the street throughout the night and occasional late night conversations amidst groups of passers by. I can even see the moon.

Me on the wifi balcony, my very own internet cafe. Yes, it's very dark out here, and very hot. That's why I look bald and sweaty. I'm not bald. But I am sweaty.

Anyhoo, that’s more than enough from me for now. Suffice to say that I miss you all, and the beauty we see every day only reminds me of the beauty of my friendships at home, and causes me to appreciate each one anew, as do the many emails and Facebook messages you all send. Keep them coming and special thanks to Mum, Shon, Bean, Glenn, James and Lynda for being my most regular – and not to mention entertaining, in such wildly different ways! – correspondents.

I didn't notice this until today, but someone has drawn the best face on my lampshade in my room. Random.