I have just returned home today, much later than expected. I was delayed for a few reasons, but the main reason being, that Malaysian railways are not allowed to sell tickets for the Bangkok to Butterworth leg, so I could not purchase a return train ticket in Malaysia. Because of previous experiences at the Thai border, I knew that I had to have an exit ticket from Thailand to be certain that I could obtain a 30 day visa-on-arrival in Thailand. I only found out about the Malaysian ticket restrictions on arrival at Butterworth, so I had to quickly contact a friend in Thailand and arrange for her to purchase a train ticket from Bangkok to Butterworth at the Bangkok train station for me, then to send it by registered mail to me at my hotel in Penang.

The extra time that I spent waiting in Penang for my train ticket to arrive, quite obviously cost me more expence than I had initially planned for. Whilst I was waiting for the mail to arrive in Penang and I couldn't book my return train to Bangkok, because I wasn't sure of the return date I required yet. So as soon as my registered mail did arrive, I quickly went across to the Butterworth train station to book the next available train back to Bangkok and that is when I got my next delay. Although it was only Sunday the 16th of December, the next available train seat to Bangkok was not until 23rd December and I did not have the funds available to stay in Penang for another week, I also had to get back to Bangkok quickly to start the process of getting a new British passport issued, because after this trip back to Bangkok, my passport would be full.

I quickly returned back from Butterworth to the Blue Diamond Hotel in Georgetown, Penang and asked my friends who worked there, if they had any ideas about a quick and inexpensive way to get back into Thailand other than by train. One of them managed to arrange a mini-bus for me for the following day, which would take me to Hat Yai in Southern Thailand and it was very inexpensive. So the next day at 15:00 in the afternoon, the mini-bus arrived and picked me up at the hotel entrance. I soon found out why it was so inexpensive, this bus was not aimed at tourists or foreigners, it was mainly used by Thai people who were working or studying in Malaysia, to return home to Thailand, so I was the only foreigner on the bus.

When we arrived at the Thai border, everyone had to disembark and go through the immigration procedures and I was quite surprised that the Thai immigration official there never asked me for any exit ticket at all and just quickly gave me a 30 day visa-on-arrival stamp. So all of the extra time, effort and money spent, to arrange for my exit ticket was all for no reason in the end. It seems to me now that each of the Thai immigration officials at different border posts, interpret the Thai immigration rules differently. After the immigration clearance, I boarded the bus again and at 18:30 that evening I was dropped off at the railway station in Hat Yai, where I quickly purchased a ticket to Bangkok and boarded the train 20 minutes later. The train that I boarded was the daily train from Butterworth to Bangkok and they now had seats available because extra carriages were attached to the train at Hat Yai.

On arrival at Bangkok's Hualumpong train station the next morning, I went to a small tea stall there where I had arranged to meet a friend, because I had to spend that evening staying at a friend's house in Bangkok, so that I could go to the British Embassy the next morning and arrange for my new passport. Whilst sitting and waiting at the tea stall, many other rail passengers stopped by and chatted with me in general conversation, then one very interesting traveller from the UK sat down and we started talking about Thailand, UK and many other things. I say that this person is interesting because he is also a writer, not of books or stories as such, he is a songwriter. During our time together that day, he played me some samples of his songs on his notebook computer and I was very impressed with his work because I am also very interested in music with meaning and good melody and his work had both of these qualities. He was continuing his journey that day to Phuket in Southern Thailand and we made arrangements to keep in touch with each other through the internet, so hopefully I can tell you more about this very interesting character at a later date.