3rd Jan - Malaysia Visa run

As we found out in Bangkok there was no way we could extend our 30-day tourist visa for any more than 7 days, which wasn't going to be enough. The only thing we could do was to leave Thailand and re-enter, thus getting a new 30 day visa.

Luckily for us there were many companies in Koh Samui set up to do just this in one (long) day. A lot of ex-pats still have to do this every month. To gain Thai citizenship, not only do you need to marry a Thai national, you also have to learn the national anthem, but sign it back perfectly in Thai - something that most ex-pats either can't be bothered to do, or just can't do.

Our day started at 4am. We got dressed and stumbled to the road to meet the minibus which was already full of sleepy ex-pats and backpackers and drove off to catch the car ferry to Surat Thani. Once back on the mainland our driver put his foot down and we speeded through heavy tropical rain towards the Malaysian border, stopping briefly once and arriving at the border just after midday.

The border crossing itself was in the middle of a hilly tropical rainforest and the heat and humidity was stifling. Filling out forms were the key here and although the whole procedure seemed fairly swift it still took us over an hour. We had to:

1. Get and fill out a departure form
2. Present form to different window and get departure stamp in passport
3. Walk the 200 metres across no-man's land over to the Malaysian border
4. Get and fill out an entry form
5. Take form and passport to window and get passport stamped.

We were now officially in Malaysia! Our visit lasted a total of maybe 3 mins - the time it took us to fill out the Malaysian departure form and walk round the corner to get our exit stamp. Now we had to walk back across to Thailand and repeat the whole entry process again!

After everyone on the three minibuses that went from Samui that day had renewed their visa, we were back on the road and retracing our route - perhaps even faster this time. We had to make sure we sure we caught the 7pm car ferry as it would be a long wait for the next one.

We finally made it back to our bungalow, completely knackered, at 9.45 that evening. A total journey time of about 17 1/2 hours! At least it was all over and done with, in one day!