Thursday 30 June, This week is high on the adventure scale as we are about to head off for 4 days/3 nights in Satun, Thailand. The border town of Satun is only 15 kms by ferry from Langkawi - but a whopping 948 kms to Bangkok. Australians get a 3 month visa stamp heading into Malaysia and we're here for 4 months. So in the time honoured tradition of ex-pats, we are taking a visa run to Thailand (where oddly you get 15 days stamped if you arrive by land or sea, vs. 30 days if you fly in - presumably folks on a plane have a bit more coin!) Today we did a Hardie-Reccie and drove down to the port to buy our tickets for tomorrow's ferry trip. Unfortunately when when the counter opened at 8.30 am we discovered we actually needed our passports just to buy tickets! On a positive note I suppose that means they do get the names right on the tickets and it does create an accurate ships manifest in the highly unlikely event of a mishap. The early morning outing continued and went to the airport and picked up Sue from Fremantle who is leasing the guesthouse next year and is just over for a couple of weeks this time. Get this, particularly Sydney folks. A$0.60 for 2 hours airport parking. That's €0.40. That's downright unbelievable. In fact it's the same price as parking on the rest of the island. At the airport!!! Tonight we finished our minuscule packing endeavours - about 3 kg each in a shoulder bag and then settled in to watch a Will Smith movie on telly. Focus came out in 2015 and somehow we missed it. It was brilliant! We're actually going to check the TV guide and see if it's going to be on again - it merits rewatching almost immediately.

Friday 1 July. Sue dropped us at the ferry terminal at 9.30 am and we found to our surprise that the ferry tickets had gone up 5 RM each overnight! From 30 to 35 baht. That means our one ferry ticket went from A$10 to A$11.50 just like that. We had been wondering why so many 5 baht notes were getting handed around in the ticket queue. The sun was blazing down when we arrived and we saw there were two windows for the Satun ferry and seemingly one big amorphous queue feeding up to them. As it turns out, we quickly discovered it was two queues so we split up and took a queue each. James won. The queue wasn't actually that long - maybe 8-10 people in front of each of us, but it was soon apparent that it was a queue of 80-100 invisible hordes as the locals had 10 to 15 passports each. With our tickets eventually in hand, we still thought we'd have loads of time. No sooner had we changed Ringgit to Baht and tootled towards the immigration area, the doors opened, the hordes advanced and off we went. By the by, cooking oil must be very, very cheap on duty-free Langkawi. We saw dozens of people carrying 10 litre oil containers through customs and off to Thailand. By this point it was 10.20 am and we were due to depart at 10.30 am... which turned into 11 am by the time the ferry was full. We're approaching the final few days of Ramadan and many people are travelling home to be with family for Hari Raya (aka Eid al Fitr - the celebratory holiday at the end of Ramadan). Thankfully they'd been praying hard as the ferry was an experience. By western standards we are of average height. In these parts we are very tall - we had to bend at the waist to speak in the the ticket window for instance. Once on the ferry we found our heads almost touched the roof of the sealed catamaran. We couldn't see out the windows and felt like we were in a sardine packed torpedo being people-smuggled as we finally left and sped off to Thailand. Arriving at Tammalang Pier we were within the first 5 off the ferry (all that extra height and heft came in handy) and walked smartly up to the immigration counter for our Thai entry stamp. The waiting cab drivers pounced on us before we even reached Immigration (... Where are you going? Immigration!) Eventually made it out and they tried charging us 300 Baht to get to the resort (one of the tiny problems with staying at a nice spot!) We insisted we were going to Gleam Resort, not Bangkok and eventually paid 100 Baht for two seats in the share-ute. Which as it turns out was the going rate. So did well there. We knew there was a 1 hour time difference between Malaysia and Thailand, but it didn't really sink in until we reached the resort and realised it was only 11.30 am (not 12.30 pm) - so a heck of a long time until official 3 pm check-in. Fortunately the guests in the resort's best room had just checked out and they upgraded us to that room which was fabulous (it is low, low season in Asia right now). Gleam is the top end boutique resort in Satun at around A$60/€40/night - so ruinously expensive by local standards but we felt like spoiling ourselves. It only has 10 chalets and instead of the Deluxe Room we had booked and paid for, they upgraded us to the one and only Grand Octagonal Room. Which was both grand and octagonal. It had an outdoor bathroom reminiscent of a superb Marrakech riad/guesthouse and the only bathtub in the resort. It took an hour to fill with cold water and we kept it full for a day or so at a time, only filling it twice during our stay. We'd have a shower, get clean then jump in the bath (aka "our private pool"!) Wonderful to sit and cool off in the shade. So within an hour of arriving we were lying in our enormous bath and floating frangipani blooms whilst enjoyed the shade overhead. The chalet also had a private, shaded sundeck on the roof but it was very, very warm and there was no need to be cooking ourselves up there. Once settled and cooler we headed over the road to a small Thai restaurant. We have the distinct feeling they double charged us somewhere along the line, at 420 Baht for lunch - but we enjoyed every mouthful - it's been far too long since we had Thai. A bit of a splurge by current standards - A$17 for one meal? Crazy money! Dinner on our first night we managed for 100 Baht - with two mixed fruit smoothie/slushies, an omelette served with condensed milk of all things and satay chicken sticks. Bargain!

Saturday 2 July, We enjoy Asian food of some description every day in Langkawi so for breakfast today we opted for "American". Couple of fried eggs, chicken sausages, toast and jam. And salad of cabbage, carrot and tomato. But hey - they are really trying so hard. We got out and about at 10 am and walked down to the fresh food market. We found a great pair of board shorts for James for A$5 and bought some pineapple and mango as we love our fruit every day. We walked for ages looking around town and were in dire need of a sit and sustenance prior to getting back to the resort. We found a juice-lady-stall and sat down for two Red/Green/Nashi Apple with crushed ice smoothies. Magic and muy economico at only 40 baht for 2 or less than A$2 (yep... been working on my Espanol again!) Managed the final 5 minute walk home and jumped in the bath to cool down. Saturday in Satun is a big night, if not a big day as it is Night Market Night! They close the main street to traffic and a large stretch of it turns into market-central with clothes, food and lots of handbags. No souvenirs and no tourists but lots of hot, fresh food. We bought pad thai noodles from a cauldron, chicken salad, a yoghurt/sorbet fruit extravaganza and sat at our regular chicken-satay-lady-stall to feast on it all. Eventually back home and downloaded "The Conjuring 1", turned off the lights and scared ourselves silly.

Sunday 3 July, Today we hibernated and alternated using the pool/bath/pool/bath. We watched the movie 13 Hours which was great though as always made us despair of the Middle East. In the evening we schlepped into town and bought our ferry tickets at 300 baht each from an agent at a guesthouse so we knew how much dinner money we had. On the way back we shared a final juice and 9 tiny chicken satay sticks as an entree. We farewelled our new vendor-friends and continued on to a new restaurant, Bangrak. They even had an English menu with pictures. Literally "an" English menu - just the one. They don't see many tourists in Satun. So glad we didn't find this place sooner as the food was superb. Right up there with Sydney's unparalleled Thai food and dinner for two set us back 120 baht/A$5. Which is what we paid for James's new swimming shorts. Strange economics sometimes. We even had them prepare the same two dishes again for takeaway and we stowed them in the fridge for our lunch on departure day.

Monday 4 July (Happy Independence Day America!) It's been a fun four days - lots of chilling out in air-conditioned comfort, watching movies including The Conjuring 1 and also 13 Hours (the secret soldiers of Benghazi), eating Thai food and walking about town in the relative cool of the night time. We think Gleam is one of the few places in Satun (if not the only one) with a swimming pool - so we used that a few times as well. And of course we had a lot of baths. Whilst we found a couple of awesome Thai restaurants and street food stalls we couldn't find postcards or souvenirs. Literally. None. We only saw about 10 western tourists during our 4 days and not one souvenir shop. So it was so sweet when the lady who runs the resort gave us a little elephant design purse as a gift when we checked out. We had our lunch from the fridge, scarfed down a final Thai mango and left in a lovely, private air conditioned car at about 2 pm (going rate only 200 Baht/A$8 - much easier when it's booked through the resort). When we arrived at Tammalang Pier we discovered ferry tickets had increased to 350 each as of 1 July but our agent voucher was still valid and we received our tickets with no problems - Score! Just saved 100 baht. Can't say I was looking forward to the return trip. On the way over the ferry was full of fumes, cigarette smoke from the toilets and the windows were so old and scratched, we couldn't see out. And the roof was touching our heads. The phrase "Thai Ferry Mishap" was certainly in our minds. Thankfully our return ferry was well air-conditioned, much cleaner, was half empty and we could actually see out the windows which was very reassuring. We left smack on time at 3.15 pm and even arrived in 15 minutes early - magic. Must have had a tail wind. Australians Sue and Adrian picked us up at the ferry which was nice - All part of the "we pick you up/you pick us up" ex-pat club. We had dinner with them at the amazing hilltop house they are housesitting and watched the sunset from the pool. Just seeing how other housesitters live was interesting and we found a road less travelled on a part of the island we'd not seen before (so that'll be a good spot for a drive one day).

Tuesday 5 July, It was a late night last night and we slept like logs, waking up to torrential rain and thunder. Finally! It's been so fine this week that our resident geckos have been on the kitchen bench searching for a drink of water. We're surprised the monkeys haven't been drinking out of the pool, we've certainly had at least one stray cat trying it. Relaxed in the morning and then visited the Kuah Ramadan Bazaar in the late afternoon. Today was the last day of Ramadan and the bazaar was definitely winding down. Still enough stalls to sort us out meals for a few days. We met up with our local friend Ekin. She and her sister have invited us to their Hari Raya open house tomorrow which will be a great new experience. Assuming we can find their home in the jungle. We have sketched directions and a phone number... even with google maps, a lot of roads in the kampungs/villages don't really have names.

Wednesday 6 July, We found it! The map our friend drew got us 98% of the way to her house in the jungle, but with no street numbers we were stuffed and had to call her. Then she saw us from just a little ways up the hill and yelled and waved. We did good. Well our first Hari Raya / Eid open house was hugely enjoyable and we we felt so welcome - about as authentic an experience as it is possible to have here in Asia. We enjoyed a buffet platter of beef rendang, chicken rendang, chilli bamboo, sticky rice and assorted sweet cookies and steamed rice-flour pudding with coconut. We met the assorted children and family and everyone was dressed in new clothes to celebrate the end of Ramadan. We now have a family we can give our coconuts to. We are not kidding. Every strong wind brings down at least 4 coconuts and there is only so much we can grate on our tropical fruit. Well there you have it. We've thai'd really, really hard to keep you all up to date on this weeks Thailand doings and the end of Ramadan here in Langkawi. That's it on Thai puns... 'til next Thaime of course.