When I first got up this morning at 7.30am I could see blue skies. SO ANNOYING!! But by the time we got ready and got out at 8.15am it was really cloudy again. That's the first time we were happy to see cloud!
We got the 9am ferry for 250 baht (£5) to Krabi taking one and a half hours. We both slept most of it. Neither of us feel 100% well! And we haven't been having the best nights sleep.
Then it was a 30 minute taxi ride away to the airport. Krabi airport is small but not as small as the one in Luang Prabang. They use old style weighing scales as well. The departure lounge was just a massive area filled with chairs and had a little snack shop at the back, and it was freezing in there. Then our flight was delayed 45 minutes.
We finally landed in Kuala Lumpur at 6pm. We didn't realise it was another hour forward - that makes us 8 hours ahead of the UK now. We landed at the low cost carriers terminal. Weird little place. We had to walk ages from the plane to get to the terminal building - was like a narrow long cow shed we had to walk through.
We got our bags etc and then made our way to our next transport method - coach to the city centre. Another 60 minute journey.
Once we got there, we struggled a little to find our way to the monorail, but asked a few people and took about a 10 minute walk around the block to it. And yeah, that's right, another transport method! We had these really complex directions from the hotel too. Once we got to Imba station, we had to walk through the shopping mall, turn right, down an escalator, sharp left, down another escalator, then right and across to the opposite side and through a fire exit into the underground carpark...what the hell!? Probably getting mugged at the end of this. Actually, it was just through the car park and we were there.
Ferry, taxi, plane, coach, monorail and plenty of walking...and we reached our guesthouse in Kuala Lumpur - Classic Inn. Nice little place. We'd paid a bit more because other places were fully booked, so we expected it to be nice. What we didn't expect was another bloody en-suite with a flipping shower over the toilet!!! What is that all about? No damn fridge either and without aircon on, it's an oven in here.
It was pretty late, about 9pm, so we dumped our bags and went across the road to the shopping centre. We couldn't believe how Christmassy it was. There were huge grottos, Christmas music playing, signs all over saying merry Christmas...it's more Christmassy here than in the shopping malls in England! It's a huge shopping centre. Loads of floors, lots of western brands.
My stomach is playing up so I really couldn't face any foreign food. So we went to Papa Johns, got a take out pizza, took it back to the guesthouse and ate it on the terrace. It's nice to not have loads of mozzies buzzing around whilst eating outside as well.
When we went back to our rooms, we had a nice surprise. Pumping music from a club nearby!! Nothing is ever simple. Book a room. Pay a bit more to get somewhere decent. Have a good nights sleep. No. Doesn't work like that. We've had enough of broken sleep in Phi Phi.
So, I went downstairs to see if they had any other rooms. I was told that the other rooms would have more noise because they'd be closer to the club. I ended up asking to see the other room and took Therese with me. Couldn't hear any music from there. But Therese's face made the decision...it did look a bit like a prison cell I suppose. Actually, more like solitary confinement as there was no window!
We wet back to our room and made do. It wasn't that bad. The racket from the aircon drowns the music out a bit.
Well, looking forward to exploring the city tomorrow...