We stepped out the door of our apartment and returned our bags to our shoulders. We said goodbye to our landlord Niels and made our way via Songtheaw to Krabi Town bus station. There we caught a bus heading south to Satun. As the bus went south it passed through countryside that got gradually more tropical and rural. The limestone karsts gave way to foothills and temples gave way to mosques.

After a number of hours we reached Satun, having passed through a rather uninspiring Trang. We took a brisk walk along the main road and went into the first budget-looking hotel we could find, called The Satuntanee Hotel. Our room was simple 220 Baht which got us a very basic ground floor room. Although the room wasn't the cleanst we had seen in Asia - it was set back from the traffic of the road and so hopefully quiet - or so we thought...

It was only at about 11pm that we realised our room was adjacent to a large bus station. We managed to put up with the noise as the buses came in for the night; thankfully it subsided pretty quickly. That evening we had spent wandering around the town and the small night market. We were stared at often by the locals who were clearly not used to having tourists this far south. Neither Lisa or I slept very well that night.

The next day we got up early and caught a taxi to the port in order to catch a boat to Langkawi in Malaysia. Everything was going swimmingly until we reached passport control and they told us we had over stayed our visa. Apparently, although we were told we had been issued with a 90 day visa, we had in fact been given a 60 day visa. We had over stayed by 12 days and were charged 500 Baht for each day - per person!!! We tried to explain our situation with the visa but the official seemed oth unwilling to understand or help.

Lisa and I were disappointed and upset. We knew we had to just pay the fine and continue on our journey - putting this bad memory behind us. So before long we were on a ferry bound for the island of Langkawi in Malaysia.