I have just completed another visa run. It is a tedious chore that many ex-pats around the world need to perform. In Thailand, it depends what type of visa you have. I have a 1-year multiple-entry visa based om marriage to a Thai. This visa requires I leave the country every 90 days and then re-enter. It is a simple matter of going to a nearby border, crossing to the other country and then turn around and come straight back in to Thailand. Silly but that is the rule.
As I say, it can be a tedious chore so I usually try to make a trip out of it by taking the family along for a couple of days and visiting somewhere interesting along the way.
I usually really enjoy these trips. Thailand is a great country for travelling around. There are so many beautiful little spots to find and the people are always so hospitable.
This time I decided to go to Trang. It is meant to have some good beaches and islands. We drove to Pak Meng Beach which is about 3 and a half hours from Phuket. I have to say I was disappointed. The beach does not even remotely compare to the beaches in Phuket. The sand is course and muddy. Even Ben and Jenny who normally love any beach were not very impressed. The scenery is quite nice but not as good as Krabi.
And the little resort town there was really disappointing. The area is popular with Thai visitors so I was expecting some nice Thai style resorts. What they actually have is a strip of quite charmless restaurants and bars and behind are some very charmless looking huts and bungalows. Just breeze block affairs without an ounce of character or style. We drove up and down the strip a couple of times and finally settled on a bungalow set back from the road and just on the edge of town. It semed like the best of a bad bunch - 600 baht a night. If only we had kept going a little further we would have come to the Pak Meng Resort which looks like the one place of accommodation on the beach that had some charm. Maybe if we had found that place in time I would have a different view of Pak Meng.
We had a meal at one of the beach restaurants and it was poor and overpriced. We took a drive along the coast. It is nice and quiet and there are some national park areas around. However they don't really seem to have anything special to offer. The beaches are just not good when you are used to Phuket.
I would have liked to take a boat around some of the islands which are meant to be nice but we didn't really have time for that. The one highlight of the stay was waking up at 3am to watch Spurs thrash Arsenal 5-1 in the semi-final of the Carling Cup, oh what joy!
It is not often that places in Thailand really disappoint me but Pak Meng Beach just left me feeling flat. We set off the next day to the Malaysian border to do my passport stamp. I did the border hop at the very quiet border crossing at Wang Kelian in Satun - it only took 10 minutes including a shop at duty free for a couple of bottles of wine.
There didn't seem to be any point in spending another night in Trang so we decided to go to Hat Yai. We don't often head for big towns but it proved a good choice. We headed to downtown Hat Yai and found a fantastic hotel for the price - The Asian Hotel. It was 880 baht a night and worth every baht. A nice comfortable king size bed, big bath, view of the city and friendly staff. It was just what I needed after all that driving and a crap night in Trang.
Hat Yai itself always quite impresses me. There is lots of good shopping with bargains to be had on stuff imported from Malaysia. There are plenty of restaurants and bars and the place generally has quite a lively feel. It would have been nice to have a proper night out there with Pon but of course we had to take care of Ben and Jenny and the bed was just too comfortable.
We did some more shopping the next morning and then the 6-hour drive back to Phuket. It was an okay trip but I felt like it was all a bit rushed. There was too much time driving and not enough time to look around. If we come this way again, and I am sure we will, then I will give it 3 or 4 nights. Maybe Trang will impress me better if we get out to the islands and give it a proper chance.
4 comments:
Hi, I actually ran into your posting because i was really impressed with Pak Meng Beach, however I live in Krabi and find the beach at Pak Meng to be just like the ones in Krabi, but not completely overrun with people.
But I haven't spent much time on the beaches of Phuket so maybe you have a much different perspective on beaches than you do :)
I guess i enjoyed it because i actually really enjoyed the cheap beachfront bungalows (ok, they weren't exactly beachfront, but they were very close) and i found the seafood to be quite nice. However (another one of those) I have eaten in Phuket on one of the floating restaurants and THAT was by far the best i have had in Thailand.
I would recommend that people go to Pak Meng if they are looking for it to be quiet, and you will almost certainly be surrounded by 95% thais and 5% farangs, which as someone who lives here, i appreciate at times. There is absolutely NO nightlife in Pak Meng, because everyone gets up at the crack of dawn there (which is not at all my style :P. Happy travels
Bryan
PS. I share your sentiments about the ridiculous nature of the "every 3-month trip to the border" despite having a 1-year visa.
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for the comments. I think sometimes our opinions of places are all about first impressions. I only stayed at Pak Meng for one night so I didn't really get time to really know the place. Perhaps given a bit more time I would come to appreciate it. I think I will go that way again sometime as I want to see koh Muk and some of the other islands.
Great reading Bryan.....keep it up. I have so many places to see in Thailand even thugh Ive been here 15 times its always to either BKK or Chiangmai to see my sons. Now I have decided this Aussie girl may as well stay here as the trips back and forth (Melbourne Bkk) are getting boring. Now I need help...I have a double entry (each three months) catergory "O" visa...the first entry is nearly over red rover. I have a friend coming over from Australia next week right in the time that Im supposed to cross a border. We are booked for Krabi starting 9th July to the 16th July and some how during that time I have to step over a border with my passport to be able to start the second mpart of my double entry visa.Is there any passport runners that do it for u. My sons told me there is but they dont know about the southern part as they usually cross into Laos. Please Bryan...I was hoping u could help me as u live down there. Email me at rrjackaroo@gmail.com and let me know. regards Jackie Mager
Hi Jack,
There was a time when you could pass your passport to some dodgy official and it came back a couple of days later with a new stamp. Those days are long gone. It is now a big no-no and I would advise you don't even think about it. A couple of years ago a group of foreigners from Phuket spent several days in jail for having such stamps in their passports.
If you are in Krabi then it will be easy to find a minibus visa run. It will take about 10 hours to go to the Malaysian border, stamp in and out and then return to Krabi. Really it is only one day and you have the peace of mind of doing it properly and keeping your passport in your own hands.
Regards,
Jim.
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