World Thailand Surat Thani. A Year in Asia Surviving Surat Thani Matt Aug 31, I pause in a parking lot beneath a buzzing, crackling tangle of power lines and turn back toward the hotel. I wave. Blank windows stare back, reflecting blue sky and cloud of the early morning sky. Behind one, Laura may be waving back. Or she may have already drifted back to sleep.
I hope it is the latter. It is too early to be awake. Just in case, I wave again before turning away, facing the waiting ferry that will take me to Surat Thani. I climb the rickety, rust-eaten gangway and try to walk as lightly as I can before hopping aboard the ship.
Finding a seat, I settle in for the two hour journey from Ko Phan-gan to the mainland. I am nervous but hopeful as the boat plods slowly forward. I have a lot to accomplish today: I must renew my tourist visa, hopefully getting an extension so that I will not be fined at the airport for overstaying our visa though only for a day when we depart the country. The ferry is mostly full of tourists with stickers attached to their shirts, each sticker with a different, cryptic message written on it.
People who have purchased their ferry ticket as part of a longer journey, I guess. I don't have a sticker. I think I'm the only one, though I have purchased a bus trip for the 70 km journey from the ferry terminal to Surit-Thani.
I wonder if this will give me problems. I hope not. The ferry docks at a rusted, creaking dock that would give any BC Ferries worker a heart attack.
