When we arrived at Telaga the hassle of pass control started. We have to OFFICIALLY depart from Malaysia and then OFFICIALLY enter Thailand yada yada yada, it's the usual bureaucracy that we all love to hate. The paperwork took a while, perhaps because it involved a young school boy driving away with our passports on his moped to an unknown destination for some "very important and necessary stamps". We also had to sign a paper stating in red capital letters that we have been informed that drug smugglers are sentenced to death! That's good to know huh, made us nervous even though we only had baby food in our bags.
In the waiting room there were more Swedes than flies in an outhouse and we appreciated their company just the same. By now after a month in Malaysia we're so used to that strangers are kind and greets you like a friend. The room was packed with at least 14 Swedes, not one of them said hi to us or shared Nellys curious smile.
The speedboat lived up to its name, three 225 horsepower strong engines made sure that we arraived at Koh Lipe less than an hour after leaving Malaysia.
Koh Lipe is a lovely island, the beach is stunning! Beautiful, green-blue water with sand soft as silk, amazing. You can easily picture yourself enjoying the sun with a drink in your hand and some hot company by your side. That's when you don't have a one-year old with you, who refuses to play on the beach and needs to be carried around all the time! Our daughter is the most kind child ever to travel with, but she needs some basics which help us all get along, for example ability to use her stroller. There's no such possibility in Koh Lipe! The entire island is about the beach and the sea, there is nothing which even remotely resemblances a sidewalk.
Once we understood that, we decided to continue looking at the bright side of life and find a luxury hotel, which would compensate the no-stroller inconvenience. I guess it wasn't meant to be! We ended up in the "delux hut", smelling everything but lux, equipped with cold shower only and toilet with no possibility of flushing (there was, however, a shower-like-device providing a close enough function). We are a tough couple and it takes far more than this to break us .... until we saw a few centimeters wide holes where the walls meets the floor, big enough to welcome an entire army of insects at any time. And that was a deal breaker! We changed the date on the return ticket and speeded back to home sweet home Malaysia.
To go through the passport bureaucracy a 2nd time the same day was a bitch but the good news is we passed and didn't have to check-in at Bangkok Hilton.
