Day 60 of Ozbus11's 92 day trip to Sydney saw me do absolutely nothing apart from enjoy my surroundings on Koh Samui Thailand, my beachside hut and the first resort we'd seen on our holiday. It was the next day I decided to do something constructive. By the amazingness of foreign law I was able to hire a scooter and go round the Island with it. I was incredibly excited as the last time I had been in control of anything motorised I was having driving lessons at the age of 17. I never achieved a full drivers license though.
It was a bit nerve-wracking, getting used to the sensitivity of the throttle and the vehicle was heavier than I thought making it surprisingly hard to manouver. So I thought I'd practice a little around the hotel. Something Charlie, our 'nice' Public School boy from Chester who had hired a massive 4x4 to tour with, found hilarious. Well after a few stops and starts, I thought I was ready to go. Luckily I hadn't crashed first time like a certain younf Irish interior designer on the bus did (she will remain nameless, she knows who she is). But mastering the scooter was just one part of motorised transport I had to deal with. It was becoming part of the Island traffic that proved the greatest challenge. My first task was to successfully ease out into moving traffic from the Hotel side road onto the main ring-road. I did not do this well. Unfortunately, too much throttle and not enough turning left hurtled me onto the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic. In England I would have been hit for sure but luckily, we had noted that in countries with sligtly more irratic driving tendancies, drivers had amazing reflexes. And all I got was a couple of a beeps.
Cursing and heart racing I stuck to the left hand side of the road and headed off to my destination. I knew where I wanted to go, I just didnt know exactly how I was going to successfully arrive. Somehow I managed it and I parked down another side road where I had found previously a nice little fishing settlement with lovely restaurants and shops. I felt gorgeously independent - it was a strange and new experience. I had a nice stroll and purchased some nice things and then went off again. This time I headed off to the Golden Buddha. Though I had some more difficult manuvers; in terms of turning accross direction of traffic but again, I managed it.
The Golden Buddha was MASSIVE. And an impressive sight on a small island. It was beautiful situated high above the sea and for a few moments I felt complete calm and tranquil. But back on the bike I wanted to head off to the new Tesco Lotus as I needed some batteries for my torch. I couldn't find it however and nearing the end of the day, I somehow, found my way back to our sideroad, miraculously turned accross fast moving traffic and ended up back at the scooter hire place.
The next day we all reluctanctly (some more reluctantly than others with heavy sleeping in behaviour) left Koh Samui at 7am to catch a ferry back to the mainland. At 3.30pm we arrived at Hyati and cursed Phil for making us leave so early when there was absolutely nothing to do in the town. On day 63 we crossed the Hyati border a little after 7.30am having been reminded by the Thai tour guides to have our passports on us and arrived in Penang in Malaysia in time for an evening birthday celebration for Aussie Sam. The next day we were on the road again in time to arrive in Kuala Lumpur for lunch. What a sight that city was. If a Sci-fi film was ever real then it would have based itself in Kuala Lumpur. Silver skycrapers seemed to fly up from the groud and everything was so clean and knew and everything screamed MONEY. Suddenly the 26 Ozbusketeers in their tired travelling gear seemed a little out of place. A nice lunch was to be had in the first shopping mall we'd seen since leaving Europe and then back on the bus it was to arrive in Melaka at 5.30pm.
This was the end of Malaysia and the beginning of an arduous Indonesian leg before hitting the red country. It was exciting and deeply sad at the thought of ending this once in a lifetime trip.
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