Entering Thailand

The next morning, I did some preperations for Thailand with a visit to the exchange office and a nice little treatment of Lil'Wayne... Sparkplugs,oil, new tires,sprocket and cleaning of the carburetor made the bike go...well actually exactly the same as before for some reason...naw well it is now prepared for the Thai roads!

At about 4 PM I went through the Malaysian/Thai Borders without any fuss, and now had all the legal stuff sorted out...Hat Yai was the nearest big city so I decided to go there and plan my route a bit further.. A few kms in Thailand I saw this big statue of a praying buddhist, so took a turn in there and started taking some photos. A few monks and other prayers waved me in in this pretty isolated place and offered me something to eat and a place to sleep! I was a bit chocked and didnt know how to respond to their kindness. However I took their offer of some food as I was pretty starving, but kindly rejected their accomodation offer. I had a nice chat about some of the travels ahead and the ones in the past with one of the monks. He told me that he was the "head monk" and clearly made his status by having a big picture of himself outside the temple, and a nice business card with his name on it..Definetly nothing I have expected to see a monk have! Well I left with a belly filled with food, a poloshirt with the temple logo on it,  a tiger scare of some sort (according to the monks) and a big smile on my face. At the same time there is an inch of dissapointment that I havent experienced this before, and I was ashamed that this kind of kindness would never be shown in the part of the world I have spent most of my life in...Something can be learned from here...

Anyway, I wanted to reach as far as I could in Thailand before the night, so during my stop in Hat Yai I asked for directions and away I went. But I could not get rid of the feeling that I was heading the wrong way..And all the signs were in Thai so I had to trust the locals sense of direction. 50-60 kms of rain and heavy traffic there was a sing in clear English: "Border 5 km"..Border?! What border? Damnit did I take the wrong side of road? Or have I driven so far and ended up on the Myanmar border?? Mind you I was really considering entering the border if it was Myanmar..and maybe have a meal there or something. At the border station I asked the inevitable question : "Myanmar?"...The guard started laughing and said it was the Malaysian border..Feeling rather embarrassed, I could not help to laugh myself and then head back to Hat Yai for the night.