We mistakenly read one of the departure times as the arrival time for our van to reach the Thai/Malay border. I guess we’re out of practice after not taking any long rides in a while. The ride through the southern tip of Thailand was surprisingly Keralan-esque with numerous coconut palms, mosques, and men in longhie-like sarongs and caps walking or cycling on the side of the road. We passed through several military checkpoints, a reminder of the ever present tensions in the south. Thankfully things turned out fine and although we arrived at the border 3 hours later than expected, crossing was much easier than we thought with hardly a wait on either side, and just a short walk between the checkpoints. (We prefer to not arrive in new places, especially new countries at dusk/dark because it is difficult to orient oneself, and we never know how long border formalities will take.) As we walked out of immigration I was surprised that no one came up to us to offer a cab or money changing services. After a short wait, we caught a local bus to Kotu Baru, where we would spend the night. I was impressed by so many people’s ability to speak seemingly great English, even the local bus drivers. It definitely made arriving an easy process. As we got off the bus a couple people seemed to want to tout us to a hotel, but after asking the usual, “Where are you going?” They responded to our answer with directions on how to get there on our own. It was really refreshing. We went India-style on the hotel and looked at several before choosing a clean and friendly place. Despite having a shared bath down the hall, it reminded me more of dorm-life than other shared-bath places we’ve stayed which mostly just feel gross. Our first 24 hours in Malaysia began the same way Thailand ended with confusion about the time, this time about the actual time and it wasn’t until a day later that we realized we were in a new time zone. (Which could have potentially messed us up with transportation this morning, but luckily we were ok.) Otherwise, the transition to Malaysia has been smooth sailing…until we went to Perhention.