Snakes, research week and visa extension

The last 10 days have been quite eventful. It started with a Tuesday morning when Sairozi was driving me to my Thai language class. However when we entered the university the street was blocked by a huge snake (around 2 meters long and 15 centimeters thick!) and a security guard tried to catch it with a black plastic bag. The snake then quickly crossed the street so I was only a couple of minutes late for my class.

The following events at the university were luckily not as frightening as the snake. From Wednesday until Friday we had research week. However, most Finnish students used the time to conduct some beach research in Bali. Since Sairozi and I were staying in Phuket we decided to attend some of the discussions, workshops and presentations offered by the university. The Thai cooking workshop we joined was lots of fun for everyone (except for me cause I was feeling a bit sick that day, but the food was super delicious). They also offered a cocktail mixing workshop that we missed, because we went to another presetation. We also met some other interntional students who are studying full time at the Prince of Songkla university.

On Friday we didn't go to the research week, because Sairozi needed to extent his 60 days tourist visa. Equipped with a his passport, a photocopy (you can make photocopies there for 2 Baht/copy) of the front page as well as a copy of the page with the visa/entrance stamp, a photo and 1900 Baht (ca. 50 Euros) we went to the immigration office in Phuket town. If I remember correctly the opening hours were Monday-Friday 8.30-12.00 and 13.00-16.30. After filling out the application form it took us less than 10 minutes to get the visa extension for another 30 days and the staff and volunteers there were very friendly.

Kuala Lumpur visa run

On September 21 it was time to leave China for Malaysia. Even though I enjoyed staying in China, I couldn’t wait to board the plane to Kuala Lumpur and finally meet Sairozi :D But before I could go onboard I had one last “China experience”. When the immigration officer checked my passport, all of a sudden his computer said something like: “Bitte warten sie einen Moment, Ihre Unterlagen werden geprüft.” It was difficult not to burst out laughing (that would have been really embarrassing), but I couldn’t suppress a giggle. Who would have thought there were German speaking immigration computers in Hangzhou?? Certainly not me!

The flight took about 4.5 hours and at 7.10pm I arrived in Kuala Lumpur. Sairozi was already waiting for me. We then took the shuttle bus from Kuala Lumpur airport (LCC-T) to KL Sentral which takes around 1 hour and costs between 8-9 ringgit (2 Euros). KL Sentral is the main train station in Kuala Lumpur and from there we only had to take the LRT to Pasar Seni (1 station) to reach our accommodation. We stayed in the Le Village Guesthouse (Jl. Tun H. S. Lee 99, 50000 Kuala Lumpur) which is one of the cheapest places in KL (double room for 35-40 ringgit/ less than 10 Euros for 2 people).

The next day we had to arrange our visas for Thailand. We took bus no. 79 to Jalan Ampang (1.5 ringgit) which took around 30-40 minutes due to heavy traffic. The Thai embassy receives visa applications from 9.30-11.30am and you can pick up your visa the following working day between 14.30 and 15.30. After our visa application we decided to walk back to our hostel and do a little bit o sightseeing. We went to the Petronas Twin Towers, visited Pasar Seni (art market) and did some shopping in Chinatown. Afterwards we enjoyed some delicious Malaysian food for dinner. On our must-eat list are: “Nasi briyani ayam”, “roti canai”, “nasi lemak”, "penyet" and to drink “teh tarik”.