Football, police, vegan pizza and leaving Thailand

7 weeks passed in bliss on the the quietest island in Thailand and we headed to the provincial capital Satun to continue our travels onwards. Football, police, vegan pizza and leaving Thailand pretty much sums up our adventures there.

We were sad to leave our island paradise but within the space of 24 hours of departing we had managed to find the perfect place to watch the football in Satun (important to only one of us it must be said) catch a lift with a policeman and cross an international border. Not bad for a days work.

Goodbye paradise island see you again soon…

Satun is a sleepy little place in Southern Thailand with the friendliest people. There are a few westerners there teaching, a scattering of tourists (we saw 2) and a small number of other non-Thai people who have made this place their home. ‘Farangs’, as the Thai people call us, are still a source of excitement and amusement, as was proved by walking around the local supermarket to continuing stares and people coming up to say hello. It really does make shopping for supplies more fun by the way.

Unfortunately, to achieve this stage of minor celebrity in the local supermarket we had to walk about 3 km in the stifling heat. Luckily, the afore mentioned friedliness of the local population saved us when, after a short exchange of niceties over a watermelon stall, a local policeman seemed to take pity on us. As we trudged on up the road, he pulled over and offered us a lift to wherever we were going. We love these little moments in life, where the random kindness of strangers helps you out and provides much laughter and smiling even though the only communication we could manage was ‘your face is beautiful’ (thank you Caryl for your limited grasp of the Thai language).

Feeling we had represented ourselves in the best (and possibly weirdest) way possible, we continued our adventure around town, searching for somewhere to eat (Caryl’s priority) and somewhere to drink beer and watch the football (Paul’s priority). It was a search that seemed unlikely to have a happy ending in this sleepy little town.

But wait, is that a pizza place we see? Surely they don’t sell vegan pizza? Would you like vegan ham on your vegetable laden, freshly cooked vegan pizza? And you’re closing early so you can put the match on? And you just happen to be from Liverpool who are the team that Southampton are playing? And you say we can bring our own beer and you’ll keep them cold for us? Bloody hell we say, sometimes the most perfect of situations turn up in the most unexpected places.

Beer, vegan pizza and football coming together to make the perfect evening

There was even homemade piccalilli on offer!

So it was with big smiles on our faces that we said goodbye to Thailand the following day (although admittedly one face had a slightly fuzzy head brought on by the previous night’s football-team-winning-beer-drinking). We booked ferry tickets to Langkawi for a short and sweet visit to Malaysia’s biggest island.