Drive To Krabi – Day 1.
Kuala Lumpur To Hatyai – Day One.
Posted By Kent
Date : 20th September 2009
Time : 7.00am ( Malaysia Time ) – 4pm ( Thailand Time)
Destination : Kuala Lumpur – Hadyai
Distance : About 500KM
Meet with the rest of the members at Rawang rest area 7am. Since some of the team members are late, we decided to have our breakfast at Rawang rest area instead of Tapah rest area. Depart Rawang rest area about 7.45am and reach ChangLun about 12.30pm. Refill our car fully before crossing Thailand border, currently petrol in Thailand is selling about 30Baht per litre.
After refill we head to this Mini Café to have our lunch ( the food here is just filling up your stomach since crossing the customer may take hours during peak season )and prepare all the border crossing documentation. All you need to do is pass your passport to the counter in the café, they will prepare the Thailand immigration white card with all the necessary information. Please make sure you check all the passport before leaving the counter. Please take note that you need the sign the white card as well.
You will also need to purchase Thailand insurance here ( There are a lot of places providing the above service, even just beside Thailand custom, but this place is the most convenient as they have a huge parking space.). It will cost you less than RM20 for 1 week 3rd party insurance coverage in Thailand. Please take note that your Malaysia insurance does not cover any risks while you are in Thailand, please check with your insurance agent on the 1st party coverage while you travel in Thailand.
We left the mini café about 1.30pm and proceed to the Bukit Kayu Hitam check point few KM away. Traffic is slight heavy and it took us about 30 minutes to cross Malaysia check point and proceed to Thailand check point. As usual, park our car at the car park besides the custom building and proceed to immigration.
Once you stamp your passport, the car owner may proceed to the custom counter to obtain your vehicle import permit. ( They will not entertain you if you had not got your passport stamped) . Hand over the car registration card and your passport at the custom counter ( In the middle lane of the custom building – if you see somebody carrying our Malaysia Pink color car registration document, that’s the custom counter ) and they will print out the vehicle permit, proceed to the next counter just few steps in front of the custom counter, sign the document in front of the office and hand over the document to them.
Once the above procedure completed, you may proceed to drive your car over to the counter where you handed over the vehicle permit moment ago, the officer will hand a copy to you, please have a quick check to make sure it is indeed belongs to you. ( Please keep the copy safely as you need to return it to Thailand custom when you are coming back to Malaysia ).
Sawadee krup, welcome to Thailand.
Please take note that the Thai time is 1 hour behind us, it is recommended to adjust your watch, alarm and handphone ( especially if you use your hand phone as an alarm ) to local time once your cross the border to avoid miss communication. It took us about 20 minutes to clear Thailand procedure and we proceed to Hatyai. We reach Hatyai about 4pm and proceed to enjoy the local food, shopping and massage.
Little Princes is very excited about the trip.
Zheng Yuan and Zheng Ni at Changlung, refilling before we cross the border.
This is the mini cafe where you can get all your immigration and insurance documentation done.
We are staying at Regency Hotel, right in front of the hotel is a restaurant selling famous roast piglet.
They are actually preparing it by the road side.
In front of the famous Lee Graden plaza where the night market located,
we found this stall selling a lot of kuih, I strongly recommend the
” Ubi Kayu” with coconut milk. It cost about 20-30Baht per pack.
As usual, the night market is crowded with Malaysian due to Malaysia public holiday,
you just feel like you are in Malaysia.
At night, Car 8 bring us to a seafood restaurant about 15 mins walk from the Hotel. To be honest, I don’t know the name and the location of the restaurant. Apparently this shop is patron mostly by local Thai, there is another restaurant right opposite this shop serving mostly Malaysian. I believe this is because the restaurant opposite hanging out banner in mandarin and english where it can attract non Thai speaking visitors.
Car 3 cannot decide what to eat.
Crab?
Sotong?
Prawn?
Wonderful meal and everybody enjoy the food. The crabmeat fried rice is the best
that I ever had or may be I am hungry after a long drive.
A slow walk to the hotel, we discover a lot of food stall along the road side selling different kind of foods. We had identify a duck mee which we will try once we back to Hatyai from Krabi. After dinner, continue shopping at the night market, massage and zzzzzzzzzzz
With kind permission, article from : http://www.drivetothailand.com/drive-to-krabi-day-1/
