Penang Hat Yai Chumphon Bangkok Pattaya Jomtien
After reading Wayne Kerrs epic travels in the Australian outback I knew I had to do something that would beat or equal that, yes I know they done 12,000kms, but it took them a bloody long time didn't it, anyway this is my journey from Penang to Pattaya and it took me no where near as long.
This journey will involve tales of drug users, monks, sexy girls, Thai toilets, rice fields, paddy fields, loads of bloody rice fields and loads of bloody paddy fields, poxy bloody rubber plantations after poxy bloody rubber plantations, but I perservered with my endurance test, yes travels on bike, tuk tuk, train, mini bus and car, oh, and a normal bus, you will get to see the views that I saw, see what I ate, see where I had a poo poo, sounds loads better than a drive in the outback already don't it :)
It weren't though, Planes are really good and generally cheaper than going by road or rail, still we all do dumb stuff at times.
First stop is get down to Chulia Street and get the 25 Ringgit minibus from Banana Guesthouse, this takes you across the border into Thailand and then onto Hat Yai, seats 9 of us in the back but you always live in hope that they are having a really bad tourist season and it will be half empty, it never is though :( so when you finally pick up the middle eastern and Burmese travellers that will be going with you that have brought everything they have ever owned onto the minibus it is crowded and poxy well cramped, little did you know that your Thai driver would find others somewhere in Malaysia to help fill up his minibus and make you more cramped than you could ever believe possible.
We set off on our epic journey across Asia with just 4 of us in the back, I was so happy, my legs are like pretty long so I do need a bit of leg room and my dream had finally come true, but, then we stopped at another guesthouse for another pick up, real cute Scottish girl who I wouldn't mind being crushed up against for a while, yep this travelling lark sounded pretty damn good to me at this time, but then things started to go down hill a bit :( yep, it was the time the driver was getting desperate, time for him to hit the main bus station in Penang, not the small one under the Komtar, but some big beasty one out by the bridge, he parks up outside and gets out, hmmmm, he then comes back and opens the passenger door to get his cigarettes and lighter, OK, we know we are in for a bit of a wait so we all get out to have a cigarette, quite a few cigarettes later he has a full minibus and is ready for driving off to Hat Yai.
And off we go, we got 4 normal size big westerners, 4 Burmese with everything they own in the world and a little 45 kilo Thai girl, the 45 kilo Thai girl decides she wants to recline her seat, now there really aint no room on these mini buses and sitting behind her with his knees jammed against her seat is one of the farangs, she is smashing the seat against his knees, he is smashing the seat, eventually he starts shouting at the dumb bitch in German, she then had the audacity to complain about him in Thai to the driver and about how nasty and selfish he was as she only wanted to recline the seat, I think both the driver and his helper had been through this before and the helper let her sit up front while he sat in her old seat keeping it in the position it is supposed to be kept in.
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Penang Georgetown to Sadao and Thai immigration
So we are off at last.
Penang Bridge is supposedly the longest in Asia and I think I have seen claims that it is the longest in the world, it isn't and it is pretty boring now, before when you used to drive across it you had the views of the sea and the islands and boats and all that, due to accidents because people were looking at the view rather than concerntrating on the road, so they have blocked this off with metal sheeting, probably be more fun to go a cross on the ferry to Butterworth these days, cost is the same and you pay the once for a return, ie you could come across to Penang on the ferry and then return to the mainland using the bridge, or vis versa, cost the same, you just pay to get on the island and not off of it.
The motorway is pretty good but a tad boring, it's about 170 km to Sadao, few toll booths to go through, normally the mini bus driver will stop at a service station as they never seem to have enough fuel, good chance to sneak off for a cigarette.
Your next main stop is at the duty free shop a couple of kilometers from the actual border, here they will fill out your tm cards as they assume your too thick to do it yourself, obviously it is best to correct their mistakes on your tm card before you get to the Thai immigration, this place is also a restaurant and all that.
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Malaysian side of Sadao Immigration, coming into Malaysia you got to carry your bags through customs, going out you just leave them in the minibus.
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Thai immigration, here they have tinted the windows so much you can't actually see which booths are open, so you just wander up to them and peer in.
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Thai side, this is the area to bring your cars through to Malaysia, you have to get international insurance before going through here, it is about 500baht per month for a 2 liter car.
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10 hour train to Chumphon
The journey is actually just over 10 hours, the first hour is pretty good, views of the sun rising over rice fields, rubber plantations, the cool breeze blowing in through the open windows, but after the first hour it did start to get a bit tedious, that cooling breeze wasn't really a breeze when your doing 80km per hour, the passengers that looked so nice and clean an hour ago were starting to look dishevelled and dirty, rice fields really don't have that much variation in what they look like, I didn't hear any cries of, "Look, there's another rice field," yes it becomes pretty damn tedious, that carriage you choose because the seats looked the most comfortable you realise is probably just as uncomfortable as the rest of them, I have to admit I was tempted to get off at Surat Thani and continue onwards some other way.
The Monk
So there I am sitting minding my own business, loads of empty seats on the train when a monk decided to join me, got to admit being a bit suspicious by nature I just assumed he was a fake monk who was going to try and sell me something, probably I have spent too much time in Pattaya when you start to think like that.
DrB0b would have loved this, it became a conversation about amulets, I tried to stop yawning as I know nothing about them and really don't believe they can protect or give you good luck, well he even had one that made him bullet proof, I was going to ask him why all the monks down in Southern Thailand get one of these as it may help them, also the amulet to stop them being beheaded, not sure if they have one for that but reckon it would become a best seller really quick in certain areas.
Anyway as he got off the train he gave me one of his Buddha amulets that was for my son to protect him from being killed by a 10 wheeler truck whilst driving to school each day, I thought that was quite a nice gesture and hope it has other lucky qualities of a similar nature.
Fine dining on Thai trains
Being the local train for locals there isn't a buffet car, luckily there are loads of Thai entreprauners selling different kinds of Thai foods and drinks, my first lot of food I bought about 2 hours into the journey was this bag of red chicken bits for 40baht, I saw that the chicken lady was nearly out of chicken so thought I better get some in quick as most of the other food for sale isn't the sort of stuff I would be willing to eat, 30 minutes later she is back again with a great big full tray of about 100 pieces of chicken, so yes I probably bought yesterdays chicken :(
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Early afternoon and I am out of oreos so it's time for some more Thai food, some sort of meat with basil and a sort of fried egg for 15baht, the meat wasn't pork and was too tender to be Thai beef so I don't really like to think about that, I do think if stroller was there he may have confirmed my suspicion of it being dog meat, anyway if it was it didn't taste too bad as there was quite a lot of chillies in it :(
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The smoking room and the toilet
Nowadays with all this rubbish about secondary smoking is bad for your health the Thais have clamped down a bit on smoking on the trains, so you have to smoke between carriages or at the very back of the train, obviously with the train bouncing around at 80kmph and the doors being wide open it makes it quite an exciting experience.
This is where the drugs come into the tale;
So there I am at the back of the train having a cigarette, when I noticed that the Thai guy who was crouched down was actually glue sniffing, he had the lid open on his tin of glue and seemed quite happy, he then saw I was smoking, just on the otherside of the partition was where the railway policeman was sitting, this glue sniffing idiot then complained to the police man that I was smoking, I mean there he is with his tin of glue complaining to a police man, bit of a shock that one.
As you can see in this picture the toilet is not really usuable by a foreigner, also the smell was unbelieveble, I managed to stay in there just long enough to take this picture.
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The video is taken in the smoking area of the train which some Thai guy decided was a good area to have a piss rather than use the toilet :(
Hat Yai to Chumphon Passengers
Forgot some of the people pictures on the Hat Yai to Chumphon train, this first guy got on at Surat Thani, he then laid out his mat and promptly went to sleep for a while, later he woke up, rolled up his mat, got a bunch of bead necklace type things out and then tried to sell them to other passengers.
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This is the carriage next to mine, the seats seem a lot smaller.
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Chumphon To Bangkok in the sleeper train
So 8.20pm was my train time to leave Chumphon, they had quite a few others at this sort of time, mine initiated from Surat Thani, not long after the train from Butterworth is probably due, but they had a few within those hours that were going to Bangkok.
Time to endure another 10 hour train journey;
The ticket for this one was just under 700baht, yep same length of journey I had just done for 70 odd baht but you get air con and a bed of sorts, also takes bloody 10 hours aswell, anyway when you got your own bed on a Thai train this does cause hangovers, I really have no idea why but I always get a real bad hangover from these trains, maybe some sort of gas or something.
Getting pissed up in the buffet car;
Now these trains are great, not only have you got your own air con bed they got a place to drink and smoke as much as you could ever want, yep time to nip down to the buffet car, this is the open windy section of the train where they try to sell what they call meals to unsuspecting people, me, I know all this already so it is beer and ciggys time, aint gonna eat that shite, and hell, 100baht for a large chang beer seems expensive, but it does help you sleep on the train if you get enough of them down you.
What did suprise me yet again was the lovely waitress, she asked me if I would like another large chang beer and obviously I couldn't refuse, she served me that lovely ice cold chang beer and then told me that all the carriages would be locked in 5 minutes, fok me, I staggered off out of the buffet car beer in hand wondering where the fok my carriage could be, these trains are bloody long, although I remember sleeping with a really sexy Dutch girl many years ago due to them locking the carriages, yep :) well we didn't have sex or touch each other or anything like that, but we did sleep together in the 3rd class section of the train cos we couldn't get back into our carriages :(
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Chumphon to Bangkok 3rd class carriage
The nasty poor people are in the carriages next to the buffet car so they can't complain about the noise and drunken farangs staggering though to get to their nice beds in the air conditioned train carriages, this video is of the 3rd class carriage and their squat toilet, no idea how much this costs but if you spend too long in the buffet car then you get to spend the night here :(
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Chumphon to Bangkok by train, my stagger on
Well I finally get to the air con trains section, bloody hell these trains are long, here is a video of one of the nice carriages where quality people stay, well ones that paid more than 70baht anyway.
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Chumphon to Bangkok and sleeping on the floor
Some people on this journey thought the floor was more comfortable than the chairs, yep Thai trains aint much fun.
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Chumphon to Bangkok by poxy train
Eventually I found my bed, yep had to climb up that tiny little ladder while the train swayed about all over the place, the train was due into Hua Lampong at like 6.10am so I knew I had enough beer in me to sleep till then, little did I know that people would want to get up at like 5am while I was sleeping and the train guard would like to wake you to tell you that it was only an hour till we got to Bangkok, it's like, "SO WHAT", I aint buying some really crappy breakfast, wake me up when we are at the station, he weren't having that though and his quest in life that morning was to annoy the fok out of me every 10 minutes, anyway I am really good at sleeping and got out of that bunk as we pulled into the train station.
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Bangkok Hua Lamphong Train Station
Well it seems that Hua Lamphong is all no smoking now, obviously I got off the train and lit up a cigarette, as I was walking down the platform to the main station I kept noticing the no smoking or drinking signs, at first I thought it was in designated areas as the signs were so far apart, couldn't find an ashtray or rubbish bin either so I think it is for the whole train station :( The West has a lot to answer for :(
Anyway this is a video of my train and the platform at Hua Lamphong.
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Hua Lamphong Train Station Bangkok
Hua Lamphong is quite famous, for what reason I have no idea, it was designed by some Italian guy over 100 years ago, I feel pretty sure that he didn't have KFC and Starbucks in mind when he designed it but thats what you get, and also no poxy smoking, 15 years ago this was a pretty rough place to hang out, pick pockets and other fun people like that, well some things don't change much but it looks a lot nicer now and you aint gonna get that 10 baht cup of coffee or 10 baht piece of chicken anymore, is progress really that good?
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Hua Lamphong to Ekamai Bus Station
Now if you walk straight out the main entrance of the Bangkok train station, stagger across the not so big road, then take your life in your hands and cross the really big road you can get a bus to Ekamai Bus Station, actually not sure which side of the road you need to be on to get to the bus station but you can ask at the train station, or of course if your a bit hung over and just had enough of travelling you can nip out to the right and get a nice meter taxi straight away, about 100baht to the Eastern bus terminal driven by a homicidal maniac, although the one I got must have been on a abit of a downer as he didn't think he needed to do 160kmph, perhaps there had been a recent death in the family or something, anyway it was quite a change not to hold onto the hand grips with a death like grip waiting for him to crash into a bus or something, or perhaps he was pissed out of his head and was taking it easy as he was seeing double of everything :)
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Bangkok Ekamai Bus Station
This is also known as Bangkoks Eastern Terminal, as bus stations go this one is pretty scummy, has loads of buses going all over Thailand, but if your just turning up in Bangkok the taxi scum will be all over you offering you the best deals in Thailand, just ignore them and walk outside and get a meter taxi, you aint gonna get any sort of deal from these guys and will probably be charged treble for a journey in a 20 year old Skoda from this lot.
Anyway the coffee is ok and they do sell beer :)
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Bangkok to Pattaya by Bus
So we got to go a bit further, dawn has broken, the hangover is still there, your in a smelly bus station in Bangkok and you want to go to Pattaya, you got 2 choices at least, the bus to Pattaya goes to the station in North Pattaya Road, now if your German and want to travel onto Naklua this is for you, if your any other nationality then this probably aint for you, the bus to Pattaya is probably about 110baht but your stuck at that bus station with the rip off merchants who will if given the chance take your life savings.
So here we go on the bus to Sattahip, maybe an extra 10baht but it goes past Pattaya Center Road and South Pattaya Road etc and you can ask to be dropped off at the lights anywhere along Sukhumvit and get a normal taxi driver who doesn't decide on the price depending on the bulge in your wallet.
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Chumphon to Bangkok Hua Lamphong train station
Time to get to the important stuff and toilets on Thai trains, now I assume most people aint a fan of these but when needs be you may have to use them.
This first picture is on the Chumphon to Bangkok train in the 3rd class carriage, it would take a better man than me to be able to have a poo in that while the train is moving along, I only went in to take the picture, this being not a local train it didn't smell so bad, so maybe the more upmarket Thais have a better aim than they do on the local trains.
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At least this one has toilet paper in the aircon section.
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A quick video of the smoking room on the train from Hat Yai to Chumphon.
