Part 7 Back to Hat Yai By Mini-Van

16 Mar 2012 – Our Last Day in Thailand

At 7.30am, we checked out of our hotel. To our surprise, our designated driver couldn’t make it so he had arranged a friend of his to pick us up. It was a mini-van. The driver promptly took us to the ticketing office in Phuket town where we had booked our tickets. Our van was scheduled to leave a 9am and reach Hat Yai 2pm (in 5 hours).

The van in front of the travel agent office

We were there early, so we left our bags at the office and walked to a nearby restaurant for breakfast.

What we saw at the breakfast table

This was also at the breakfast table - green chilly, red chilly, soy sauce, sugar

Within 30mins, we were asked to get into the van (at 8.30am). We were allocated the back seat as it it can sit a family of four.


Soon, the driver got in, stopped at a few places to pick up more passengers. The capacity of the van was 12 pax. By the time we reached Pattalung, the van had 13 pax (10 adults and 3 kids). The driver sped most of the way, doing 120km p/hr. Every now and then, he was on his handphone, which got irritating after some time. The van had excellent pick-up.


There was a short toilet break in Pattalung (10 mins). Lunch stop was at 1pm in Trang, about 30mins. Then it was all the way to Hat Yai. When we entered Hat Yai main town, it was 3.30pm. We were at near panic as we had a train to catch at 4pm. Just as our luck would have it, there were police manning the roads in town due to a chariot procession so traffic was diverted.

At 3.40pm, N reminded the driver about our train. To our shock, he made signs indicating that he didn’t understand that we had a train to catch! It was the first thing we told him when we got into the van in the morning. And it was what the lady at the ticketing office had assured during booking. Luckily, a fellow passenger in the van translated ‘train’ in Thai for him and I had to back it up with a ‘chu chu train’ sound. Then he went, aiyah, oh-oh, which scared us even more.

At 3.55pm he dropped us at the station. We ran with our bags, a guy showed us the right platform and a KTM staff saw us coming. It was a close call!

KTM

Alas, after so much huff and puff, the train only left the station at 5.20pm not at 4pm as scheduled. I think they were waiting for the engine.

Upper berth

The sleeper coach

Comfortably tucked in

This time, we had the sleeper coach. We reached Padang Besar immigration checkpoint at about 6.30pm. The check was fast and when it came to customs check, knowing we were Malaysians we were asked us if we had bought anything. I said T-shirts. The officers were quite friendly. I did notice a bio-metric scanner at work for foreigners entering Malaysia.

We quickly grabbed a few packets of ‘nasi lemak’ for dinner and waited at the platform. We definitely slept better this time.

Reached KL Sentral at about 8am.


Some Tips :-


1. The journey from Phuket to Hat Yai via mini-van is supposed to be 5-6 hours. Ours took almost 7 hours. So if you have a train to catch at 4pm, please stay the night in Hat Yai.


2. Our bus journey from Hat Yai to Phuket costs us 1180baht whereas the mini-van costs us 1350baht, 2 adults and 2 children. In terms of leg space and comfort, I think the bus was better.


3. If you travel via KTM, go for the sleeper. The difference between the seater coach and sleeper coach for an adult is about RM6-RM12 only. Adult seater is RM48. Adult sleeper is RM54 (upper berth) and RM60 (lower berth).


4. When a non-English speaking Thai driver nods his head as if he had understood, don’t assume he had understood. Repeat many times or get a translator.

5. Come prepared with a paper, magazine or a book so that you don't get distracted by a speeding driver. And if you have young children, make sure they too have something to occupy themselves with.

I can be reached at sivakay2009@gmail.com