Bangkok Airport closed, Singapore to Bangkok by car, part three

2008 December 1

tags: Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Leica, Malaysia, Photography, Singapore, Thailand, Travel

by leolaksi

Hat Yai to Bangkok

After a restful night, we woke up around 700am for the final “push” to Bangkok. I had arranged for my driver to meet us in Hat Yai. He had driven from Bangkok the previous day and was well rested for the return to Bangkok. If you don’t have a pre-arranged driver, don’t worry about it. In downtown Hat Yai there are many transportation businesses to take you north to Bangkok (or south to Malaysia) via car, van, bus or even rail. There is no difficulty arranging this.

After I had the breakfast buffet at the hotel I went out for a short walk before the long journey to Bangkok. We estimated that it might take about 12 hours to Bangkok which turned out to be accurate.

Local restaurant in Hat Yai

More places to eat

Where to eat?

Within a couple of blocks of the hotel were lots of little restaurants for breakfast, mainly Thai or Chinese-style, whereas the hotel cafe had a buffet that was mostly Western with some limited Thai or Chinese food. Either way, the food was good.

We started out about 830am for the long drive to Bangkok. The highway were very good although not of the limited access type like in Malaysia. Therefore, you had to be alert for all types of vehicles. In a couple of stretches of highway, there was a cow or two in the median.

We only saw one accident scene during the entire trip from Singapore to Bangkok and this was just north of Hat Yai.

Only accident seen on trip

The highway to Bangkok has lots of petrol stations, restaurants and large superstores like Tesco-Lotus. In fact, we stopped several times for petrol and a couple times just to stretch our legs. The best stop was at the Tesco just south of Nakhon Si Thammarat. In addition to many Thai restaurants in the food court, there were several Western so it was easy to find something to eat.

By 500pm, we were considering a stop in Hua Hin, a great beachfront resort three hours south of Bangkok. Hua Hin is replete with five star hotels, seafood restaurants, and things to do but by this time we wanted to finish the day in Bangkok.

Last stop for coffee before Bangkok

We finally made it to Bangkok around 900pm and still felt pretty good given the 12+ hours it took to complete the day’s trip.

The two day trip was efficient and quick using five different vehicles. A rental car from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, a hired limo from KL to the Malaysian-Thai border, two taxis over the border and a private van to Bangkok. This trip could have happened with one fewer vehicle or with different segments using other means of transportation like buses, trains and planes but how often can you take a road trip through three countries in two days. Although the approximately 2000 km trip would have been easier in three days, two days were not insufferable. To emphasize, there was not one problem that occurred during the trip and I would recommend this journey to anyone. If there is any one lasting memory, it’s how friendly people were during the entire route.