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Drive around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 3

Tuesday, September 04th, 2007 / admin

Date : 20th December 2006
Time : 1.00pm – 9.15pm
Destination : Cha Am – Nakhon Sawan
Distance : About 450KM

Today, we are going to spend the whole morning at Cha Am to enjoy the seaside. The beach is clean and the sand are soft. It is still too early for others to enjoy the beach, my family basically occupied the whole beach where my kids have a wonderful time there.

The following photos taken at the rooftop of our hotel. Basically Cha Am is a small beach town like our Port Diskson, but the beach is just cleaner and the sands are just softer.

We left Cha Am at 1pm and heading north via highway 4 to Nakhon Sawan about 450KM away. We by pass Bangkok city as we do not want to caught in the traffic, anyway we are going to stop by Bangkok on our way back later.

As we hit the highway, we did our routine fuel stop as well as visit the popular OTOP shop beside the highway. OTOP stand for one town/district one product where that particular OTOP shop will sell the most pupular product or food can be found in that vicinity.

As you can see in the photo above, we just cannot resist to eat and buy buy buy….

The luxury of travel by car is that you don’t need to worry about overweight laugauge, you only need to worry about over spend. :)

We reach Nakhon Sawan late at night, about 9.15pm. To be honest, it is very difficult to travel at night in a new area. We have to keep focus and follow our member’s car in front of us and also need to make sure that the car behind us is not out of sight.

The rule to travel in our convoy is we have to make sure the car behind us is always within our sight. If we about to make a turn and the car behind us has not arrive, then we have to wait for them.

It is easy to see in day time as we can identify the car by model and colour, but you can’t do that at night because all we see on just lights . We have to rely a lot on our walkie talkie to make sure that the car behind us is still in the convoy. For your information, walkie talkie is a must when you travel in convoy as the convoy leader will inform the convoy about the direction and the condition in front of us.

There are few types of walkie talkie or radio that you can use. If you want to transmit more then 5km, then you have to use VHF car radio unit with external antenna with about 5o watts transmission power. Model like ICOM2200. V8000 are very popular chiose.

If you are travel in smaller group and the distance is not more then 2KM, then you can use some handheld unit like Motorola UHF GP328 with 4 watts transmission power.

Please take note that in order to operate VHF in Malaysia, you need to obtain a licence from MCMC after your pass the exam. For UHF 477MHz, it is a free frequency can be use by anybody without license.

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Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 14

Category: Cha Am, Nakhon Sawan Tags: Cha Am, Nakhon Sawan Leave a Comment

Drive around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 2

Saturday, September 01st, 2007 / admin

Date : 19th December 2006
Time : 7.30pm – 6.30pm
Destination : Nakhon Si Thammarat – Cha Am
Distance : About 550KM

A good night sleep at Twin Lotus Hotel recharge our energy. Wake up at 6am, proceed to standard american breakfast and depart at 7.30am. Before we start our journey, we gather together to get more detail of our journey today.

Our destination, about 550KM away, Cha Am, a popular beach destination for Thai facing South China Sea. It is less glamous then its neighbouring beach call Hua Hin where a lot of luxury resort resided.

From Nakhon Si Thammarat to Cha Am, we follow highway 401 going north, passing Donsak ( Ferry Terminal to Koh Samui) and rejoin Highway 41 at Surat Thani. Along the highway, we have our regular stop at pertrol kiosk cum rest area and also testing the popular coconut jelly.

The stall shown on the above sitted beside highway selling coconut jelly, its similar to our agar-agar here blended with fresh coconut and housing by the fresh coconut shell. It cost about RM3.00 each.

At 1pm, after travel about 330KM, we stoped at a large highway rest area for lunch, it was very crowded and we can see full bus load of Thai traveller.

As you can see on the above, the foods are just superb. We spend about an hour at the rest area and we are just eating none stop.

At the rest area, I notice Thai people are very artistic, just look at your buses you will understand what I am saying.

After lucnh, we continue our journey via Highway 41. There is an interesting place that we visited along the way. An elephant temple beside the highway. According to the local, before the highway 41 was built, this is just a normal trunk road and a lot of elephants are crossing the road, a lot of elephant was killed at the area. The vehicle passing by this area will sound their horn to warn the crossing elephant and this practice still continue until today. During our stop there, we can hear most of the car, bus and truck passing by sound their horn assuming they are warning the crossing elephant like old time. One more thing about this elephant temple, you can light fire cracker here… legally.

The elephant temple is located at a small hill slope beside the highway, at the road side, there are a lot of stall selling local stuff there, guess what, they sell banana, all types of banana and only banana by product. Deep fried banana, banana cake, banana biscuit with different taste. Check out the photo below.

Finally, we reach Cha Am at 6.30pm. We are so lucky that Cha Am is having an Sea Food festival where food stalls setup at the seaside promoting the delicious local seafood. We decided to check out the festival for our dinner.

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Category: Cha Am Tags: Cha Am Leave a Comment

Drive around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 1

Friday, August 31st, 2007 / admin

Date : 18th December 2006

Time : 6.30pm – 7pm

Destination : Nakhon Si Thammarat

Distance : About 700KM

Departure at 6.30am where Zheng Hao, Zheng Ni and Zheng Yuan are still sleeping. Our destination is Nakhon Si Thammarat, about an hour drive from Hadyai where most Malaysian are familiar with. Its a quiet jourway until Tapah Rest Area where we stop for breakfast and get the kids to wash up and change.

So how do you keep kids occupied inside the car for long hours… lot of toys, their favaurite story book, drawing board, kids computer, their favourite song and off course some junk food. Not forget pillow, blanket, soft toy to make their journey comfortable.

We reach Changlun border town about 12.30pm, take our lunch at one of the rest area/food court area which cater for cars, buses, lorries traveling to Thailand. The food court comes with money changer, sundry shops as well as Thailand Insurance agent where it is compulsary when your drive to Thailand.

We get all the documents done ( Insurance, entry pass/white card ) while waiting for others convoy member to arrive.

A total of 15 cars in our group and we departed at 2.30pm from the Changlun town, stop at the last petrol station to fuel up a cheaper fuel in Malaysia before travel to immigration check point at Bukit Kayu Hitam.

Going through Malaysia customer is a breeze and Thailand customer do not post any problem at all. Please make sure that you submit your insurance policy together with your original car registration card for verification and the Thailand customer will issue you a car entry permit. Keep the copy with you in the vehicle in all time and return when you are exiting Thailand.

Here we are, Sa-Wa-Dee-Krab ( Sa-Wa-Dee-Ka for if you are lady ) Welcome to Thailand.

The road towards Hadyai town is dual carriage highway and tol free. Since it is neighbouring to Malaysia border, the buildings and the environment are similar to what you see in Malaysia, except that all the advertisement signboards are in Thailand language.

The road sign in Thailand is very clear and the map produce by Thailand Tourism Board is very detail as well. Off course you still need a GPS to assists you if you do not want to waste any time figure out where you are and how to go to your destination.

An hour later, we stop by a rest area to take a pee stop. The small rest area in Thailand Highway is usually a petrol kiosk, a convenient shop like 7-Eleven and some food stall.

We finally reach Nakhon Si Thammarat at 7pm, check in to Twin Lotus Hotel and proceed to dinner at one of the unique restaurant build above a river. First night at Thailand and first Thailand food.

Back to hotel rest after the dinner, we need a rest after a long day drive. I did a short walk to Tesco right in front of the hotel to refill some food and drinks for tomorrow drive. Basically it is not much different from Tesco in Malaysia in terms of size and variety.

We do not have time to explore Nakhon Si Thammarat and we arrive late. For what my understading and what I see during a short distance from Hotel to the restaurant this is an ancient town and I saw an ancient wall in the city – Old City Wall The wall is 460 metre wide and 2,230 metre long. It was first constructed during the period of Phraya Si Thamma Sokarat and later renewed twice during the Ayutthaya Period.

Information and Photo from Wikipedia.The city of Nakhon Si Thammarat is one of the oldest towns of southern Thailand. Its origins are not fully known. Most historians recognize the Tambralinga kingdom of Chinese records as a precursor of Nakhon Si Thammarat. The town chronicles of this time are hardly separable from legend, but they do tell of an abandonment and refounding of the town, which would explain the break in history between Tambralinga and Nakhon Si Thammarat.References to a country named Poling appear in Chinese chronicles from the Tang dynasty period down to the early Ming dynasty. Many scholars identify Poling with Maling and Danmaling was one of the member-states of Sanfoqi (mean Srivijaya in Chinese language) in the central part of the Malayu Peninsula or now a day the southern Thailand. Consequently, Poling may also be equated to the Tambralingarat (Tambralinga state) that appear in Indian sources. By the end of the 12th century, Tambralinga had become independent of Srivijaya kingdom. Its rapid rise to prominence since the 13th century till the beginning of 14th century, Tambralinga had occupied the entire Malay Peninsula and become one of the dominant Southeast Asian states. By the end of the 14th century, Tambralinga had become a part of Siam (now Thailand) named Nakhon Si Thammaraj.At the time of the Sukhothai kingdom, the Nakhon Si Thammarat kingdom was already listed as one of the kingdoms under control of the Thai, which it has remained during most of its history. It was usually known as Ligor to European merchants in the 16th century. At the end of the 19th century, the kingdom was finally fully absorbed into Siam by converting it into the Monthon Nakhon Si Thammarat. With the abolishment of the monthon system in 1932, the town now is simply a provincial capital.

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