No Morning call, enjoy breakfast at hotel and proceed to last minute shopping and massage.

Left for lunch at Sadao about 2pm.

Due to heavy traffic, both Thailand and Malaysia custom was very busy and it took us 2 hours to cross the border.

The procedure of crossing the border is quite similar where all the passenger must get down from the car to get the passport stamp. The drive must drive the car passing through the customer, hand over the car entry permit ( you need to get down from the car to sign the form and a log book – just park in front of the custom office at the end of the drive through lane ).

After you hand over the car entry permit, you may park your car at the parking space and return to the immigration office to get your passpost stamp. Once everything done, your may drive your car out of the parking and directly to Malaysia custom.

Duty free shop is on your right hand side and the price is 1 of the cheapest I encounter.

Passing through Malaysia custom is a breeze. Passenger do not need to get down from the car, just drive to one of the immigration lane, get the passport stamped, pay the toll ( ya, after no toll for 5 days ) and proceed to custom check, just answer the question by the custom officer and welcome back to Malaysia.

We reach Changlung about 7pm Malaysia time, dinner and proceed back to Kuala Lumpur.

It is a wonderful holiday and next year plan is in the process.

So, is it expensive to travel by car to Thailand ? A member”s Toyota Avanza used about RM300 fuel to cover about 1800 KM in 6 days, Toyota Innova about RM400, Toyota Hilux about RM400, Pajero 2.4 Auto RM700.

The price of petrol is about RM0.50 more expensive than in Malaysia but travelling in the speed of 90 – 110km/h proved to be very economical.

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 1

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 2

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 3

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 4

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 5

Check out early, breakfast at hotel and proceed to ferry pier to catch the 10am ferry. As I mentioned earlier, it is good to purchase the return ticker if possible so you don’t need to queue up again. In our case, we did not manage to get the return ticket from Donsak but we are so lucky that the Als Resort and Raja Ferry under the same owner, we manage to get our vehicle ticket from hotel.

Arrive at ferry pier about 9pm, proceed to the ticketing office to obtain the boadring voucher by showing the ticket that we bought from hotel. After that, move to another ticketing office opposite for passenger ticket ( I wonder why they don’t have it in 1 office ? ).

We board the ferry on time at 10am. Good bye Koh Samui.

We arrived at Donsak about 12pm and proceed to Nakhon Si Thammarat for lunch. Since everyone missed the A & A restaurant, we head back there for lunch.

After lunch, we proceed to visit the oldest temple with about 1500 years of history call Wat Phra MahaThat.












After that we proceed our journey to Hadyai via Songkhla ( Highway 408/407 ). Our plan was to visit the mermaid statue at Songkhla, but one of the member’s car having a engine over heating problem. Luckily the driver dicovered the increase of temperature and stoping by the road side on time before more damage done to the engine. A quick check discovered that one of the radiator host was broken ( It was replaced with new host before the trip ), a temporary host was used in order to move the car for another 50km until we reach a town where spare host available for replacement.

Total damage, 150Baht for radiator host from Isuzu ( modified to suit Pajero ), 200Baht labour. Paid the bill happily and proceed our journey.

So lesson learn, even new parts could fail you. Bring additional spare parts. The incident delay us for 45 minutes and its too late for us to visit the mermaid. We reached Hadyai at 7.30pm, checked in to hotel and proceed for dinner.

Again, wonderful dinner and good massage.

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 1

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 2

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 3

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 4

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 6

Again no morning call, its a and easy day. Breakfast at hotel and continue with pool, beach and massage.

At noon time, we proceed to visit another popular attraction, the Big Buddha.




There are a lot of stores selling local product at the Big Buddha area and the price is cheaper then Chaweng area.

There are a few restaurant at the Big Buddha area. The one that we had served good food and price reasonable.

After lunch, we drop by Wat Plai Laem about 10 mins away. The temple is grand with huge buddha statue.

After that, a slow drive back to Hotel. The road in Koh Samui is small the a lot of development by the road side, the comfortable driving speed is about 50KM per hour. There are currently a lot of resort development in Koh Samui and the price is not cheap as well. I glance through a local property publication, a studio in a resort cost about 12 Million Baht, that is about RM1.2Million.

More pool, beach and massage activities.

Dinner by the Chaweng beach.

You are my beutiful girl……

There are a lot of others activities you can do at Koh Samui, such as island hopping, snorkeling, diving, jungle trekking etc etc. We are not able to visit all the places due to limited time, may be next time.

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 1

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 2

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 3

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 5

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 6

No morning call today. We wake up about 8.3oam and proceed to enjoy the breakfast provided by the hotel.

After breakfast, we enjoyed the pool, beach and sea front massage.

It is very hot during mid day and out door activities is not recommended. We proceed to Lamai beach for lunch about 15mins drive away. We try a small local restaurant and supprisingly the foods are excellent and price very very affordable.

After lunch we proceed to visit one of the most popular tourist destination, Grand Father and Grand Mother Rock ( Hin Ta Hin Yai ). It is basically rock formation similar male and female genitals.

The rock formation is located next to the sea, you may get a better picture from professional photographer, please use google image search for ” Hin Tai Hin Yai “.

There are some store selling local sourvenior around the area as well.

After that, we proceed to visit another popular tourist attraction, Wat Khuraram. The body of Samui’s most famous mummified monk, Loung Pordaeng is on display here. Loung Pordaeng died over twenty years ago and as per his instructions, his body was placed in a specially designed glass case for posterity. It has remained there ever since and has showed few signs of decay.

After that, we head back to hotel and to enjoy the pool, beach and massage again.

And wonderful dinner time along Chaweng area ( Not by the chefs in the following photo )

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 1

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 2

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 4

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 5

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 6

After a nice breakfast, we proceed to Donsak Ferry Pier via Highway 43 to Phattalung and Highway 41/401 Nakhon Si Thammarat.

Driving at Thailand is very comfortable as the highway is well maintained and the facilities such as Petrol Kiosk, Toilet and convenient store is readily available. Standard Male Toilet along Thailand Highway.
We arrive Nakhom Si Thammarat at about 12.30pm, visited the old ancient wall as well as Tourism Board of Thailand (TAT) office. There are a lot of shops selling silverware behind TAT office which is one of the popular attraction among the locals.
We proceed to have lunch at Nakhon Si Thamarrat, TAT office recommended us a popular Thai restaurant in town, A & A restaurant. The food is very delicious and price very afforbable.

After lunch we refuel and proceed to Donsak Ferry Pier via Highway 401 . We reached Donsak Ferry Pier about 4pm.

As you approch the Ferry Pier, you can see a large car park area divided into 2 section, on the right to Koh PhaNgan and on the left to Koh Samui. You need to queue according to the line. Once you park your car according the the queue, you can proceed to the ticket office to check out the next ferry departure time ( I will advise the passenger to stay in the car first, just in case you are ready to catch the next departure ferry ).

Please take note you are not allow to buy ticket until you are issued with a coupon which indicated the departure time.

The procedure is the driver will need to wait for the coupon by the car at the car park ( others passenger can wait at the ticketing office with a small air conditional cafe and convenient store. ), the coupon will be issue about half an hour before the departure time.

Once you receive the coupon, you may proceed to the ticketing office to purchase the ticket. The price of ticket for vehicle with driver is 420Baht, adult 130Baht, children age 6-12 60Baht. So if you have 4 adults and 1 children age 8 travel in 1 car, you need to purchase 1 ticket for vehicle + driver, 3 tickets for adult and 1 ticket for children ( 420+390+60baht ).

Please do check with the ticketing office if you can buy return ticket so that you don’t need to queue for coupon when your return from Koh Samui. In our case, all the return ticket are sold out.

With the ticket and coupon in hand, you may now drive to the ferry pier where the worker there will direct you to the designated lane before boarding the ferry.

We managed to catch the ferry at 6pm, that means a long 2 hours wait. We are considered lucky as it could take about 4-6 hours queue in a busy day. Please take note the last ferry service is 17.00 and it may be extended subject to ferry availability.

More information about Raja ferry here. There is another ferry service call Seatran where ferry pier is located not far from Raja Ferry.

How big is the ferry ? I understand there are different sizes available. The one that we took carry four 44 seaters bus, four 40 ft container truck and about 30+ various size of vehicle . The ferry travel at 18KM per hour and it took about 2 hours to reach Koh Samui.

The ferry has seating for passenger, so once you park your car, all the passenger may get down from the car and proceed to the passenger area ( similar to Penang ferry)

Air Conditional Room with TV.
Convenient Store.
Sunset on Ferry.
Finally, we reach Koh Samui at 8pm. We drove to Als Resort located at the other side of the island and arrive at 9pm. ( There are some changes on the road at Chaweng beach as compare to the GPS we have, but we managed to sort it out with another GPS with newer map).

As you can see at the photo below, Chaweng beach is the hot spot at Koh Samui with kilometers of sandt beach, commercial and entertainment along the beach. Als Resort is located in the central of Chaweng beach.

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 1

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 3

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 4

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 5

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 6

Breakfast at Tapah rest area follow by lunch stop at ChangLung, the border town before crossing to Thailand.

We reach Changlung at about 1pm, prepare our boarding pass and car insurance at a restaurant/rest area ( short drive after Changlung town with a huge signboard ” Mini Cafe “.

Just hand over your passport and car registeration card to the counter and they will prepare all the necessary document to enter Thailand. The cost is RM1 per passport and the insurance depending on the car types and duration of stay. A minimum 9 days insurance for a saloon car cost less then RM20.00.

After everything is ready, proceed to Bukit Kayu Hitam check point for custom clearance. Passing through the Malaysia custom is very simple, just drive to the available counter and hand over your passport ( Passenger does not need to get down from car ). Once its done, we proceed to Thailand border where we need to park our car at the parking area and everyone must get down from the car and proceed to the immigration office. Once the passport is stamped, the car owner must proceed to another counter in the middle of the drive through lane to obtain a car entry permit. All you need to do is hand over the passport and the car registration card to the officer and he/she will print out a copy of the car entry permit to you.

You must proceed to the next counter in front of you to hand in the car entry permit to another officer ( The officer will ask you to sign on the car entry permit ), once you hand over the car entry permit to the officer, you can now proceed back to your car and drive through the custom, as you pass the custom, the officer will return the car entry form that you submited early on, please have a quick check to make sure that you collect the correct car entry permit.

All done and Sawadee Khrap, welcome to Thailand.

For your information, Thailand has an hour different time zone with Malaysia. 2pm in Malaysia is 1pm in Thailand. It is adviseable to adjust your watch to local time to avoid confusion.

About 45 minutes later, we reach hotel Mayflower Glande, Hatyai at about 4pm. Check in to the hotel and we proceed to enjoy the food and shopping as well as good massage after a long day drive.

As usual, the food is good and price is very reasonable.

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 2

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 3

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 4

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 5

Drive to Koh Samui – Day 6