Morning breakfast at hotel, my lady and grandma continue their shopping at the wet market.

After breakfast, we visit an old lady we met from our previous trip to Koh Samui.  Nice lady who still remember Zheng Hao, Zheng Ni, Zheng Yuan and Zheng Er.  This lady run a family restaurant near the odean shopping mall.

We checked out at 11am so that we can reach home earlier, lunch at the Chicken rice shop near Sadao.

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Grandma still remember the tasty pineapple that she tried the first day we arrived at Thailand.

20Baht each and we ordered 10pcs….

Grandma showing her skill to the stall owner. After lunch, continue our journey. Go through the custom clearance procedure at both country without any problem.  Reach home about 9.30pm.

Another wonderful trip for the whole family.

I am looking forward the next trip next year… may be Hua Hin..

Drive To Phuket – Day 1

Drive To Phuket – Day 2

Drive To Phuket – Day 3

Drive To Phuket – Day 4

Drive To Phuket – Day 5

Leaving our comfy home at 6.30am, driving at boring North South Highway, breakfast at Tapah rest area and finally real border at 1pm Malaysia time.

Since it is Sunday noon and I do not foresee heavy traffic at both Malaysia and Thai custom, after getting my custom document and car entry permit done at “Mini Cafe” as usual, I proceed to border and in less then an hour, I am having lunch at this popular Thailand Chicken Rice.

As usual, chicken rice + roasted pork + meat ball.

After lunch, continue our journey to Trang, our first night stop at Thailand to Phuket.  The reason why I did not stop at Hatyai this time is because distance to Trang is only another 200KM where I can cover in less then 3 hours, beside there are nothing much to see in Hatyai beside shopping.  I always plan shopping at Hatyai on the last day so that I do not need to carry so many things around.

On top of that, I will have more time to spend along the journey from Trang to Phuket ( like drop by Krabi ), about 300KM. Else, I have to cover 500KM from Hatyai to Phuket tomorrow.

Reach the hill top restaurant Khao Pubpa at 4pm and decided to have a shot break there, the distance from here to Trang town is about 30KM.

Zheng Ni, Zheng Yuan and Zheng Er.

Very refreshing environment.

Children having a good time with grandpa and grandma.

Zheng Hao and grandpa.

Grandma waiting for food.

Look at this, fried banana in round shape different from what we seen in Malaysia.

Finally reach Thumrin Thana hotel at about 5pm. The price is about RM150. You may book the hotel HERE. Check in and relax while waiting for dinner time.

The room is cosy and spacious.  The hotel is the best in Trang where it is popular among Thai business traveller. It cost about RM150.00 per night. I did not see other foreigner beside us.

Nice view from the hotel room.

Dinner time.  Decided not to drive after a long day. The hotel receptionist recommended a small restaurant about 1 minute walks away.

Food is good especially the fried rice with crab meat ( Khao Pat Poh in Thai ).

Wai Yee approved the food quality and we can return whenever we are in Trang.

After dinner, since the night is still young, we decided to visit the Trang night market held every week from Friday to Sunday.  The location is just beside the Trang city hall. A 5 minutes drive from the hotel.

Very popular stall selling chicken, in less then 30 minutes when we return from the other end, all the chicks are gone.

Look at that !!!!!

Grasshopper !!!!

Worms !!!!!

Grasshopper !!!

Worms !!!!!

Overall, it just another night market selling all sort of things from food, clothing, fashion accessories, shoe etc etc.

But the price is reasonable cheap as most of the customer is local.

Drive To Phuket – Day 2

Drive To Phuket – Day 3

Drive To Phuket – Day 4

Drive To Phuket – Day 5

Drive To Phuket – Day 6

Check out at 12.00pm after some shopping at local market.

Lunch at the famous chicken rice shop near Sadao.

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.

Drive to Krabi Day 1

Drive to Krabi Day 2

Drive to Krabi Day 3

Drive To Krabi Day 4

Drive to Krabi Day 5

Date : 20th September 2009
Time : 7.00am ( Malaysia Time ) – 4pm ( Thailand Time)
Destination : Kuala Lumpur – Hadyai
Distance : About 500KM

Meet with the rest of the members at Rawang rest area 7am. Since some of the team members are late, we decided to have our breakfast at Rawang rest area instead of Tapah rest area.

Depart Rawang rest area about 7.45am and reach ChangLun about 12.30pm.

Refill our car fully before crossing Thailand border, currently petrol in Thailand is selling about 30Baht per litre.

After refill we head to this Mini Café to have our lunch ( the food here is just filling up your stomach since crossing the customer may take hours during peak season )and prepare all the border crossing documentation.

All you need to do is pass your passport to the counter in the café, they will prepare the Thailand immigration white card with all the necessary information. Please make sure you check all the passport before leaving the counter. Please take note that you need the sign the white card as well.

You will also need to purchase Thailand insurance here ( There are a lot of places providing the above service, even just beside Thailand custom, but this place is the most convenient as they have a huge parking space.). It will cost you less than RM20 for 1 week 3rd party insurance coverage in Thailand. Please take note that your Malaysia insurance does not cover any risks while you are in Thailand, please check with your insurance agent on the 1st party coverage while you travel in Thailand.

We left the mini café about 1.30pm and proceed to the Bukit Kayu Hitam check point few KM away.

Traffic is slight heavy and it took us about 30 minutes to cross Malaysia check point and proceed to Thailand check point. As usual, park our car at the car park besides the custom building and proceed to immigration.

Once you stamp your passport, the car owner may proceed to the custom counter to obtain your vehicle import permit. ( They will not entertain you if you had not got your passport stamped) . Hand over the car registration card and your passport at the custom counter ( In the middle lane of the custom building – if you see somebody carrying our Malaysia Pink color car registration document, that’s the custom counter ) and they will print out the vehicle permit, proceed to the next counter just few steps in front of the custom counter, sign the document in front of the office and hand over the document to them.

Once the above procedure completed, you may proceed to drive your car over to the counter where you handed over the vehicle permit moment ago, the officer will hand a copy to you, please have a quick check to make sure it is indeed belongs to you. ( Please keep the copy safely as you need to return it to Thailand custom when you are coming back to Malaysia ).

Sawadee krup, welcome to Thailand.


Please take note that the Thai time is 1 hour behind us, it is recommended to adjust your watch, alarm and handphone ( especially if you use your hand phone as an alarm ) to local time once your cross the border to avoid miss communication.

It took us about 20 minutes to clear Thailand procedure and we proceed to Hatyai.

We reach Hatyai about 4pm and proceed to enjoy the local food, shopping and massage.

Little Princes is very excited about the trip.

Zheng Yuan and Zheng Ni at Changlung, refilling before we cross the border.This is the mini cafe where you can get all your immigration and insurance documentation done.

We are staying at Regency Hotel, right in front of the hotel is a restaurant selling famous roast piglet.  They are actually preparing it by the road side.

In front of the famous Lee Graden plaza where the night market located, we found this stall selling a lot of kuih, I strongly recommend the ” Ubi Kayu” with coconut milk. It cost about 20-30Baht per pack.

As usual, the night market is crowded with Malaysian due to Malaysia public holiday, you just feel like you are in Malaysia.

At night, Car 8 bring us to a seafood restaurant about 15 mins walk from the Hotel. To be honest, I don’t know the name and the location of the restaurant.  Apparently this shop is patron mostly by local Thai, there is another restaurant right opposite this shop serving mostly Malaysian.  I believe this is because the restaurant opposite hanging out banner in mandarin and english where it can attract non Thai speaking visitors.Car 3 cannot decide what to eat.

Crab?Sotong?
Prawn?
Wonderful meal and everybody enjoy the food.  The crabmeat fried rice is the best that I ever had or may be I am hungry after a long drive.

A slow walk to the hotel, we discover a lot of food stall along the road side selling different kind of foods.  We had identify a duck mee which we will try once we back to Hatyai from Krabi.

After dinner, continue shopping at the night market, massage and zzzzzzzzzzz

Drive to Krabi Day 2

Drive to Krabi Day 3

Drive to Krabi Day 4

Drive to Krabi Day 5

Drive To Krabi Day 6

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

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

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.

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 1

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 2

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 3

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 4

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 5

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 6

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 7

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 8

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 9

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 10

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 11

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 12

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 13

Drive Around Thailand in 14 Days – Day 14

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