The Journey to Malaysia
The big journey we were psyching ourselves up for went by fairly non-eventfully.
We started off bright and early at 6.30 am in Koh Samui and were deposited in Kuala Lumpar at 5.00 am the following morning. Not quite the 29 hours we were told but long enough anyhow :-)
During the course of the trip we changed modes of transport some 7 times with countless minivans, a boat ferry, local bus and coach.
The only drama was in Surat Thani, mid morning, the 4 of us were alone in a minivan and driven to a back street travel agent who advised that we needed to pay her 3,000 baht (just under 100 USD) for Malaysian immigration tax at the border (still some many hours away). Our ignorance turned out to be our saving grace. Mark and I were busy thumbing through our Lonely Planet, trying to decide whether or not it was genuine, and making a phone call back to the travel agent in Koh Samui, when the lady trying to get her hands on our baht changed her mind and hustled us back onto the minivan. We met some young British travellers later that night who had been conned in a similar way! Just for the record, there were no taxes due at the border to either the Thai or Malay Authorities.
Our longest layover point was at 8pm at Butterworth in Malaysia. There was a two hour wait for the coach, and the kids were a bit over the whole thing by then, with Brannan telling us he was 'seriously fed up'. Still we were only 320 kms from KL and felt sure that we would get there in good speed... little did we know it would take another six hours.
Our only regret is that the Butterworth to KL leg was at night, Mark and I could only imagine at what the scenery looked like as the most amazing sihoulettes and shadows of mountains, cities and temples passed us by. We're seriously considering going back up to Penang once we have the Vietnamese airtickets and visas organised.
We started off bright and early at 6.30 am in Koh Samui and were deposited in Kuala Lumpar at 5.00 am the following morning. Not quite the 29 hours we were told but long enough anyhow :-)
During the course of the trip we changed modes of transport some 7 times with countless minivans, a boat ferry, local bus and coach.
The only drama was in Surat Thani, mid morning, the 4 of us were alone in a minivan and driven to a back street travel agent who advised that we needed to pay her 3,000 baht (just under 100 USD) for Malaysian immigration tax at the border (still some many hours away). Our ignorance turned out to be our saving grace. Mark and I were busy thumbing through our Lonely Planet, trying to decide whether or not it was genuine, and making a phone call back to the travel agent in Koh Samui, when the lady trying to get her hands on our baht changed her mind and hustled us back onto the minivan. We met some young British travellers later that night who had been conned in a similar way! Just for the record, there were no taxes due at the border to either the Thai or Malay Authorities.
Our longest layover point was at 8pm at Butterworth in Malaysia. There was a two hour wait for the coach, and the kids were a bit over the whole thing by then, with Brannan telling us he was 'seriously fed up'. Still we were only 320 kms from KL and felt sure that we would get there in good speed... little did we know it would take another six hours.
Our only regret is that the Butterworth to KL leg was at night, Mark and I could only imagine at what the scenery looked like as the most amazing sihoulettes and shadows of mountains, cities and temples passed us by. We're seriously considering going back up to Penang once we have the Vietnamese airtickets and visas organised.
