2 days in Kuala Lumpur and we have done some washing, eaten well, slept soundly and ready to continue northward. The overnight train from KL Sentral takes us though Kuala Kabu Bharu (Mum’s home town), Ipoh, Butterworth, and finally pulling into a deserted Padang Besar on the Thai border at 9am. Immigration into Thailand takes about an hour, and then back onto a Thai Railways train for the last 100 klms to Hat Yai.

Hat Yai is a large commercial centre and transport hub and is the largest city in southern Thailand. Not a very pretty place, although just up the road about 20 klms is the coastal town of Sogklha, a very popular place with Malaysian gentlemen. (The mind boggles, and having boggled … moves on)

A five hour bus ride gets us to Krabi on the western side of the Thai isthmus. (Isthmus… what a great word… rhymes with Christmas). Krabi was hit badly by the tsunami in 2009 but has made a good recovery. The tourists are dribbling back into the town slowly, and from what we can see… continuing to dribble while they are here. Such is the nature of Thai beach resort towns.

The Krabi Thai Hotel provides a bed for the night, alongwith aircon and Foxtel. Dinner at a local seafood restaurant is good tucker. Rice, grilled fish and Tom Yam soup… like being at home after Indonesian fare.

A lazy day wandering around Krabi, and then a long overnight bus trip via Surat Thani to Bangkok, (the bus of ferals), arriving at 6am. There are some beautiful stopover towns along the route such as Thap Sakae and Cha-am, but the road ahead is long and we skip past in the darkness of the Thai night.

Raining heavily in Bangkok.