siam 2008: DAY 1 & 2<kL to Ao nang, KRabi>

IntRo
With the Chinese New Year holiday looming in a few weeks, me and a few friends were toying for an idea of a backpacking trip of some sort to South of Thailand; an 8-day journey to Ao Nang Krabi, Phi-Phi Island and Phuket to be exact.

Itinerary

Invitation was forwarded and initially as many as 11 people were interested. Yeah...enough to form a soccer team to play a friendly against any Thai opposition who dare to challenge us.

Then,some people backed-out due to work-commitment/ spouse do not approve/ high school prom etc, so the contingent was finalized to the not-so-magnificent 7: Joeneng,Joker,Amir,Jos,husband-wife duo of Scott and Farah and yours truly.

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DAY 1, Friday 1/02/2008: KL Sentral - Haadyai - Ao Nang, Krabi

Map day 1

The 550 km journey from KL to Haadyai was by KTMB Nitetrain, and the crawl continued by van for another 300km to Krabi.

But this trip was started on a backfoot.  Why? We assembled at KL Sentral to board the Haadyai-bound train. Unfortunately the train was delayed to 11.15pm from its designated schedule of 8.45pm. Yeah...a 2 hour plus wait as these 3 pix shows:

'grievences'

Boarding KL Sentral-Haadyai NiteTrain

Finally we managed to step onto the coach... the journey curtain officially raised

NotSoGreat Train Robbers

The suspects

of course there was a lot of politix happening inside; overnite and the morning after
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DAY 2, Saturday 2/02/2008: KL Sentral - Haadyai - Ao Nang, Krabi (continued)

Smoking J @ Butterworth stop

"At least 165 cm, putih"

    

Surrender at Padang Besar Immigration

at approximately 1pm, we arrived at State Railway of Thailand's Padang Besar Immigration Terminal; and succumbed  to their protocol and demands

We were informed that since the train was late (due to delay last nite), the train's engine headcoach had to rail back to Malaysia. The journey to Haadyai will be piloted by another headcoach, 'exclusively' brought  over from  Haadyai  station...another  1 hour  plus waiting game...so  we had lunch there and just wondered around like clowns
checkout this 'pendatang tanpa izin' description on the left pic below

Description of an 'Alien', according to Siam Immigration

Leftover Crack

Joker's fast right foot

Haadyai-bound re-starts...it was 2.30pm and we were late and deep into the afternoon...thankfully these magnificient landscapes make up for the lost time

and finally about 40 minutes later we were well and truly there

Haadyai Train Station

'arrival'

Two-third journey of the day completed

to people who are curious what Haadyai look like...

Haadyai the town

but, this is only as far as Haadyai...the actual destination today is Ao Nang, Krabi...and that was another 4 hour(!) drive by road... i feel my back started to explode soon.
Hired a van, fortunately quite big and comfy...apparently owned by a Penangite

Unlucky van passengers

the drive brought us along the southern rural links, towns and  village. Stopped for makan-makan at one of the Rest Area at a place called i-dont-know-where-the-hell-i-am

A pause at R&R, Siam version

First the train delayed us twice (yesterday at KL Sentral and mix-up today at Padang Besar), then another mini-setback strucked. 
Apparently , the van driver  double-houdini-act as a distributor.  We had to endure almost 1000 stops at certain places for him to load things and drop them over at shops along the route. 
So the 4 hours ride was extended to close to 6 hours....its kinda sad and funny at the same time...harharhar

at 9.30pm, we were finally there...after a 22 hour journey (time sufficient for people to travel from KL to New York/London/Los Angeles/Tel Aviv?).  Checked-in at JMansion, where the ever-friendly 'Mr. Big', who was notified earlier on our superlate arrival, was already waiting for us. Recommended by Lonelyplanet, a nice room for 800 Baht (RM80) per night, for those who wondered

Check-in at JMansion

Booked 3 rooms for
2 nites. and obviously the tasty landing capsules in those rooms were waiting for some exhausted bodies...but not before Amir, Jos and me sneaked later to hangout at a nearby Irish Pub to enjoy some drinks+live soccer.

End of day 1&2