Surat Thani-penang, Border And Ins. ?

[sayitaintso]

making my first self propelled visa run to penang this week. anyone here that has driven across lately? i will be driving a vehicle

owned by the company i am going to penang for the non-imm B visa for and have the permission letter in my possession, obviously

not going to be indicating i work for them already but very curious if i am likely to be pulled aside and scrutinized for anything in particular.

how much should i expect to spend for 2-3 days worth of malaysian insurance?

do i need to produce any particular documents in order to get malaysian insurance or can i just expect to waltz in and back out?

any good online source for a printable map? i've googled everything and come up with no highway maps.

thanks in advance

[awayguy]

I drove over a couple of weeks ago...

You are supposed to have the new purple international car registration document, but nobody actually wanted to stamp the car in and out on either side of the border.

You do need Malaysian insurance and stickers with a "translated" version of your number plate. These are available from one of the agents on the right side as you enter Malaysia. The insurance and stickers cost me 900 baht (I didn't have Ringit) for 1 month - the minimum offered. May be cheaper on the Thai side?

There is then some kind of office (also on the right, just past the agents) that issues a driving permit that should be displayed inside the car window - this was issued on production of the Thai registration book, the Malaysian insurance and my UK driving license - they preferred that to my Thai license :-)

Nobody checks any of this on the Malaysian side, and for all I know you could get away without bothering. I doubt if Malaysian police spend much time checking the windscreens of Thai cars.

I won't be able to answer any questions on the above for a week or so as I am leaving for Ubon and then Laos via Chong Mek tomorrow. No idea what paper work I will need there!