HI there,

I'm planning on visiting southern Thailand, and then crossing over to Malaysia, to visit the north part of the country.

Does anybody have any experience on this? Because it looks like quite a hassle to take a train down to Malaysia.

I would be very pleased to get your advice

thank you

Nesvibe Paris, france

Yeah I'd like to get some guidance on this too. I'll be doing it the other way round, travelling from Bali up to Bangkok.

Nesvibe, have you checked the Air Asia website, they're not the most punctual of airlines (I've not flown them yet myself-I'm going on what I read here) but, I will be using them when we arrive in KL. They are cheap as F too. I saw a flight the other day from KL to Kota Baru or Kinabalu can't remember, anyway it was 1.99 MYR, = 27 UK pence.

redrus

redrus,

i heard about Air Asia, and i do agree on the great prices they offer. I was planning on going to Kota Kinabalu myself, but i think I'll just stick around peninsular Malaysia, after Thailand of course.

My main problem is that I want to get from Surat thani (thailand) down to Alor Setar in Malaysia, so that I can get a quick look of Langkawi Island. Since i dont have much time, I wonder what is faster: bus or train?

If you have any info on that redrus, or anybody out there, please let me know. Thanxxxxxxx

Bus.

The train leaves Surat Thani sometime in the middle of the night (scheduled for 1am dept but rarely does). Minibus to Hat Yai and then share taxi or minibus to your destination.

Why don't you train / bus down to Satun and take the ferry to Langkawi from there instead? You can then go directly on to the Malaysian mainland from there. That way you also avoid the deeply unpleasant, truck-filled border crossing at Sadao and the monotonous motorways down from Had Yai.

Don't think there's a train station in Satun (someone correct me if I'm wrong), so if you want to go by train, you may have to change to a bus in Trang.

I believe you can also take a boat from Satun province in Thailand to Langkawi. The boat takes 45 minutes and Satun is one hour away from Hat Yai.

edit: HarryHerb, you were 30 seconds quicker

If you just wanna check out Langkawi, why not take the ferry at Satun (spelling??). There's a direct ferry from there to Langkawi jetty.

In Malaysia there are 2 ways of going to Langkawi by land/sea - Kuala Perlis (in Perlis which is closest to Thailand) and Kuala Kedah (if i'm not mistaken that is the name) in Kedah but i think it is quite a distance from Alor Setar.

Explorer

Florin: You're 1 min quicker than me

thanx ofr the very helpful information!!! you guys are great, cheers!!

Where to stamp out/in in Satun? At the Jetty? Or is it like in Ranong somewhere in Town?

Txs