Hat Yai Bangkok

From Hat Yai to the capital Bangkok.

This is a very tiring journey of over 20 hours on the road by bus. With the the railway, which runs parallel to the 4 lane highway and take. The probably best version to travel of course is by plane, when taking the aircraft one should first inquire from which airport to fly out of Bangkok because some airlines start at Subarnabhumi and others at Don Muang.

• The bus trip can start from the Mo Chit Terminal or from Bangkok's southern station since there are more coaches from the latter it might be better to use it. The Mo Chit terminal is dedicated to north and west bound travel plus Cambodia and south East. But buses can also leave from the other terminal there is nothing fixed in Thailand the only parameter is that they leave on time which is really amazing considering the relation Thai have to the time. The coaches are even more precise than the aircrafts which always have some delay since people cant straighten out things. 

Southern Bangkok Bus terminal.

To reach this two terminals is not so easy, if you have lots of luggage take the taxi and have the hotel write it down in Thai language otherwise you might end up at the wrong one, e.g. there is the Mo Chit Bus Terminal and the BTS Station, you will have a problem to make it clear to the taxi driver who try to get as much money out of you as possible, so hey maybe try some tricks. 

The most common cheat is, not switching on the meter, telling a wrong metering and claiming he has no change to return, so take some small ones.

You could also consider to start at the Hua Lamphong Train Station in Bangkok which is convenient but extremely slow and uncomfortable although is only slightly more expensive as the bus. Analyzing this situation come to the conclusion that the bus is the better option. One thing to do with the coach is you can leave anytime just tell the driver to stop, anywhere. The same is to join, just walk to the main road and raise the arm when a bus comes, when they have space they will stop and it is visible where they head to because there are always signs at the front indication this.    



Be aware that the BTS elevated train is not operating in the early morning and late evening. If you have only handbags use the BTS and get off at the current nearest station to the coach terminals (ask the hotel since this changes ) actually the best is to check the BTS website because most hotel employees also have no idea and instead of being honest and say "I dont know" they tell some nonsense just not "to loose face". Or because they cant make money out of the situation, keep in mind in Thailand everything is about money and the preferred pray are foreigners who are considered as a walking ATM.

Now after you reached the terminal start your search for the counter which shows a sign with your destination, be careful since there are many and all try to pull you over and on top of it some guys are running around who again want to pull you to a certain counter window where they get a commission for you which virtually means you are sold to the highest bidder who immediately try to retrieve the commission from you by some cheat. 

It is difficult to move around because ever sqm is occupied with something and be aware that there is no central information, everyone pretend not to know what the other are doing. This makes some sense (for them) because you don't know and cant find out if there is maybe another bus leaving more early or maybe is cheaper or whatever. It's just the usual chaotic behavior at you expense. 

About South Thailand travel by cheap bus tickets.

The tickets for coaches, van's, trains, ships, ferries and other public transportation are quite cheap relative to western standards. This is not so with airline tickets since the add awful sums on top of the regular fares called taxes and duties which finally are often two or even three times higher as the regular fare. 

As an example, the AoT (airports of Thailand) gave a 7 month bonus to all employees last year, guess where this comes from, they think they can milk the rich (foreigners etc.) That is a state company and well know for exorbitant high prices, it goes like this:

The higher management give the good shops only to relatives they open a store and pay a high kickback to the relative who "gave" them the shop. Now this corruption money must come from somewhere so high prices. On top of it shop rentals are extremly high and the money from that, where it flows?  

When heading south it might be a good idea to stop from time to time and have a look around there are plenty of great spots to explore. 

Once leaving the city, either Bangkok or Hat Yai the countryside takes over with fascinating panoramas and surrealistic limestone scenes. You maybe already have seen pictures from Vitenams "Halong Bay" and similar places in China here its very similar, probably the best scenery of this type is in Phang Nga Bay.