This morning we left at 6am for bus terminal. It was so early they didn’t have any breakfast ready for us which was a bit pants, but they did drive us there in a big comfy car. When we got to the bus station it was totally empty, we had arrived before any of the staff. After some time a minibus pulled up and took our ticket the driver unable to speak English spoke to our driver from the hotel who told him we wanted to go to the train station. It seemed to be all sorted but no sooner than we had pulled away we pulled in to another travel agent where there were other minibuses. It became clear they wanted us to change bus so we got all our stuff off one bus and onto the other. That bus then pulled away and drove off, not for long though. We got as far as a rest stop and they tried to get us to understand we had to change again. The problem was the third driver was demanding to see our ticket which was still with the first driver. Must stress and arguing later we got on our third minibus of the morning and tried to make it to Hat Yai in time for the train. The third driver hadn’t been told to drop us at the train station and was adamant he had to drop us at the bus station so after a bit of a rough journey very early in the morning we ended up at a bus station cafe trying to eat something veggie, with all our bags. After eating we felt fortified and got a cab (a mini van with a flat bed back and cover over it that we climbed into with the luggage) to the station. When we got to the station I got in the queue for tickets only to find that the train was full. We had two choices; stay the night in Hat Yai somewhere or take a bus. After the previous bus journeys we weren’t keen on the bus, but the guys selling the tickets told us it was not only cheaper than the train but that it left in a few hours and we would be there by 7am the next morning. In the end we were convinced and went to buy the tickets. The people there assured us we wouldn’t have to change bus several times and that we would be there early the next morning and that it was a VIP bus, which basically meant it had major aircon but surprisingly very comfy seats. It was probably the best bus we had been on. While we waited for the bus we had a chance to go to an internet cafe and book our hotels for Kuala Lumpur and Singapore via Agoda our new favourite cheap hotel website, it even gives us points so if we continue to use them we might get enough for a free stay.
The bus journey was quite comfy and we had enough space to get 2 chairs each. We stopped off after border control (which involved our driver who couldn’t speak English shouting lots but not really much security) then we got our first look at Malaysia. It was mostly warm and humid with lots of little geckos and plastic chairs - we were in a truck stop. After a short break to eat we got back on the bus and fell asleep. I woke a few times and felt like we must have been going really fast down a motorway, but after the state of the roads in all the other countries I thought I was dreaming. Suddenly at 2am we were woken by the driver yelling at us in Thai again, this time he bundled us off the bus to much protest and chucked our bags out of the luggage compartment. We were just getting ready to get angry that we had to change bus again when he pointed to himself and said proudly ‘Schumacher!’ asking a passerby we discovered we were in Kuala Lumpur nearly 5 hours early! He must have been really going some but we didn’t care as now we could get the last half of the night sleeping in a bed.
We turned up at D’Oriental Inn in China town almost a day early but luckily they had a room, it was also about 2 minutes walk from the bus station which was annoying as we had got in a taxi, but we just had to remember that it will always happen that way, every new place we go we will be conned by a taxi driver at least once until we get our bearings.