A 7600 kilometer sojourn in Thailand from Singapore

[Nainar]

Folks,

 

Have been having my share of fun with road trips in SE Asia. Been to Southern thailand beaches twice from Singapore driving and the itch got bigger to explore further up north. Thanks to fellow MCFers Josephsatu, Raymondism and Shor who have been there driving, was able to run my plan across them and get opinions. In my experience so far, driving in Thailand has been super pleasant and was not scary at all. That gave me the strength to get over the initial butterflies. It is a 15 My steed has been a 2007 2.4 liter Honda CRV with Michelin tires. It is a 19 day trip covering the history and breadth of Thailand.

 

The car that withstood the entire journey..

 

 

 

And these are the places we went driving from Singapore...

 

 

 

This feature of Apple is so cool, that when ever you take pictures using iPhone, they are geo tagged and go sit right where they should be in the map.

 

And the Odometer after the entire trip.

 

 

And when I mentioned I will be visiting Pattaya enroute, my friends gave me this thoughtful gift, calling me a bad guy..

 

 

A day by day run now...

 

Day 1 : 26th January 2013

 

This is the day when I start from Singapore. The NSHW that day was a night mare with so many traffic jams and accidents. The stats speak for themselves. I could average only 61 kmph. I might have seen 6-7 pileups because of accidents and dont know what is it with NSHW and the accidents that day. I left Singapore early morning around 7:00 and could reach Hatyai only by 9:00 PM in the night. The stay was at a place called Regency Hotel. It is nice place, costed me 1600 TB per night.

 

 

This is the route taken..

 

And the statistics..

 

 

Day 2:

 

Day2 plan was to drive all the way to Hua Hin. A distance of @800 kilometers to be done. The traffic was almost nothing and the road I took was AH2 all the way via Surat thani, The drive was super cool, with winding roads at times and I could average easily 90+kmph.

 

Here is the route taken

 

 

And here is a partial statistics as picked half way through.

 

 

The Sygic GPS application crashed when I was in Ayuthaya and I had to reinstall it, losing the travel logs between Singapore and Ayuthaya. Fortunately I had the screen captures which is what is published here.

 

The stay at Hua Hin was in Hyatt Regency. Thanks to Bro Raymond, I got a huge discount in the price of Club room. The hotel is massive and the beach is fantastic. Not much crowd and a quiet place to unwind..

 

Room

 

Beach

 

Barai Spa

 

Spa Washroom

 

Night market outside Hyatt called Cicada

 

If you happen to stay in this hotel, dont miss the massage. It was fantastic, and for a price of @2400 Bahts, i got two hours of massage. It was awesome. Do try the massage.

 

Day 2 stay was at Hua Hin and the next day is ear marked for sight seeing in Hua Hin. Will be posting them one by one. Now got to go and catch you all later..

[LoverofCar]

bro...thanks for sharing...it will be good to have photo enlarged....can't see much on the small photo..

[questionedfish]

760km you mean?

[Nainar]

760km you mean?

 

No,7600 km it is roundtrip.Hat yai alone is @800 kms from Singaporw, obe way.These are the first two days and more to follow.

 

I will see how I can fix those photographs.

 

Nainar

[Jaywhy]

Bro thanks for sharing. cant wait for more.

 

Btw, isnt hatyai to hua hin in a day pretty rushed? what time did u leave hatyai/arrive in hua hin?

[questionedfish]

I think it's been asked somewhere in the forum before...

What docunments do u need in order to drive to Thailand? Just bring along your passport will do?

[Sosaria]

Nice job, TS. Did you go driving by yourself, or bring whole family on the trip? Contingency for breakdowns in Thailand, how? I know being AA member is helpful for Malaysia.

Edited February 19, 2013 by Sosaria

[Ivanpaseo]

nice road trip! enjoy your trip TS. Update us on the journey!

[13177]

Thanks for sharing. But i have confidence and believe that your 2.4 litre Honda CRV should not have any problem surviving on the entire trip.

[Beehive3783]

760km you mean?

760km one way can only get you to Thai border la

 

 

[Nainar]

Here are the corrected photo links..

 

The places we went driving

 

 

The Odometer at the end of the trip.

 

 

The route taken in the first day

 

 

The statistics on 1st day

 

 

Route taken on second day, from Hat Yai to Hua Hin

 

http://www.mycarforum.com/uploads/1350738783/gallery_114255_265_54715.jpg/img]

 

Statistics of Second day to Hua Hin

 

 

Hyatt Regency Club Room

 

 

Hyatt Regency Beach

 

 

Hyatt Regency Spa

 

 

 

Night Market called Cicada, outside Hyatt

 

Edited February 19, 2013 by Nainar

[Nainar]

The trip is done and am back in Singapore after all the drives. We drove a total of @7600 kilometers from Singapore back to Singapore. The car stood the travel well and is still in one piece.

 

You don't need anything special to drive in Thailand. Singapore driving license holds good. My friend who came from India, had an International Driver's Permit which is acceptable as we ll. And we were stopped by Police enroute Phayao when my friend was driving and they accepted my friend's IDP. So, you are ok if you have any of these.

 

It was just me and my friend. The only contingency plan we had was the contact numbers of AA. I am not a member but was hopeful that if I call they will find some one to respond. Fortunately ( touchwood ) I did not have to do avail any such services.

 

Driving from Hat Yai to Hua Hin is a very pleasant. I started from Hat Yai by 9:30 AM and was there in Hua Hin by @5:00, in time to take a massage. You can easily average 100+ kmph as there is not much traffic and roads are awesome. A distance of @780 kilometers, you can gobble up in 7.5 - 8 hours. without pushing hard. No big deal at all.

 

Will post the update for the rest of the journey once I get home.

 

Nainar

[Tohto]

Thanks for the very nice road trip. Hope to see more photo and report.

[Kurty]

wow, really envious.

 

not many who can leave their jobs and commitment, to embark such journey up north for 19 days.

kudos to you.

 

but for thailand entry, don't you need a thai number plate??

often i saw cars with another set of thai number plate and was told that it was for thailand entry.

[Josephsatu]

No need, only for thai vehicles going in to MY 'cos the police can't thai

Edited February 21, 2013 by Josephsatu

[Josephsatu]

Bro, I take my hat off to you!

Waiting for your "Isarn" reports

[Caravan]

Wow this is very impressive! Hope I can do something similar one day.

[Nainar]

Bro, I take my hat off to you!

Waiting for your "Isarn" reports

 

You guys gave so much information that it was a breeze driving through. I will find time this week end to publish the photos and complete the travelogue. In Isaan as you can see in the places, we went to Chiang Khan, Nong Khai, Khon Khen . I dumped the plan to go to Ubon Ratchathani, Nakhon PPhanom, and instead spend the time in Pattaya. I have kept that for another trip, may be fly to Bangkok and drive around for a week. But there is so much to explore in Thailand. The more I traveled, the more I fell in love with the place, people, natural beauty.. So two more trips are in the anvil but I need to find time.

 

I could drive my SG Registered car without any problem through out. In fact we were stopped by police when going to Phayao and the officer was surprised to see a SG registered vehicle in the vicinity and his assistant was exclaiming the steering is in the same side as Thai cars.

 

Nainar