Road trip to Hat Yai, Thailand

Driving on the street of Hat Yai

It has been slightly more than 10 years since I last visited Thailand.

It was really an eye opening experience being able to tag along Wendy and her friends to Hat Yai last month. And of course many thanks to Ah Sea for being our driver! Without her we would be literally blinded in the alien land up north.

It took us about 5 hours ride from Penang as we decided to go through the not-so-hectic Padang Besar (Perlis) check point rather than the usual Bukit Kayu Hitam (Kedah) entry point. Arriving there, we first checked in to the drive-in hotel and later on went out for lunch.

The name of the hotel is Leelawadee Resort (thanks to Wendy for remembering!) I can’t really recall what is the name of this hotel but and it’s reasonable cheap! It only costs us about 350 baths per night!

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Navigating the Halong Bay

Alright, this round I’m going to tell you the story about our second stop during our days in Vietnam. As the title can tell, we are heading to Halong Bay on the second day of our 5 days tour.

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World second largest rice exporter

One week before Hari Raya, Wendy suggested on going on a trip somewhere to kill the free time on the Raya week. So, I went and searched around for cheap tickets on places around. Too bad, in the end of planning, Wendy needed to stay put at home to take care of her parents. I’m sure we can go on trip again in the near future when her father gets better!

Anyhow, I went on with my parents in the end. It was a 5 days 4 nights trip to the world second largest rice exporter country. The country with over 3 thousands kilometers of coastline. Insane.

We traveled using MAS’s as it offers hassle-free transit and it’s actually slightly cheaper than Air Asia. Furthermore, we don’t need to pay a single cent for the meal served on board.

Flying for 3 hours plus without (FREE) food and drinks can be starving and thirsty.

We had our fist lunch at quan an ngon in the Old Quarters after arrival. It’s a well known place among the locals and tourists. Many have recommended this place so we gave it a try.

What you see on the left is what Vietnamese love to eat. Often, they like to wrap their food around like this. It’s something similar to Japanese’s temaki.

Well, I must say that we are not really “into” the local foods over there. Nevertheless, it is a very good experience!

Just enjoy the photos I took during the trip and I’ll tell you more in the next post.

Staying alive is a key to another great trip, you will know why in the next post.

Till then, take care.

PS: Oh ya, if you are viewing the photos in the photo album, make sure you try the slide show feature ya!

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Commuting in Hong Kong for tourists, Octopus Card

Today I’m going to talk about the very basic survival ways in Hong Kong as a backpacker!

Surviving in the large city, first thing first

Apart from ensuring you do not lose anything while packing yourself out of the airplane, you need to do this right after you get off of the plane. Remember to grab whatever-paper-newspaper-brochure-map-guide that you can see once you touch down. They are FREE but yet highly informational! It’s especially useful to me as I forgot to bring along my Lonely Planet’s Guide to Hong Kong and Macau. Pathetic!

A map is really what you need to kick off your trip! It’s particularly useful when you need to plan your day, see if your desired locations connect to each other in geographical sense.

Get Octopus

That’s really what you need to kick off your trip (also!). We can use it to pay at (very) wide range of merchants across the city and at almost all means of public transportation. Here is how it works.

• First of all, pay HKD50 as initial deposit for the Octopus card. It’s available at all MTR stations and major transportation hubs.
• Top up with the usable value you need, say HKD100. (You have actually paid HKD150 including the deposit)
• You may use continuously until your usable balance finishes.

Overdrafting

• Let say that your usable balance now is HKD10. We may tap into the initial deposit as much as HKD35.
• This translates to amount of HKD10+HKD35 = HKD45.

Example below…

Card balance : HKD 62.40

Transaction amount: HKD 76.80

Balance: HKD62.40 – HKD 76.80 = – HKD 14.40

As you can see, the card now has a value of negative 14.40. We will need to reload it to its positive value before we can use it again.

PS: Over-drafting it is the second best way of spending all the money possible inside the card just in case you forget to return the card before you leave Hong Kong. Just like me.

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Skip LDP Puchong Selatan toll

Update 21 Aug 2009: You can explore this route using this map that I have drawn in Google Map!

Update 2007:

Cheng Cheng! More people got to know this route via NST. Bravo Bravo! Kill the TOLL!

!

Update 3 Feb 2007:

New map: (To clarify your doubts, picked from google map… the guide same as the simplest! instruction above.. after roundabout 3oclock , left, right, left… DANG!)

Update November 2006: Road construction finished and you can easily hit 100km/h on the fresh new hot road surface!

Ever wondered if there’s free road to get out of the concrete desert? Here’s one simple guide for you to get to Puchong/Bukit Jalil without going thru any crappy toll booth.

Using the usual way of going out of Cyberjaya. Go all the way straight, pass thru Kajang/Seremban intersection. Take the next exit which is Serdang/Seri Kembangan.
Next, when you hit the traffic light, turn left or you may want to go straight as well. I assume you turn left, go straight all the way till you reach a roundabout. Take 3 o’clock turning (turn right) and go all the way till you see a intersection. At the intersection, turn left and go all the way straight till you reach another intersection. From there, turn right and go all the way!! You will pass thru dozens of houses all the way then you will see a fuel station on your right. Don’t care bout it, just go straight….

Notice that in the map you can hop into Bukit Jalil highway but its now CLOSED for upgrading work. You need to go into Bandar Kinrara. Its now shown in the map but ill brief you guys thru.

You go all the way.. theres only one way when you see the fuel station. Go all the way till you see intersection, turn left. You see one rows of flats on your left, go all the way till intersection, turn left again. Go straight all the way till you see trafiic light.

Red Line: Turn left to go to Puchong, Sunway, Subang.
Purple Line: Go straight, all the way till another traffic light, turn right will lead you to old klang road.
Blue Line: If you going to Bukit Jalil then you need to turn left, then turn left again then you will hop into Bukit Jalil Highway already. (remmeber its the left turning after the traffic light, taking the first left will lead you to Puchong)

So… after all these lengthy explanation you still want a even easier guide?
ok.. no problem…

From the highway in Cyberjaya. Exit to Serdang/Seri Kembangan.
Traffic light? Turn left.
Roundabout? Turn right. (3 oclock)

Intersection? Turn left.
Intersection again? Turn right.
Intersection again? Turn left.
Get back to the map to choose your route you desire~!

Hope my guide is helpful to you.
Information: There’s road construction going on along the stretch from traffic to roundabout. Be careful when driving!

OLD MAP:

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