DAY 41 - LANGKAWI TO BANGKOK

MARATHON DRIVE AND SKETCHY BORDER CROSSING

The Boys Reach Thailand!

We all struggled to get up early and catch the ferry after a long night in Reggae Bar. We eventually made it to the port in time for the 11.30am ferry and got back to thankfully find the car on the mainland in one piece. From Alor Star it was only a short drive to our first sketchy section of the entire drive, the Malaysia/Thailand border. Southern Thailand and it's predominantly Muslim provinces has a history of separatist violence that has intensified since 2004. Since then over 2,700 people have been killed in the violence. There has also been kidnappings at the Malay/Thai borders. This was enough to give us the creeps!

Malaysian Customs Patrol

The border had three sections, first the Malaysian Customs, then no man's land and finally Thai Customs and Immigration. Things went smoothly enough although it did take a long time as most border officials rarely see anything of this sort passing through. At the Malaysian border, the head of customs looked after us and was having a good laugh telling us about other similar trips like ours which he'll never forget. In the office of the head of customs during the clearing process, Dave made an idiot of himself by falling off his chair while talking to the boss! See video below! The longest part was the Thai customs who couldn't get their heads around the Carnet for the Hummer which wasn't even necessary for Thailand in the first place!

Luckily all of the warnings and panic was not necessary as the drive went smoothly with no problems. We hit the road hard once we got through the border en route to Bangkok 1,400kms away. Other than petrol refuels, we only stopped once for a quick roadside feed. Dave put in a sterling effort with a 14 hour slog to get us to Bangkok. We finally arrived by 5am and took advantage of the city's tuk tuk expertise to find a suitable hotel in the popular Sukumvit area. Needless to say we were all out for the count the second we got to our rooms.

Finally, we've managed to source a program that enables Dave and Finto to view and edit our camcorder footage that is being taken for the documentary. The video on this blog is our first attempt.

DAY 41 ROUTE MAP