Our stay at Kanchanaburi had come to an end. Now it was time to get to Malaysia before our 2 month Tourist Visa ran out.
It’s fair to say that we love train travel. It’s relaxing, relatively easy and also very cheap in SE Asia.
Kanchanaburi to Bangkok
First leg of our journey was the train trip from Kanchanaburi back to Bangkok, just a mere 210 km (4 hour) journey.
We arranged for a motorbike taxi pick up from our Guest House to arrive at 6.30am. Sure enough, there he was waiting for us when we came out at 6.20am.
Our first mode of transport for the day.
We weren’t really that far from the train station but just a bit too far to be lugging our packs. We were super early for the train which was due through at 7.10am.
Our train arrives at Kwai
There is no need to book seats, so as soon as the ticket office opened we brought our two tickets to Bangkok (Thonburi Station). Our tickets cost 200THB ($8nz) for both of us for the 4 hour trip.
Arrival in Bangkok
The train trip went without a hitch, arriving Bangkok at around 11am. We had to then catch a taxi to Hua Lamphong Station for our train south to the Thai/Malay border town of Padang Pasar.
Now, if you are going to be travelling by train to other major destinations in Thailand, the chances are that you will be departing from this station.
It is one of the busiest in all of Thailand.
We had around 4 hours to fill in so we put our packs into storage and made our way across the road to the office of 12goasia. We have used this booking office in the past for our train/ferry/van transport and found them to be very professional and easy to deal with. They are particularly useful if you have more than one form of transport to book. You can contact them direct if any of the services you are travelling on are late or do a ‘no show’. They can sort it all out for you saving you having to make numerous calls.
We uplifted our tickets, had a bite of lunch in an alleyway and headed back to the station to wait it out.
Our tickets cost us 2400THB ($99nz) for both of us.
Sleeper Train to Pedang Besar
As this wasn’t our first experience on a 2nd Class Sleeper train, we knew what to expect.
The train departed right on time at 3.10pm and we were on our way to Pedang Besar. We only had another 15 hours to go!
Relaxing, bunk bombing and BYO breakfast
We had brought snacks in Bangkok to munch on during our trip as the meals and snacks which are brought around by the food vendors aren’t that enticing and are expensive compared to bringing food from outside sources. What more do you need for breakfast but a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.
The staff dutifully called around to make up our bunks at around 7pm and the carriage slowly quietened as everyone bedded down for the night (except for the snorer a couple of bunks down – that’s why we have good ear plugs).
Arrival in Pedang Besar
The train ran pretty much on time and we pulled in to Pedang Besar at 10.45am.
We made our way to customs to get our departure stamp from Thailand. It was then just a case of wandering along to another platform and entering the security and customs area for Malaysia.
Malay side of the border looking back towards Thailand
Our packs went through x-ray scanners, got our entry stamp in our passports and we were in Malaysia. Easy as that.
We located the ticket office and brought two tickets to Ipoh for 66MYH ($21nz) each.
The trip from Pedang Besar took 2.5 hours and we were on a very comfortable high speed electric train.
Our average speed was up to 140km per hour. Just bliss to sit back and relax – oh and enjoy our complimentary snack on the way.
Summary
We find that train travel throughout SE Asia to be relaxing, safe clean and easy to use, not to mention cheap. If you have the time to spend it is certainly a option worth considering. You get to see a lot more of the country. You also interact with the locals and see how they go about their daily lives.
Click on the link below for highlights of our train travel across Thailand to Malaysia.
It’s nice to read an interesting blog written by grown-ups. Great read and photos.
Thanks for your feedback Mark, we like like to tell it how it is…..what you see is what you get. Nothing fancy, just hope to help others who are thinking of taking the same journey.
Definitely agree that train journeys are relaxing and we prefer to do train it if viable and cheaper than flying. It’s been interesting following your journey through Asia.
Suz