We just completed Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand road trip. We spent 9 days road tripping in Thailand and couple of days in Malaysia. The trip includes me, my wife, and our three children aged 6 years, 3 years, and 10 months. We were driving on almost 10 years old Mazda MVP.

This was our first time crossing land border between Malaysia and Thailand. We had slight concern before commencing the trip, such as the car importing paperwork, the weather, specifically there flood in northern Malaysia and South Thailand the week before we plan to cross the border. We were also worried about safety and the road condition. But after all, the trip was very smooth and we didn’t experience any issues or troubles at all. The children are also enjoying the drive and most importantly nobody get sick along the way.

Since we traveled with young children, we take the drive with easy, do staycation in most of accommodations and didn’t push too much on exploring too many places in a day. But in the end we still manage to visit few attractions, tried different foods and stop in plenty good spots along the way.

In this post, we share brief experience from the trip. We will try to write in more details in the upcoming posts. Please follow our social media to get the update.

Itinerary

• The total driving distance should be around 2800Km once we reach back in Singapore.
• 2 night in Kuala Lumpur (Pullman KL City Center Apartment).
• 3 nights in Penang (Mercure).
• 1 night in Hatyai (Midtown Hotel).
• 2 nights in Sichon (The Campers).
• 3 nights in Phuket (Pullman Phuket Panwa Beach).
• 2 nights in Krabi (Ao Nang Phu Pi Maan Resort and Spa).
• 2 nights in Perlis (Savana Hotel)
• Couple of more days in KL before heading back to Singapore.

Preparation

• Bring the car to my mechanic for routine servicing including change oils and checking the car.
• Print your log card, road tax and insurance.

Malaysia Thailand Crossing

• We entered via Bukit Kayu Hitam-Sadao border which is the end of AH2 route of Northsouth highway that connect Johor to this Thailand border. The border is located in city. You will see shops, amenities, hotel just before getting in and after getting out from or to Malaysia or Thailand side.
• We exited via Wang Prachan-Wang Kelian border. This border is located inside national park. There are few small shops in Thailand side. Almost nothing in Malaysian side. So it might be a bit spooky at night. But the road around this area is so scenic during the day.

• Plan your travel time because different with SG-MY border that open 24 hours, MY-TH border is having closing hour. Bukit Kayu Hitam-Sadao is open only from 6 AM and closed at midnight Malaysia time. Smaller border like Wang Prachan-Wang Kelian is open only until between 8 AM to 7 PM malaysia time. Make sure to consider the closing hour with the correct timezone too. Thailand is UTC+7 and Malaysia is UTC+8.

Insurance

• Purchase Thailand insurance before crossing border. We picked GoThaiMY and purchased comprehensice coverage, although the required by law I believe is the basic coverage only which is about 4 times cheaper.
• We bought the insurance through the website and then Whatsapp chat. We transferred the money using touch n go. In the morning we planned to enter Thailand so that they can preprocess the insurance and also the form needed by immigration namely two copies of TM3 and TM6 form. We pass one copy when entering Thailand and pass another copy when exiting Thailand. As we reached GoThaiMY office we just need to pickup the document without having to wait.

Immigration and Custom

• Bukit Kayu Hitam Malaysia immigration is almost similar like Johor immigration check. Malaysian seem can fully clear the immigration from car. Unfortunately I and my wife asked to go down to collect our fingerprint as foreigner.
• At Sadao immigration, all car passengers can stay in the car until the immigration booth. I read that sometime passengers need to queue inside immigration building separately. Thankfully we can stay together in the car until the immigration counter. All of us just need to go down to get photo taken in the front of the counter though. I was asked to 45 thb, which I guess is overtime fee because it was Thailand public holiday. We have to pass the TM3 and TM6 form that insurance provider helped to fill.
• If the car is under the driver name, we just need log card from LTA to allow Thai custom to bring Singapore car to Thailand. If the car owner is not traveling, you will need some authorisation document which make it a bit more complicated.
• At the time there was quiet long queue to get the import form. But all process was done for around 30 minutes. There was no fee for this. We have to make sure this car custom import form is returned when exiting Thailand, otherwise there will be a fine as stated in the custom import form.

• When exiting Thailand via Wang Prachan border, driver can stay in the car and passengers were asked to go down and walk to the counter. But they are just nearby and almost has no queue. The Thai immigration officer asked 50 thb this time which I was not sure for what this time because it was not a public holiday.
• Don’t forget to pass back the car import form in the counter next to the immigration.

• Entering Malaysia back via Wang Kelian is much quicker. We asked to park our car and then walk back to again the almost no queue immigration counter.

Road trip experiences

• Road condition is pretty good. We didn’t see any potholes.
• There is no highway in the Southern Thailand. But most intercity roads we were driving were dual carriageway which is almost as good as highway.
• The road traffics were also not crowded so that the driving become really pleasant, enjoyable and stress free.
• Speed limit is 90 Km/h for car but I believe one can easily faster if they want.
• We see some speed camera warning along the way although I never able to spot where is the actual camera.
• The drivers there are also quiet ok, they give sign when changing lane, giving way and wait safely before entering main road from smaller road or junction, and we didn’t see too many people speeding or driving aggressively.
• Just be careful that sometime there will be motorbike or even car driving to the opposite direction in the left side of the road.
• There are few of road hoggers in the right lane but we can safely overtake them from the left with ease.
• Almost no traffic police on the road.
• I anticipated to see many police checkpoints in the Southern Thailand. But we saw only one checkpoint with police officers and we were asked to continue driving. When heading back toward Wang Prachan there were checkpoint but not police officer.
• There is a big checkpoint building at the entrance of Phuket but most cars were not asked to stop.
• We fill Gasohol 95 petrol and the car seems still fine. We can pay petrol using Singapore credit card.
• Petrol station is also good stop for toilet break or if we want to go to mini market for snack or coffee.
• Toilet is not superclean but not so that bad either.
• For muslim traveler, there were plenty of mosque along the road and good options of halal foods too.
• Food delivery fee is more expensive in Thailand compare to Malaysia. The option in Thailand are Grab and Lineman.

So overall we had a really pleasant experience of driving in Thailand. We wish to go back again and drive further north, maybe all the way to China and beyond.