Surprisingly, I had a really good night’s sleep on the train last night. It wasn’t that it was undisturbed as the track quality can make it a bit of a rocky ride sometimes. Plus, early in the morning, a large Chinese family got on somewhere to occupy the berths around me – but when I slept, it was deep. This is a very familiar journey to me in both directions, stretching back to 1998, so I feel very comfortable with it. It’s familiar.

Not long after 6 am, the train reaches Hat Yai, where it’s shunted and split. Our two sleeping cars plus a day coach are chopped off and parked in a platform awaiting a new SRT loco to take us forward (pics later). Meanwhile, morning ablutions take place in the toilets and washroom aboard, and the process of packing away beds begins.

10:50 (Malaysian time).

Well, that was painless! We arrived at the border crossing of Padang Besar on time and detrained straight into the queue for immigration. Both getting out of Thailand and into Malaysia was easy as you go through one set of controls after the other. There’s around 90 minutes to wait for the connection to Butterworth. Plenty of time to sort out an onward ticket. The KTMB office accepts Thai baht and there’s two ticket machines which take foreign credit cards to pay for the 11 ringgitt 40 sen ticket (around £2).

The 10:35 is worked by a 6-car, Chinese built SCS Electric unit so there’s normally no problem getting a seat – especially as most people crowd together at the entrance to the platform. Head to the rear of the incoming train and you’ll probably find it looks like this!

Don’t assume it’ll stay that way though, this is a local stopping train, and at Arau (the 2nd stop out of Padang Besar), it quickly fills up with people.

14:30.

By the time the train had got to Butterworth it was packed – but fine. People are well-behaved here. Well, unless you count mobile phone etiquette but the UK’s just as bad nowadays only with added  levels of stroppy entitlement.

The new passenger ferries have started running since I was last here (2023). I’ll post pictures and an initial verdict later. The bizarre thing is they no longer take cash, but the kiosk at Butterworth accepts Mastercard or Visa. All for a fare of 2 Ringgit (less than 40p).

Thankfully, the buses do still take cash, so my RM1:40 trip to Lebuh Chulia was paid for in ‘slummy’ from my last trip here!

I’m now having a breather before it’s time to check into my hotel in Jalan Muntri. Cheers!

17:20.

Having had a break at the room to download the camera I’m adding a few more pictures from the trip before venturing out now the day is cooling down. It ‘only’ got up to 32 degrees today with Humidity of 64%. I’ll add captions later…

23:20.

Time to wrap things up. Georgetown is one of my happy places in the world, and I can’t believe I’ve been mad enough to only give myself less than 24 hours here. Plus, I was gutted to find that the really good travellers bar is closed for a holiday. When I say bar, it’s really a shop that spills out every evening, taking over the backstreet outside with tables and chairs. I’ve met some really interesting people there in the past.

Instead, today I stopped to buy a beer from a local shop on Lebuh Chulia (and that shop has a history!) where I met a local who was missing the same place. We ended up chatting for ages.

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