Breakfast was served around 0800. The steward converted my bed back into seat and I had mine there with the gentleman from the upper bunk. Jo had hers in bed; oh what luxury.
We stopped at Hat Yai Junction soon after. With the uncoupling of the Sungai Kolok vs Padang Besar carriages, there was a bit of shunting and waiting. It was surprisingly quick to Padang Besar, taking only about 1h.
We got to the Thai station of Padang Besar and then the Malaysian one a few minutes later, about an hour late, around 1000 Thai time / 1100 Malaysian time.
Breakfast on the train.
There are two Padang Besar stations, this one here on the Thai side and another on the Malaysian side.
We disembarked and I was told we would have to wait as they process passengers to Hat Yai first. I was a little confused but we were invited to join the immigration queue after about 30 minutes. It became apparent that each country had only one set of counters (all located on the Malaysian side). They needed to process the passengers leaving Malaysia and entering Thailand on to the northbound train before they process us southbound people (leaving Thailand and entering Malaysia). And they didn’t want the queues to get mixed up. There’s always a reason to the apparent chaos.
Queue for immigration looked chaotic but there was a system to it.
We were cleared out of Thailand and into Malaysia about an hour after arrival which allowed about 1h for a snack and wait. The toilets at the modern Malaysian station of Padang Besar was a total disgrace; there was no water and as a result quite dirty. It wasn’t even a temporary thing as there was a permanent sign stating the lack of water supply. In comparison, many rural Thai stations were well-manicured.
Brunch at Padang Besar was Nasi Lemak with Prawn.
Our electric train to Kuala Lumpur left on time. It was a modern train travelling up to 140 km/h. Our rail adventure had turned electric. It was faster but the romance seemed lost without the sleeper seats. Looking out the windows, I realised I had been ignorant of the fact that Perlis and Kedah were so flat (except for limestone outcrops) and dry (except for irrigated rice fields).
Electric train from padang Besar to Kuala Lumpur.
The electric train took about 5h30.
We had four muffins leftover from our Thai train dinner and breakfast and that became our afternoon tea (along with canned coffee) on the ride of about 5h30 to KL Sentral. There were hot meals and snacks for sale but we didn’t try them in this instance.
The train was again rather cold. I put on my pullover but not my long pants. We stopped at various stations along the way and I was surprised many were not in the centre of town.
We arrived a little late into KL Sentral and we walked to our hotel through NU Sentral mall. We grabbed dinner back in the mall at Waroeng Penyet, an Indonesian place before resting and sleeping.