I got to Hat Yai by a bus from Krabi. I had to get another motorbike from Krabi to the bus station, which was about 5 Km out of town, but I managed to do this for a reasonable price. I walked to where someone touting for ferry customers told me to go and there were a lot of taxi drivers waiting. They were asking for 100 Baht, which I just laughed at and ended up getting the price down to 80 Baht, which was still too high. I had paid 50 Baht to get to Krabi, so I knew how much it cost and walked around the corner until I found some taxi drivers who I had seen waiting before. They agreed to 50 Baht with no problems and we set off.

I got dropped at the bus station and shopped-around for a good bus and a good price to Hat Yai. I sat at the back on a loose seat and got thrown about a bit, but apart from stopping for lunch, the journey was fairly uneventful.

In Hat Yai, I got off the bus and got accosted by taxi drivers. I decided to wait and ask the station office how you got to the train station and they gave me instructions on how to walk there and the word ‘train station’ written down in Thai on a piece of paper. I starting walking in the direction of the train station, but decided it was too far and ended up asking some taxi drivers at the end of the bus station how much it was to the train station. I was bargaining with one taxi driver, who was fairly young and got distracted by a woman coming out of the toilet. He thought this was funny and gave me the price I was asking for, which was significantly less than what the first lot of taxi drivers were asking for.

I got to the train station and immediately went and found out what the train times were. I had missed the trains for that day, but there were several trains the next day which looked good. There was some trouble with a terrorist insurgency in the area I was headed to, so decided to go for the 2nd train of the day, just in case there were any problems with the first one. I walked down the street opposite the train station and after looking at several hotels and guest houses, decided to stay in the first one I looked at, which was closest to the station.