RUNNING WITH PASSION

From KL to Hat Yai

It was another weekend getaway – left on Friday night, return on Sunday just like last week’s trip to Penang. This time, we traveled further North to Hat Yai, Thailand; embarking a journey filled with food, shopping, sightseeing, laughter and of course a run. My first running trip to Hat Yai, even though I have been there before a couple of times before.

Friday. 4 August 2006.

20:45 Left KL Sentral for Hat Yai on a northbound train. Bought a Big Mac for dinner. There was an American family in the same coach. Dad from USA, Mommy from the Philippines and the kids were from Hell. Noisy little monkeys climbed up and down the upper bunks. When it was time to sleep, Mommy just had to read bedtime story ALOUD across the bunks! Thank God, I brought my Sony MP3 player and had Rihanna to keep me company all night long. Managed to catch some sleep.

Every time we reached a station, the train supervisor would come on the speaker and kept on apologizing for the late arrival. We do not want apologies. We want out train to be on time!!!

Saturday. 5 August 2006.

11:29 Reached Padang Besar, border between Malaysia & Thailand. Went down to get the passport stamped. That took about 5 minutes. The waiting games begun. This place sucks. The building is not well maintained. Toilets are horrible. We were made to wait for about more than and hour before the train left for Hat Yai. The whole journey supposed to take 14 hours 30 minutes were dragged another 2 hours for unknown reason. KTM – you surely can rely on them for being %!@^*#$ late.