Monday, December 16, 2013
Today we crossed from Malaysia into Thailand. We were up early as we not only had to cross the border and complete all the paperwork for the car, but also had to travel 300 kms (200 miles) to Krabi once we had crossed. Overall, the process was a lot easier than we had imagined.
Here is a summary of the steps we followed:-
- Wash Sterlin so he looks good for the crossing.
- Fill up Sterlin with subsidized Malaysian fuel near the border so we can drive to Krabi without stopping.
- While still in Malaysia, get Third Party Car Insurance for Thailand.
Exit Malaysia and get our passports stamped from the comfort of Sterlin in one of the drive-through lanes. - Park the car and find the right customs officer who can process the exit of Sterlin. Complete the paperwork.
- Drive through the duty free no-mans-land to Thailand.
- Get confused by the signs in Thailand and eventually work out we have to park the car and walk through the border and then go back and process the car.
- Find the office where they hand out blank arrival/departure cards.
- Line-up to get our passports stamped.
- Line-up at a different counter to declare Sterlin to customs. Get a nice declaration form nicely filled out in Thai script.
- Back to the car park, get Sterlin and drive through the border.
- Pick-up Thai Baht at an ATM.
- Pick-up food (1) at supermarket for the drive at Tesco.
We started just after 9am at the Zurich Insurance Office and finished at 11:30am at the Tesco Lotus supermarket, so the whole process took about 2.5 hours. Insurance was a breeze, although we almost purchased more insurance for Malaysia by accident. At the last minute we worked out that the agent was selling us the wrong insurance because she thought we had just arrived in Malaysia. So we cancelled that and started afresh with insurance for Thailand instead.
** footnotes by Caroline **
(1) including a magnum ice cream.
