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I confronted the guy and asked if he got his seating arrangements right.
It turned out that these fellas were from the third-class coach and tried their luck by jacking our seats.
They moved their stuff back to the cargo hold section and I never saw them again until we reached Padang Besar..
I spent the rest of the night
Forward to Hat Yai
The train arrived rather late in Padang Besar and we had to wait for another 45-minutes before we could board it to Hat Yai.
While queuing up, I saw this shady character with his luggage trying to enter Malaysia.
He was rejected and boarded the train back to Hat Yai.
Seems that human trafficking is a big issue and many economic migrants would use Thailand and Malaysia as a gateway to enter First World countries in the West.
That didn't bother me a bit as we continued our journey into Southern Thailand..
Hat Yai - Songkhla
We arrived at the Hat Yai junction train station around noon.
Our priority, was to get a return ticket back to KL Sentral. Roger found out that all the sleeping berths were taken.
We were left with seats on the Second-Class coach and purchased four tickets at 1,800 baht.
Our stomachs were already rumbling and after setting up the bike, we rode to a makan place where Roger is familiar with.
This is by far, the cheapest food joint around. We had three dishes: fried chicken slices, bittergourd with eggs and seafood Tom Yam. The bill came up to 162 baht.
After a good fill we headed down Thanon Phetkasem and turned to Route 407.
Hat Yai, as it seems, is a large city which is pretty spread out.
We decided to take Route 407 due to its proximity to Hat Yai.
This is roughly about 30km of cycling and basically, after a sleepless night, we were robbed of our energy for the
ride.
Slowly, but surely, we gained the distance and just 10km before reaching Songkhla, Roger had a stomach upset.
Lucky for him, Route 407 is pretty much civilized.
Rather than taking route 414 which is on a Highway without any rest stops, I thought it was best to cycle on the
407.
I've traveled down this road before and knew that there are shops and petrol stations along the way.
Roger, who wanted to take the highway, preferred 414 due to less traffic.
He finally found a place to ease himself before we pushed on..
ROLLING OUT: At the outskirts of Hat Yai on Route 407 to Songkhla.