By Jacob McPartland
Before arriving in Asia, my partner and I agreed that we couldn’t miss two places: Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. The journey between them could be done in an afternoon, but we wanted to avoid trading the beautiful sights, incredible cities, and stunning countryside of Malaysia and Thailand for a few hours in an airport, not to mention the environmental impact of a superfluous flight.
So, instead, we decided to try some slow travelling for our journey from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok! Here’s how we did it.
From Paris To KL
A plan was hatched while waiting for our flight from Paris to Kuala Lumpur; we booked a train for the last day of the month from Padang Besar (on the Malaysian/Thailand border) to Bangkok. Outside of that, we didn’t have much of a plan on where we would go or how we would get there. We were, however, adamant that we would go wherever the wind and the suggestions of locals and fellow slow travellers would take us.
Setting off from Kuala Lumpur was bitter-sweet. My mother lives there, and the city was more than kind to us during our four-day stay. There are still a million things left to do, and we hope we are lucky enough to return sometime. Still, we knew the journey ahead was filled with amazing experiences and were excited to see what awaited us.
Penang And Langkawi
Every guidebook, blog, and friend we consulted assured us that no trip to Malaysia would be complete without some time in the dynamic foodie destination of Penang, so we made that our first stop after the capital.
We took a train from Kuala Lumpur to Butterworth station. This four-hour ride took us through some stunning landscapes before we boarded a ferry to Penang Island. There, we spent two glorious days soaking up everything from hawker stalls to nature reserves before deciding upon our next leg of the journey, Langkawi.
An island with Duty-Free status designed as the perfect vacation spot for Malaysian residents, Langkawi was a real highlight of our trip. Getting there was easy, too. We took a bus from Butterworth and a ferry across to the island, which took us around four hours in total. Upon arriving in Langkawi, we went directly to a little restaurant we’d researched the night before called Dangau Langkawi.
Away from the touristy coastal areas, in the middle of a rice field, we enjoyed serene silence, stunning views, and the most incredible local food. We loved our Gulai (a spicy stew), Masak Lemak (a rich, coconut-flavoured stew), and grilled fish with a buttermilk sauce that tasted almost chocolatey in its richness. The food was better than anything else we tasted on our holiday, and if we hadn’t been in a slow travelling mindset, we’d have missed it altogether.
With whispers of ferry cancellations due to the wet season’s high winds and choppy tides closing in, it made sense for us to get back to the mainland. So, we piled onto another boat and took a tumultuous trip across the water into Thai territory.
Thailand Travels
As we still had a few more days before our pre-booked train, we decided that instead of going directly to the station, we would explore some more. We ventured north to Krabi, or “Krah-bi”, as the border patrol officer promptly corrected us.
While not the most dynamic places in the off-season, we still enjoyed our time there. Our highlight was an early evening long-tail boat ride out to the Bat Caves where, thanks to our off-peak visit, we were left alone in the darkening caverns as the eponymous bats woke up to break their fast and save us from the equally famished mosquitos.
Our train’s departure date closed in, but instead of venturing back to the border and taking the train from our initially planned spot, we found Surat Thani station along the route and decided to catch it there and travel through the night catching some sleep on the final leg of our journey to Bangkok.
Arriving at Surat Thani with time to spare, we spotted some fairground lights on the other side of the track, and what appeared to be a festival. Curious, we made our way over and were greeted by a bustling street market that led down to a large open gazebo. Here, we found a children’s talent show and pageant that seemed to have enthralled the whole town. We stayed and watched for a while, despite not knowing much of what was happening, before we returned to the station platform in time for our train.
Hopping on, we found that our seats were converted into beds, and we clambered into them for our ten-hour trip towards the nation’s capital. Our slow travelling adventure from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok was over when we woke up. Luckily, with two weeks on our trip left, we had time to explore Bangkok and some other areas, but that tale is for another day!