Day 2 and 3 of Southern Thailand Tour

This posting relates on our visit to Songkla and again at Hatyai before we headed to our next destination, kuala Selangor.

We thought of spending the second day to explore Hatyai but then we decided to go to Songkla for a day trip. We chartered a tuk tuk for 1100 baht for the whole day inclusive of petrol and driver. So our own driver can relax and enjoy.

The tuk tuk driver, Haji Sulaiman, a Thai muslim first brought us to a Hill where we can see Songkla fishing village from the top of the hill (sorry forgot what the name). We paid 100 bath to go to the top of the hill via a slant lift (like those at Penang Hill). There is a buddist stupa on top of the hill. Its a marvelous view from up there. We spent about 30 mins and went down. From there we headed to Songkla beach. Its a public holiday in Songkla that day, so we saw a lot of family picnic at the beach. Most of them are Muslim cause the women can be seen adorn with their tudung and the men with their kopiah. (a headgears wear by women and the latter men).

At the beach, there are two prominent monument. One is a mermaid and another is a cat, dog and mice. There is a legend incripted near the animals monument. As for the mermaid, no specific story was posted near the it. Songkla is known to have good seafood. At this beach, we had our lunch. These were what we ate.

And there was kerabu mangga that I forgot to take. Beside we ordered 4 coconut, 3 coke and 2 big bottle of mineral water. All this for 7 people eating. Guess what! it's only cost us S$100.00. Haji Sulaiman must have enjoyed so much. He had 3 plate serving of rice. The food was very palatable. Our niece was so happy to eat osyter. We actually ordered only 2 piece of the oyster for her thinking it will be very expensive. To our surprise, it only cost 35Baht per oyster.

We headed to Hatyai after that. There was a road block on the way back to Hatyai. We thought that something had happened, rioting or what, but actually, its the KING. All motorised vehichle were asked to stop and diverted to side road. Engine should be off too. No passenger can be inside the vehicle. So we had to stand in the sun, while waiting for the King to pass by. It takes about 1 hours 20 mins just to wait for the King and his entourage passed that road. We we realived to be let off and proceed with our journey. After about 1 hour just before reaching Hatyai, again we we stopped by the traffic police and was asked to divert our tuk tuk to the inner side road. Alas! the King passed by again to go to the airport. Since we are in the country, we have to respect their culture. We notice that when the Kings entourage car passed by, all Thais look down or bow their head low. How respectful they are; infact the cars passed so fast that I dont think anyone in the entourage would notice if they do not bow nor low down. Anyway, there were a lot of policemen around. And that speak for the doing of the Thais.

Once we reached Hatyai, we headed to the market to shop, shop and shop. Tshirt, blouses, jeans, sportware dan dried goods like anchovies and shrimp were very cheap compare to back home. The weather was extremely hot. We bought what we think we want to buy and headed back to the hotel. Since it still early for dinner and we were still full, we decided to go for a swim. The novetel hotel swimming pool is at the roof top. We swam for about 45 mins followed by sauna. Wah! felt so good and now we felt hungry again. Aiyah, what to do when you are on holiday. Eat, Shop, Sleep, Eat, Shop Sleep.

Since it is still quite early for dinner, we gerls went for reflexology. Its was good. Later our brother joined us too. Then we roamed around the night market again, but just to look see look see. Then we had dinner again at Hamid's. After dinner, there were some pushcart just arrived. Oh! then we saw the yu char kueh stall that our nephew told us to try. Since we we quite full we only order one plate of the yu char kueh. Thai people have sweet tooth. They eat the yu char kueh with kaya. We ordered teh tarik to go with it. Our brothers ordered lengchee kang. Semangat, padahal dah kenyang.

This char kueh was so delicious that we finished them in no time. We ordered a second serving and laughed hard at ourselves for being such a glutton. Too full, and everyone was feeling sleepy head now. But we still walk around to make sure that the food we ate digest properly. We enjoyed hatyai so much, the food, the cheap swensen icecream and the shopping. We decided to extend our stayed at hatyai cause our nieces and their father complained that they had not shop enough. Wah! where got thai baht anymore left about 300 only for me. Aiyoh, dielah. Then Noy decided to withdraw some money so we manage to breathe shopping again.

Our third day in Hatyai was spent with late breakfast, no lunch and shop shop shop again. We went for massage again. Had dinner at the same place too. Packed some of our things and put in the car bonnet so it wont be so embarrasing during the check out next morning. Just 3 days in Southern Thailand, our bonnet already fulled. This does not include our luggage bag and some items that were still inside the hotel room. When we checkout out, our car was fully occupied. The rear sit was filled up by the things we shopped too. We really had a great time. There is no problem existing from Southern Thailand. We then headed for Kuala Selangor to homestay at someone Cow Farm.

Hatyai Day One

This is the continuation on our journey to Hatyai, Southern Thailand.

We got hard time to locate the hotel Novotel Centara Hatyai. We couldn't get any map at the border as it had been sold out. Anyway, we stopped a few places and asked the locals on the location of the hotel. Thai people are very friendly and helpful, unfortunately, after approaching 3 people, none can speak English nor Malay . I was so happy when we were near a school caused to me, sure the student can at least understand some English. True to my thinking. There were students were sitting outside the school and I took this opportunity to ask them on the Novotel Centara exact location. Being the real Thai, the students even offer to show us the way. They led us on their bike to the location. Upon reaching the hotel, they stopped and approached our car to confirm that they had brought us to the correct hotel. Hmmm, this is what I called genuine help. If only, my fellow citizen can be as helpful as the Thai. I took a 20baht from my pocket and passed it to the student as a thank you gesture. They refused to take the money. Another Thai good character. If this happened in Indonesia, the people will in fact request for some percent for their effort. I couldn't blame them for that though.

Novotel Centara is one of the good hotel in Hatyai. The service is tip top since the moment we entered the car park. The security guy at the car park entrance, stopped and checked our car. Then he asked if we are going to stay there. We showed him our reservation. He nodded and directed us to go to B2. The moment we turn our car to B1, another security guy was waiting there. With his whistle, he signalled for us to follow him. He was on his two feet running in front of us, just to show us a parking lot that he had reserved for us upon receiving a walkies talkie message from the 1st security guy. Wow! how would you feel?. We were very pleased. We are not VIP but were treated like one. This lead to our happiness to take out some baht to pass to the running security guy. To our surprise, when we started to unload our luggage from the car bonnet, a bellboy was an already stood behind with his trolley. Another Wow! We were showed the lift to go to the lobby.

Anyway, there is a slight misunderstanding due to communication problem at the reception area. Nevertheless it was rectified by the supervisor and we got our room key in under 20 minutes upon arrival. Novotel Centara in Hatyai hotel room is very clean. We can smell the freshness when we entered the room. The room is spacious too.

We had arranged to meet up again at the lobby at 6pm Thailand time. Since we checked in at about 3 pm, we had time to rest a bit. We did our prayers and started to meddle with the TV channel. Thai had so many TV channel. But none of the channel that we tune to had English as the medium. Luckily, there are cables like discovery channel and the hotel have Malaysia channel too. Fuhhh! no need to have headaches trying to understand the Thai language then.

Hatyai have a few Muslim restaurant. There are Hamid Restaurant, which is only a 3 minutes walk from Novotel. Salmah Restaurant, which a bit further from Hamid and Rocky Restaurant.

Among the three restaurant that we patronised, Hamid Restaurant had the most varieties of food. For our first meal in Hatyai, we went to Salmahs'. We had a fish, squid, kailan, tom yam and white rice. For 6 persons, it only cost us about S$65. That was quite a bargain for us as at our place it will cost us more. Unfortunately, I forgot to snap the food that we ate at Salmah's as we were hungry and just ducked into the food when it was served.

At nite, you can see a lots of pushcart stall around the Novotel Centara area. This pushcart stalls sell local delicacy like fresh durian with glutinous rice, grilled sotong and also selling knick knack items like key chains, coin pouches and so on. They normally started their trade at about 7 pm.

After our dinner, we walked around to see what are being offered. Opposite our hotel, there is a shopping complex which have some world known brand like Adidas, McDonald, Pizza Hut and Swensens. We decided to have an ice cream at Swensens. We ordered the Earthquake thinking that will be enough for the 6 of us for desserts. What I like is that we can choose our own flavour and no restriction for the topping either. The best part is that it is so much cheaper than back home. We vows to come again for more the next day.

Since it is still early to go back to the hotel, we roamed the area again. We were quite surprised as more pushcart stalls were present now even though the time was almost 11.30 pm. What more, there are more locals patronizing the stall as the nite goes on. We decided to call it a day and headed back to Novotel. In our room, I told Noy that I was contented to spend my birthday that day with good dinner and dessert even though I only had a prata as a first meal on my birthday for breakfast earlier on in Perak.

We had planned to go to Songkla the next day and I will blog that in my next posting, insyallah soonest possible.

Here is Novotel Centara Hatyai Address:

3 Sanehanusorn Road Hat Yai Songkhla 90110 Tel : +66(0) 7435 2222Fax : +66(0) 7435 2223

Driving Trip to Southern Thailand Part 2

We reached Sadao Thailand immigration. Here some tips to share, all passenger and driver are required to alight from any vehicle. Drivers, do drop your passenger first, then turn left immediately after the immigration post for a parking area.


There is no sign or anyone to tell you to do that. We as a passenger alighted and follow the crowd. My brother, who is the driver, did not do this. He was distracted and so concentrated on passing the permit to the police there that he drove to the right and then parked his car there. This is considered ILLEGAL parking eventhough there are others Thai registered car there. Our car been booked. The Thai police unfortunely do not speak English.


My brother was summoned to a small room which marked Police outside. I went with him, knowling that his body language showed that he felt agitated over all this matter.


"IC, IC" ... the Thai Police asked my brother. My brother passed to him his driving licence. He took from him and thrown it on the table infront of him. He didnt even look at the driving licence and then started to look at us and said something in Thai.


"Sorry, We dont speak Thai" I said.


He felt frustated and pull a stack of paper from the drawer. Pick up the driving licence which he threw earlier and started to fill the paper.


"You name, you name", shouting at my brother.


"Oh! this is his name", kepo me pointing at his name in his driving Licence. All this while only the Thai police, my brother and I inside this small room. Later a guy holding a helmet, came in. By the time, the Thai policeman had completed filling up the form and passed it to my brother and asked him to sign. He readily wanted to sign them until I stopped him. I wanted to be sure, what the details on the form. All words are in Thai. How can he just sign on it. The Thai police never explain anything but just asked him to sign. This cannot be, my mind was full with "what if". When I asked him, he keep yelling "Sign, sign". Beside being angry, both of us looked at each other and controlling our laughter over the matter. Sighting uneasiness in us, he then threw my brother driving licence in the drawer and locked it up. My brother holding the summon paper, looked up at me with a confused faced. I took the form from him and approached the helmet guy. "Sorry, do you speak English or Malay", I asked. I were merely trying my luck on the Malay part cause you never know. Thai people do looked like Malay, especially those from the Southern part. He said yes, a little bit of Malay but not English. Thank God! He asked the Thai police on what was written on the form and relayed to us the information. Its actually a summoned paper for us to make payment at Sadao Police Station. We wanted to settle there, but the police just refused us.

Sadao police station is about 15 km away. We stopped a few times to ask others. Hmm, very the frustating. Most of them do not speak English. We stopped at one little shop and I spoke Malay. Alas, they speak Malay with Kelantanese accent too. Settle, its on the right of the road, so we were on the lookout for the Police Station.

Another hilarious experienced we had when we were at the Police Station. We went in and all eyes inside the station, zoomed at us. I approached a booth and pass the police in charge the summon. He told us to go Danok. This is the place where the summon was issue. Its under Sadao territory but Danok is the village or town in Sadao area. Hhhmm, this is crazy. How can he asked us to pay at Danok while the guy in Danok asked us to pay in Sadao. If not for my brother driving Licence being retained by the earlier guy, I would just ignore the summon until we leave Thailand.

Communication can be a great barrier here. Luckily, Thai are a soft spoken people apart from the police guy at Danok, if not, I wouldn't have the patience to handle these people. I went out of the police station and tried to approached some muslim that I saw while driving in the police station. A young couple were approaching the entrance at that time. I asked if they could understand Malay. Yes! came the answer. Its was such a relieve feeling. I explained to them and the couple were so kind hearted and patiencely explained to the police there. We were then told to wait for the officer in charge. About 5 minutes later, an officer came and we were called to the booth. The fine was for 3 offence, mind you 3 offence for illegal parking, blocking other ways and failed to park properly. Anyway, one offence was charged at 200 baht that is apprxm S$8.90. But we were given discount of 500 baht for the 3 offence. If only Singapore have such things as discount for traffic offence. My brother looked lost on hearing 500. I assured him that its not a big amount. Its only S$23.00. Ha! he laughed when told him.

We headed back to the car and laughing over all this hilarious experienced. Its really a lesson to be remembered. So if you ever want to drive in to Thailand via the Sadao immigration, please remember the tips above. Oh ya btw, another things, do not forget to slip in your passport a RM1 note for that immigration guys to avoid delay.


We drove back to Danok, took the driving licence and drove back to Hatyai. Its really an experience to have a brush with the law in Thailand. Nevertheless its a good experience to learn.

Will update on the Hatyai part next .. so look out for it. Till then.