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.

Driving Trip to Southern Thailand Part 1

I just came back from a driving trip to Hatyai, Southern Thailand. The trip was planned way back in December without any specific destination at first. It was supposed to be my birthday holiday trip.

We decided to take a driving trip this year with our brother and his daughters. All together there were 6 persons (3 pax each in a car) went on this trip. The planned was to stay 1 night in Perak on the way to Hatyai and a 2 night stayed at Novotel Central there.

We departed from eastern part of Singapore at 2.30pm on Sunday 16th March 2008 heading towards Johore 2nd link. We expected that the immigration clearance will be a little hassle though cause of the wanted Jemaah Islamiah fugivite escaped. Surprisingly, with the efficiency of the Singapore Immigration and Custom Authority service, we managed to pass thru the immigration less than half hour of checking and thumbprint takings.

We had no problem at Malaysia custom too. Its a breeze driving from the 2nd link checkpoint until we stop for our Asar prayer and coffee break at Machap R & R. We continued our journey to Perak and stop once again at Dengkil R&R for our Maghrib and Isyak prayer. There we had our dinner. All of us were not too enthusias on eating as we were so excited to reach Perak for the nite.

We reached Ipoh and we heading towards Seri Malaysia hotel. Unfortunely, there is no more room. The reception at the hotel was helpful enough to give us a few more other hotels contact number. After some calls, we decided to check in at Grand View Hotel at Jln Horley in Ipoh town. It was a much fuss to look for the hotel as the staff there said that the hotel is situated at Jln Holy. Looking at the map, we couldnt find any Jln Holy (as what the receptionist said. We found out later it is supposed to be Horley not Holy..heheee). Nevertheless, we just based on a lookout for the hotel and found it at exactly 11pm. The rate for the family room is RM$168. This room comprised of 2 king size bed. We took one of this room and another standard room which cost RM$89. I just had to try my luck at bargaining for the room rate. Lucky for me, we managed to get RM$20 discount for the family room and RM$10 for the standard room. So guys, it is no harm asking if there is any discount available. (Learn this trick when I went to London back in year 2000).

Night well spent, drivers had enough rest, we headed for Hatyai after having our RM$17.40 breakfast for 6 person at 9.30 am.

At approximately 12 noon, we dropped by a petrol station at Napoh in Kedah to pump full tank as petrol in Thailand is more expensive than Malaysia. I saw a restaurant called Jo Cendol Pulut. A colleague had recommended that we eat at this restaurant. So we did just that. I spoke to the owner of the restuarant, Hjh Roshidah. Thru our conversation, I came to know that the restaurant also provide service for Thailand insurance. The charges is quite cheap for us Singaporean. It cost RM$15 per car registration. An embarkation card was charged at RM$1 per card. Since I got to know the lady boss, we got a discount of Rm$0.50 per card and thats a saving of RM$3 for the 6 of us.

After settling all the immigration documents at Jo Cendol Pulut, we headed to Changlun checkpoint (Malaysia immigration checkpoint) at Bukit Kayu Hitam in Kedah.

Here is the address of Jo Cendol Pulut :

Restoran Cendol Pulut Jo
Km 17.3 Lebuhraya Bukit Kayu Hitam
Pekan Napoh, 06000 Jitra Kedah
Tel:/Fax: 60 04 9162559
Waktu Perniagaan : 10 pagi hingga 11 mlm.

It was a breeze to pass by the Malaysia counterpart. I was quite nervous to pass the Thai border due to all the media reports about rioting and clashes at Southern Thailand. I never stop reciting prayer in my heart that Allah guided and blessed us on our journey.

We had some exciting encounters at the immigration at Sadao in Thailand. Will share with you in Part 2 as I need to finish up my monthly report for the bosses. So guys, see you soon.