Let’s start with a little bit of historical moments:
Hat Yai (Thai: หาดใหญ่; also Haad Yai / Had Yai) is a city in southern Thailand near the boundary to Malaysia. With a population of 157,359 (2008) in the core city and about 800,000 in the Greater Hat Yai. Hat Yai is the biggest city of Songkhla Province and the largest metropolitan area in Southern Thailand, and is thus often mistaken as being the capital of the province. However Songkhla is the capital and the center of administration and culture while Hat Yai is the business center. The two cities are considered as twin cities due to the close connection, accordingly, Hat Yai and Songkhla form the Greater Hatyai-Songkhla Metropolitan Area.
(Quoted from Wikipedia)
On the very first day of year 2010, we, a gang of 4 people, left Penang at around 5.30am in the morning, heading to Hat Yai. We are leaving in a van packed of people. Ha~ It is a bit too early for me, so most of the time in the van, I was asleep as a baby.
When I was awaken, we are not far away from Malaysia-Thailand border, we made a stop at Chang Lung where we can take some breakfast, change money or buy souvenir at the duty free shop. We noticed that the goods sold in the duty free shop are more expensive than the malls in Penang, example, biscuits and chocolate (May be these items are not really ‘duty-free’). However, if you are looking for cigarette or liquor, they are cheaper; I would say 15-20% cheaper?
Entering custom is always a chaos. First, our van driver dropped us at the Malaysia custom whereby we queued at the custom counter next to the road. After stamping the passports, we were boarded into the van and it droved through the custom checkpoint again, leaving Malaysia border. So as to make our journey ‘smoother’, we need to follow a predefined and informal rules. Reader as smart as you, will get what I meant here, right?
Drove a few kilometers down, we stopped at the Thailand custom counters. Thank God, we have chosen the right time to start our journey, thus we were way in front of a few tourist buses, or else I don’t know we would be stuck in long queue for how many hours. There you go, after those stamping, stamping and checking, we finally entered into Thai kingdom. About 45 minutes drive, we were then entering the heart of Hat Yai.
To fulfill our hungry stomach, the van driver suggested us a place where we can taste the different type of Chinese Dim Sum. Curios of how they taste like, we all jumped into the van and headed to the destination. Honestly, I still prefer Malaysia’s dim sum as the dim sum here tasted so-so only. And the size of each dim sum is much smaller. See the picture below. However, we tried the Thai ‘pork leg’, that was nice.Next, the driver uncle brought us to the famous local bird nest + shark fin restaurant. This is the first time in my life that I can find so many pieces of ‘big’ shark in the soup (As you know, the normal shark fin which is served in the wedding dinner, is those of very tiny slices), but here, you can find pieces and pieces of shark fin (not in string form). The bird nest soup tasted good too, sweet and tasty.
In the afternoon, we took ‘tuk tuk’ to start our local tour. Our targeted places include the Reclining Buddha temple, market shopping and floating market. Here, you need to practice your bargaining skill to get a good price from the tuk-tuk driver. We got it at 600 baht for 3 places.
If you asked me, of all these 3 places, which one appears more interesting to me, I would suggest you to go to the floating market. I was told that this floating market is new attraction which was introduced recently. Unlike floating market in Bangkok, visitors are not allowed to ride on the ‘sampan’ and tour on the river, visiting different ‘stalls’ reside next to the river. Here, the ‘mobile stalls’ on the sampan, park at the river side, selling all variety of local food and beverages. The food and drinks are well presented, for example, you can pick a drink and opt to have it in a cute mug made from ‘tanah liat’ (however, the mug is not for take away) or you can choose to have it in a bamboo container (you may take this away). Some of the food are sold in a bowl made of coconut shell. To me, it is quite a brilliant idea, we can recycle it and it is totally environmental friendly!
Not only you can find various kind of stalls on the river, please make sure that you don’t miss the stalls that were set up next to the river. Pictures say it all……
On the second day, we decided to take a tour outside of Hat Yai city- to the other province, Songkhla. We were lucky; we managed to bargain a good price to take us to Samila beach, the Songkhla Aquarium, Tang Kuan temple and Khoyor island at the price of 600 Baht. And the interesting part is, we were not riding on those normal tuk-tuk (van like), but this is a private car. Our guess is probably the driver is just doing part time during peak hours. Of course, it makes our journey much more comfortable.The Samila beach is famous of its Mermaid statue at the sea side. From the beach, you can see a few islands not far away, to some people saying, the islands look like a mice or a cat, depending on from which angle you view them. It is up to your while imagination!
The Songkhla aquarium is not much different than the one in Pulau Langkawi. It was New Year season and X-Mas was just a week ago, the Aquarium has a special performance where there was a fish feeding performance. The performer was dressed in a red suit and white beard like a Santa Claus. Imagine, a Santa Claus is feeding the Sting Ray, Leopard Shark, Turtle? How hilarious!
Leaving the Aquarium, we were heading to Tang Kuan Temple. It is a temple located on top of the hill. Visitors need to take a lift from the root of the hill and the whole lift ride takes about 10-15 minutes time to reach hill top. Too bad, by the time we reached hill top, the weather was not in good mood and of course, it rained shortly after we reached the temple :(
Next, the tuk-tuk driver brought us to a place where there is nice seafood and the price is reasonable too—Khoyor Island. The island is located at the other side of the city. We need to take a ferry to the island. The special thing about the ferry is the ferry is not the same as what we have in Malaysia. The ferry does not have a roof or borders. It does not look like a ship or ferry at all. It is basically an open ended ‘tarred road’ and it is moving on the sea! See below:
Yummy! Do you feel hungry too, seeing the pictures?
