Sawadee Hat Yai . Part 4

I was posting about our breakfast at Chokdee Dim Sum and Bak Kut Teh in previous post; after some shopping at 7-eleven, we were back to hotel to wait for the tour guide from JR Tour. He came on time and is able to communicate in mandarin (you can request a tour guide with your preferable language from the agency), in case you did not notice the price I posted in previous post, it was only around 2100THB for 5 pax and we went to 8-9 places in total, including the floating market! Worth-till-drop! 

The little danbo is quite lucky to join us for the trip, I always bring it along wherever I go even I didn't really use it as a prop to take nice photos. Maybe I should make a danbography wherever I go since now we do have legography from Andrew Whyte. 

Since most of the places we wanted to visit are near to Songkhla, which is quite far from the Hat Yai city (correct me if I'm wrong), so the first place we went is Wat Hat Yai Nai, which is 10-20 minutes from our hotel. Just to let you be prepared, most of the places we went are temples which are quite famous in Hat Yai, most of the tourists go to Hat Yai is to make a vow to god; you will impress on how nice they build the temples! Since it was the first temple we went, I decided to pray a little and donate some RM together with my bro-in-law. Met this little cute girl and her meows in the temple, cute no? 

After that, I felt asleep in the van as we traveled more than 1 hours to reach a small island in the Songkhla Lake which named Ko Yo. The temple we visited in Ko Yo island is Wat Phranon Laem Pho which has a massive golden reclining Buddha to welcome us. Was impressed by the golden reclining Buddha as it is so huge and pageantry, we spent some times to enjoy the weather near the lake. 

We were then went to the restaurant nearby the Ko Yo island to settle our lunch, we were still quite full with the heavy loaded breakfast, so we just ordered some dishes. Our tour guide was not joining us for lunch, as they have a special room for tour guide to dine I think; overall all the dishes are quite good but more expensive than the one we had in Kan Eng restaurant. 

The Songkhla Aquarium is inside our day tour list, even we were not planning to go in to pay a visit (it will draw most of our time), tour guide also must bring us to the places that listed, unless if you notice you are short of time to other places, you can request the tour guide to skip the place you do not want to go. We just went there to take some photos and some walk in the garden; for your information, the aquarium entrance fee is 250THB for childrens, 400THB for adults and 400THB for the Go-Kart (5 laps).

We told the tour guide to skip the elephant ride since most of us are not interested on it under the hot sun. He was then brought us to Naga Head at Song Thale Park, one of the attraction for Songkhla Lake and it was constructed in Year 2007. The Naga Head or "Nag" (Naga means dragon in Malaysian and Thailand language) is said to symbolize wisdom and intelligence. Talk about this Naga Head, it is actually separated into 3 parts, the head (which shown in the photo) is at Laem Son On Dam, the body is in the Lan Chom Dao, which is near to the lotus pool, and the tail is near to Songkhla Golf Course. The head and tail are about 3km apart! The way the sculptures are meant to evoke the image of large dragon moving its way through the city, too bad I couldn't find its body and tail in the garden! Laugh. 

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Feel lucky that we are back from Hat Yai already! Till then.

Sawadee Hatyai . Part 3

Day 2 always the busiest or most tiring day throughout the trip (as for my experience), went to many places and I guess I'm gonna split it into more parts. Same with my parents, I normally woke up earlier to prepare everything we need, moreover the JR tour will come to pick us from hotel, we need to have our breakfast done before it. This doesn't apply on my sister and bro-in-law, sorry for pointed you out lol. We decided to have a walk around our hotel while waiting for both of them, to get some morning breeze.

The street along Lee Garden Plaza wasn't that crowded compare to noon and night time, maybe it was still early and I noticed some of the shops are yet to open. Dad wanted to find a coffee shop to cure his caffeine need, too bad most of the shops were just started to open. Heart the city which look like a palette, full of colors, who says Hat Yai is a small town, it is big enough for us to immerse ourselves in their culture and lifestyle.

Met up with sister and bro-in-law at the hotel lobby and went to the famous breakfast place - Chokdee Dim Sum and Bak Kut Teh (好運點心肉骨茶); superb crowded you can see outside the restaurant. It was hard to control the chaotic crowds, you are lucky if you get your seat faster than other groups or if you come in a small group, you are easier to look for a table. All of us need to wait outside until boss and his staff clean up a table for you and give you your table number written on a piece of white paper. 

Mom and I decided to visit the nearby stalls while waiting for our turn to be seated. Fruits over here are cheap, if you have space in your luggage you can get some fruits back; if you don't want you can just get a big packet of sliced fruits at 10-20THB. We saw this cute tiny food at the stalls and decided to give it a try since we never try it before (I wanted to buy skewered chicken actually lol), baked glutinous rice in monkey cup topped with some coconut milk (20THB). The stall lady told us the monkey cup can be eaten, but I feel the taste is quite weird so we only ate the glutinous rice inside, we both finished 3 of these since others don't want to try. 

Unlike our dim sum here which are all steamed, heated and prepared upfront; theirs are yet to steamed or cooked. Once you have your seat, take the paper with your table number written on it and select your favorite food at their dim sum corner, each dim sum bucket cost 16THB (cheap!!!); once you have done, put all the dim sum on the top of table, the staff will slip the white paper between dim sum bucket and use a divider to separate your dim sum. They will start to cook your dim sum accordingly and serve it to your table. 

We ordered more than 20 dim sum buckets, our table is too small and we can't put all the dim sum on our table, luckily the boss prepare a tray besides every table, so those extra thingy or unused dim sum buckets can put on top of it. We also ordered bak kut teh for 3 pax and it came in this big portion, we can't really finished all of them, those yummy one we still can sweep away. Overall the food was just okay, I still prefer the one in Penang, but the price is cheap and we paid only 700THB+ for this breakfast. Oh yeah, my dad had his coffee here finally, something I should say is their teh peng (iced milk tea) is really good!

Can you believe it? For me, 7-eleven in Hat Yai become the best place to shopping, they have all sort of things with very affordable price. The collagen drinks just cost around 20THB but here I think they sell around RM17++ per bottle; whenever I passed by 7-eleven, I sure need 5-10 minutes to survey what to buy. Laugh! 

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Don't feel to do anything today but I have outing lol.

Sawadee Hat Yai . Part 2

All of you should know Hat Yai is one hour slower than Malaysia, I have no idea was it only me or all of them also noticed that the time passed super duper slow over here, we always feel that we spent quite some times in a place but actually it was just roughly 30 minutes. So it was quite relaxing since we spent most of our time wander around the city or just simply rest in hotel. 

We departed 2 hours earlier from dinner time to Central Festival, a new shopping mall opened its doors to shoppers last December. Central Festival is with quirky crystalline form in and out, you can find a lot of international or local brands here. 

Too bad we were there not for movie but shopping and dinner, if not I think I'm gonna fall in love with their cinema, see how huge is the waiting space they provided. They even provide numerous of sofa for people to sit, too good to be true. 

Been poisoned by my sister since her last trip to Bangkok and bought some hair serum from Beauty Cottage, a brand which is yet available in Malaysia. One of her purpose to go Central Festival was to restock her hair serum, I bought some too together with eye masks. We got 10% discount by using sister's member card and free one eye shadow with purchased more than 500THB. Still thinking want to do a review on it not, since I never did one before and I don't know how to. Laugh! Let's see if I'm free or not.

Dinner time! Went to Shabu Shi for their eat-all-you-can buffet for only 299THB per pax, with given 90/120 minutes to dine. Was thought it would be more joyful to share a pot together and throw everything we want in the pot; turn out it was quite packed and us who sit far from the conveyor belt had difficulty to get the food. Overall the food is okay and I love the pork bacon the most, can't remember how much I had that, around 20-30 plates? Laugh. Other than the shabu shabu, they do have sushi corner, dessert corner, soup corner and etc. This is the restaurant that make us wanted for more throughout the whole trip. Will definitely go back again if we happened to go Hat Yai again. Shabu Shi is located at Floor 5 of Central Festival, if you couldn't locate it correctly, don't panic, the whole Floor 5 will make you drool as most of the restaurants at Floor 5 are buffet style, with reasonable price! 

After that, we moved to the night market nearby Lee Garden Plaza by tuk-tuk, the fee was slightly expensive than day time, around 30THB per pax. You can do food hunt along the street, but personally I think the price for the hawker stall are quite expensive, it's better for me to have my dinner in shopping mall. I feel regret for not trying their Burapha Bird's Nest-Shark Fin (东方燕窝-鱼翅), their bird's nest only cost around 200THB; everytime we walked by the shop, it was either after lunch or dinner. Sigh. 

Along the street, you will get to see the baby elephant, you can buy some sugarcane bundle (around 10-20THB) from the owner to feed the elephant. Saw the guy (owner) holding a hook kind of thing? It's use to poke/scare the baby elephant if they are not obey to him, I feel it's quite cruel and feel sad to the elephant. I think it is illegal to bring elephant to the market, he was then warned by police. 

It successfully caught my attention when I first passed by the stall, so whenever I passed by here, I'll stop and have a look on their prawn (and take a shot, I got plenty of these photos lol), the size of the prawn was bigger and bigger everytime I passed by. But I didn't get one to try, it should be not really expensive for one. Maybe one of it can already boost your cholesterol level. Laugh. 

If you didn't try their Mango Glutinous Rice, you cannot tell people you went to Hat Yai/any part in Thailand before, it's their signature food anyway. Bought one packet from the market and shared with my sister as our supper; if not mistaken the street has more than 2 stalls selling the mango glutinous rice, but I guess this should be the most famous as people willing to queue for this while others have no one to queue. It should be cost around 30-50THB per pack. This was how we spent our 1st day in Hat Yai, going to post the 2nd and 3rd day (half day) once it's ready.

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It's time to work hard after play hard for 2 months.

Sawadee Hat Yai . Part 1

Finally make up my mind to start blogging on my family trip to Hat Yai one month back. At first we were planning to have roadtrip to Ipoh (postpone to coming June during school holiday) but end up we decided to turn it into a short trip to Hat Yai. It was kind of an impromptu trip, we booked van (go and back from Penang to our Hat Yai Hotel, cost only RM60 per pax), hotel, plan for itinerary within 2 weeks, luckily it turn out quite good and we had a joyful trip. It was my first time to Hat Yai, when I told my friends about this, they were like: what? Penangites should always go to Hat Yai since it's so near to your island! Nah, it was really my first time over there and I'm glad that I went there with my family; should really have annual family trip to elsewhere from now on.

We went there on Saturday, you can see that lots of people wanted to cross the border to Thailand via Bukit Kayu Hitam (the border crossing closest to Dannok and Hat Yai). You might heard people say that we must put RM1 in our passport (to bribe the officer I think) so that they will process our passport checking faster. We decided to try our luck not to put the RM1 inside our passport, we will only give it to officer if they ask for that; lucky us, they did not request any token from us. Another 30 mins ride to get to the town. 

Most of the people will stay at Lee Garden Plaza Hotel whenever they are here in Hat Yai, yet we decided to stay at Diamond Plaza which is just across the street from Lee Garden. We were quite satisfy with their service and the cleanliness of the room is definitely worth a thumb up, lucky us to get 2 rooms with a linked door in between, we just let the door open whole day long. 

Happy faces when we first got up to a tuk-tuk, a common transportation you can get in Hat Yai. The price for tuk-tuk is fixed, 20THB per pax but you can try to negotiate with the driver to get cheaper price if you go several places. The price is slightly higher at night or your destination is far; at the end of the trip, we realized that the total amount we paid for tuk-tuk is quite high, roughly the same if we drove to Hat Yai, will definitely consider to drive to Hat Yai next time.

Our first stop at Kan Eng Restaurant (甘英飯店) for lunch. One of the restaurant which is highly recommended from the net, too bad the tomyam soup is not up to my liking, I still prefer the one I had in Khuntai restaurant. Something I should say, their asparagus are a lot cheaper than in Penang, we had it like almost every meal if we dine in restaurant. Cold beverage is a must in hot Hat Yai!

Went to JR Tour office after our lunch to get our RM exchange to THB, they really offer better rates than other money changer. Our main purpose to JR Tour was to get a private tour for our next day around Hat Yai and Songkhla, 2100THB (for 5 pax, including van and tour guide) for whole day, worth till drop! Do not worry about the communication problem, most of the people in Hat Yai can speak Mandarin, Hokkien and Malay fluently. 

Next stop to Big C Extra for shopping purpose, mainly on snack. The Big C Extra is quite similar to our Tesco Extra, most of their items are quite cheap compare to ours. You can see how much of Lay, Pepero and Pocky we got for ourselves. 

Two men were down for a nap while we girls decided to walk around our hotel and get some sight-seeing. I love how their coke come in a glass bottle where I couldn't find it in Penang anymore; the weather was really killing but the strong wind did calm me a bit. 

The coconut ice cream is a must-have-dessert whenever you are in Hat Yai. Cost only 20THB and they allow you to choose 2 toppings, I really love the taste when the coconut ice cream mixed with the glutinous rice, the taste is simply couldn't explain by words. Why we don't have it in Penang? I want more.

I separate the Hat Yai trip into few parts, if you are interested to read on, just click the link below:
Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6
Enjoy reading!

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Stay tuned for our next stop.