Sawadee Hat Yai . Part 5

Let's continue my journey with me after the Naga Head statue we visited earlier, this round I might cut short some temples so that you wouldn't get bored of these. The Naga Head is somewhere near to Samila Beach where you started to see people heading to the beach to get some sea breeze. The hot sun was really killing us but the strong wind did some help to make us feel better.

The main purpose to here is for The Golden Mermaid statue on the Samila Beach. At first we wanted to take photos with the statue, but you have no idea how long you need to wait for that, you can see people trying to climb on the statue and accidentally drop the flowers, which I felt sad about it. We end up snap the mermaid statue and off to bench to get some rest. The Golden Mermaid is with a story, narrated by Khun Wigitmatra, a mermaid sat and combed her hair on a beautiful beach on a starry night. A young fisherman met and frightened her and she fled into the sea. The fisherman waited for her but she disappeared forever.

Before we left Samila Beach, bro-in-law bought some souvenirs and we girls decided to get another coconut ice cream, my sister just couldn't get enough on this. Personally, I think this coconut ice cream is better than the one we had on the first day, the glutinous rice is the best we had! Maybe it was just icy stuff make us feel better during the hot weather. 

Next, we went to the latest attraction in Hat Yai  - Hat Yai Cable Car, which located on top of the Hat Yai Park and Guan Yin statue, there are a few attractions near to this place where I will talk more about that later. The price for the cable car is 200THB per pax (go and back), basically there are only 2 cable cars available, you need to wait for some time to reach your turn. 

The Great Brahman is at the other end of cable car, the Great Brahman is the Hindu god of creation which force present within all things, which we always named him as 4-faced Brahman. Therefore, a lot of tourists come over here to worship and pray for blessing, saw numerous of golden elephants located around the Brahman statue? They are all donated by people who wish came true after praying the Great Brahman. The three-headed elephant called "Erawan" is the famous shrine to the Great Brahman.

We did some praying at The Great Brahman, you can get the set of praying stuff (joysticks, oil, candle and flowers) at 60THB. There is a method on how are you going to pray the Brahman, if you do not know, you may ask the people who sell the joysticks, he will tell you on the method (he speaks fluent Hokkien). I have a everything-also-know-sister, so she is the one who teach us the way, she learnt it during last visit to Bangkok. We were so lucky to see people put the firecrackers at the place they provided for votive people.

After came down from the top hill, we went to several temples nearby the cable car station, Phra Buddha Mongkol Maharaj (the tallest Standing Buddha in Southern Thailand, we can actually see the statue from far) and Hat Yai White Guan Yin. There are around 4 temples nearby the cable car station, once you came down from the station, you can slowly visit and pray at each temples, we are running out of time, so we just have some walk and prepare ourselves to our last destination - floating market. Stay tuned for that. 

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Decided to have a hair cut by this week. 

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.