Haadyai : Cheap and Good

It was a month later in January 2010 after my trip to Bangkok, that I stepped into Thailand again. This time, to Haadyai, which is located at the border of Thailand and Malaysia. My friends and I decided to take the train (RM52 per ticket). It was my first long ride by train. Took 13 hours. Slept on the top bunk. Bought some drinks at the canteen, which caused a bomb. RM3 for a small cup of chocolate drink. Which was shared by 4 of us. Talk about tight budget!

The officer came to check our train tickets.

The canteen.

The "gold" drink.

So, we reached Padang Besar, which is the border of Thailand and Malaysia, where we had our passports stamped.

It was another hour train ride before we reached the train station in Haadyai.

Haadyai has so many hotels that you just don't know which one. We booked this earlier as we didn't know about the abundance of their hotels. We could have found cheaper hotels at a very close distance from the train station. The hotel we stayed - Kosit Hotel was about 15 minutes' walk.

 

We were discussing in the room on which places to go to for the 3 day break.

After the discussion, we crossed the road from our hotel to have our lunch. There were funny stick figures at the restaurant mantel.

No, the fish is not spicy.

After our meal, we rented a car to bring us around. This car was introduced by the hotel, which we shouldn't have taken. It was expensive. We should have walked around town, and surveyed the prices before agreeing to any transportation. Luckily the cost was shared by 4 of us. The driver was interactive though. His vocabulary always include - cheap cheap, good good - indication to the stuff being sold in Haadyai.

So, the first location we were brought to was the Buddhist Temple. This is not as large as the one in Bangkok.

After the temple, we went to see the Floating Market. It was so hot, so we bought some coconuts. How cooling!

At night, we wandered around the area near our hotel, and got a chance to bump into an elephant. It was actually strolling the streets.

The next day, we went to Samila Beach which has the famous bronzed mermaid statue stroking her hair. 

 

We had lunch by the beach. The hired car driver recommended this restaurant to eat. They were all seafood restaurants, and I suppose the driver had an agreement with the restaurant to bring travellers to that restaurant. 

After the Beach, we went to see the Park in Haadyai Town. There were Hindu God statues.

The sun setting. The view from the Park.

After the Park, the driver brought us to another place where the largest Buddha standing statue resides in Haadyai. This was the view of Haadyai Town from the steps.

We went to a nearby Garden because there was a event being held. Lanterns of all sizes and shapes were on display.

And our final day. Breakfast for me was chicken porridge. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I thought there was an event going on because I saw these lion-dance performers. How disappointing that they were there to hit a few beats, and ask for some money in exchange for their performance. Of course, just ignore them.

We took the tuk-tuk to our bus station that brought us back to Kuala Lumpur.

The border to stamp our passports. Here, we used our MYR currency to purchase some snacks.

Haadyai is a small town. It can be easily covered in 2 days. There is nothing significant in this place, except maybe just for me to mark my presence in another spot in the world map.