Songkhla
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2003
1
4
24
Trip End
Jun 10, 2003
Songkhla,
Thailand
Monday, April 28, 2003
The hotel in Hat Yai was extraordinarily noisy, with people coming and going all night, and the dulcet tones of a vacuum at 7am. A Tuk Tuk dropped me at the minibus stop, and the minibus took me to Songkhla, coastal town in the south of Thailand.
The minibus driver, holding a steady 120kph, was safer than the dude who drove me from Satun to Hat Yai - he sat on 130kph. He also held all the correct racing lines, starting the curves wide, working into the inside lane for the turn, and then working to the outside lane to complete the curves as not to lose any speed. Hair-raising, if I had any....
The minibus dropped me at the wrong place, but the Hotel I was out the front of turned out to be cheap cheap ($16) with air con and Thai TV and thus good good. Songkhla is not a touristy town, and it is old style Chinese and rustic in an oriental kind of way. The National Museum (opposite my hotel) was actaully really good, even for a non-Museum kind of guy. The looong beach was also very nice, with shady Casuarina trees along the way. I spent the day wandering around the old part of town and Samila Beach.
I went back to the beach for dinner to find out that it was the Songkhla Seafood Festival. That meant markets, food stalls, sideshow alley, rides, dancing displays, concert stage and the obligatory singing and dancing kids on it. It was actually a very cool atmosphere - me and 15,000 Songkhlaians (yes that many). I was the only white fella there - everyone stares, or smiles and stares, some say hello, but everyone has a look. Maybe I'm the Freakshow of this Carnival....
The food stalls were great with cakes, Thai food, Sugar Cane juicers - but my favourites were the bug sellers. Fried insects of many kinds. Crickets, worms, grubs and even bugs, all deep fried. The kids seem to like them as they were the ones buying them. Personally I didn't try 'em out, as I hate when the wings get stuck between your teeth.
I headed back to town to catch the FA Cup Final (had to watch some footy). Ended up in an Expats Bar of some kind, as it was the only place where the game had English Commentary. It turns out there's lots of fat Western blokes who work in the petroleum industry in Songkhla. Overweight swearing rude Englishmen.
Therefore I'm the only white guy in town who's not a pain in the arse fatso pommy bastard.
PINK LADIES, NO MUSLIM FISHERMEN, and THE MEN WITHOUT HATS.
I walked up Khao Tang Kuan hill which overlooks the town. Not much shade on the 305 steeps up - only mad dogs, Englishmen and wacko Oz tourists go out in the midday sun. I treked out of town a little to a Muslim Fishing Village to find it pretty much not happening, so after a break back in the air con of the Hotel, I decided that I'd seen all I wanted to in Songkhla, so I briefly headed back to Hat Yai for the Sunday Market.
I found Australian Pink Lady apples, 2 for 60 cents. Cheaper than the Ralph Lauren Fruit and Veg shop in Albert Park. Plus a huge bag of cashews for $2 for something to munch on. Nice.
Back to Songkhla for dinner. Ended up with a bad Gary Busey movie on the TV, dubbed into Thai. The funniest part was they'd dubbed in the voices but kept in the soundtrack - hence the only English I was exposed to was the Men Without Hat's song "Safety Dance". Now it might have been their finest moment, but of all the things in English I had access to, the Men Without Hats wasn't what I was expecting. What about Wang Chung or Haircut 100????
That was probably my bad taste music highlight so far, along with the
opening song from the band at the Hat Yai Regency restaurant (you've just got to open with a Hammond organ version of "Misty" don't you), and the video on the TV screen in the minibus which featured a Thai bloke singing The Carpenters "Resterday Runce Mooooore".
