The Last Minute to Hat Yai (3D3N)

The first thought that might came to your mind is that why I named that to last minute. Sincerely, I was one of the Bangkok affected guest and by measuring the risk of flood that might get worst anytime there. I have changed my mind before two days of my departure and bought another ticket for Hat Yai. Hat Yai is the third largest metropolitan city in Thailand and the largest city of Songkhla province. It is very near to the northern of Malaysia so throughout the year Malaysian and Singaporean are the most visitor to Hat Yai. So well what can do in Hat Yai?

Things to do:

1. Shopping - preferably for budget shoppers.

2. Massage

3. Buddha statue visit

3. Night Activities

And that's!! Not much more you can find out there.

Language:

Most of them didn't know English, try to learn some common word to speak with them. Some of them might know Mandarin and Hokkien.

Since I didn't have much time on planning the trip, doesn't even called as backpacking this times.

Just arrived the airport on scheduled, we been picked up by tour guide and he bought us to Chinese-Siam style restaurant. This restaurant is populated by tourists and the food quality is good but the price is a bit expensive!!

Tour guide recommended Guava juice to us, the taste is good and the juice is produced by them daily. Ordered dish: Stir-fried spinach (really delicious), Tom Yam soup, Fried Reef Cod. The lunch costs 420 Baht.

After the lunch, we checked in to New Season Hotel (1200 Baht per night, price from Agoda). I’m not satisfied with this hotel basically because the bath tub has dirt stained on it, looks gross to bath it there, the basin don’t have hot and cool water, and no hair dryer. Except from that, the bed is soft and comfortable, much more nearer to city. If you preferred much nearer hotel to city, you can choose Novotel and Lee Gardens Plaza.

I will not recommend to buy the dry food stuff or souvenir from the shop. The price is over charged and they are targeted for tourist even though it might look cheap for you.

Nice handcraft sold at souvenir shop

The street view in Hat Yai

The taxi in Hat Yai call “Tuk Tuk”, normally charge is 20 Baht per person around city area. Don’t get conned if they want more than 30 Baht. The taxi driver will horn you if they saw you are the tourist. The roads in Hat Yai are mostly one way. It is nothing big here but just walks round with the cube.

The taxi

Road sign on street

Dinner: Fried rice, mango salad, boneless fish, meatball made by fish and pork

At night, the only street you can find cheap stuff to buy and hawker food is in front of Central Store. The food available are fried small crab, bird nest, seafood restaurant, mango rice, the desserts, grill squid, thai's ice-cream, otak-otak, fried bird eggs, Samurai pork burger, beer and etc. Shoes and clothes are relatively cheap at there but you need to bargain for that.

Shopping

Some are took from web resources:

Diana Department Store: Diana Department Store

Diana is a bit off the city center. But it is close enough to shop. Main merchandise in the building is clothing. There is a Diana Department Store and there are a few small shops inside. There is a cineplex in the building. There are a few restaurants such as Pizza and Swenson's Ice-cream.

Odean Shopping Centre

"O.D.," as the locals call it, is a nice place to shop. It is not as fancy as the other department stores in town but they seem to have sale quite often. OD even has "Merdeka Sale" sometimes in August to celebrate Malaysian's independence day!!!

For Malaysian tourists, the skincare and cosmetics are cheaper in Thailand. In OD, head to the 2nd floor for these items. But be careful to check the expiration date on the products as I found that merchandise in OD is a bit old sometimes. But you will find good bargain there.

Local Markets: Santisok Market & Yong Dee Market

It is a popular place for the locals to shop. Don't expect it to be big like those in Bangkok. It is enough to serve the local shoppers and Malaysian and Singaporean tourists.

Pretty much anything from clothes (Polo, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc), sport shoes, electrical appliances, DVD/ CDs (of course pirated version with nice packaging), etc. However, don't expect to find many handicrafts or local souvenirs here.

Kim Yong Market

Kim Yong Market is famous for the locals to get imported snacks from Malaysia and Singapore. You will find many muslim vendors sellling merchandise on the street. The market itself has many small stalls nestled on narrow alleyways. It is covered and can get a bit clasterphobic sometimes.

According to my Thai friends, one of the most popular souvenir from Hatyai is Pringles potato chips! Apparently, they are imported from Malaysia and are cheaper than in the rest of Thailand. Other things to be considered at this market are local fruits, all sorts of nuts, and anything Thai!! Batik is also popular at this market.

Street Vendors & Hawkers: Honest Hawkers

Three streets away from Lee Garden Hotel (from the front entrance), you will find a Malay woman hawker who sells the usual dry titbits Malaysians love to buy home-cashew nuts, pistachios, durian cakes. The best thing about her is her honesty.At the first look, you may complain of prices of her goods becaue they are definitely priced higher than many (actually only slightly higher) but that is because she sells you the products weighed with an accurate weighing machine.I tested by weighing products bought from other hawkers on this hawker's weighing machine and found all much less than claimed.

Dried food stuff - cashew nuts, pistachios, durian cakes etc.

If you like to buy the cheap cheap clothing, ear rings, souvenirs, etc... then Hat Yai is really a best place to shop. Some of the shopping complexes there offer goods in a good price, such as the Yong Dee store. Besides, you can also buy from the street vendors, which normally come out to sell their things in the morning and the night time. Noon and early evening is their resting time. So you too go back and have a nap before continuing the night activities!

Anything, everything!

Central Department Store

Luxury shopping

Robinson Department Store

A little bit far from the city

Tesco Lotus

Giant grocery shopping store in Hat Yai

Night Market

Open from Wednesday to Sunday night. Far from the city

Floating Market

Open on weekend only. Mainly sell food and handcrafts

Things to learn about Bargain:

1. Let say they offer 200 Baht, ask the price around 130 Baht and if they are not deal, increase your price to 150 Baht and so on until you think you make a good deal.

2. Don't leave and stop plan to buy after you both have make the deal. They will feel fury and throw you some bad words.

3. For example, the food price they offered is 3 packs for 100 Baht. Ask for 4 packs, you will see how easy they can give you.

4. No bargain at shopping store, the price is fixed.

5. You can bargain for in room massage.

6. Check more stalls before you made up the final decision. There are getting the same items from the same source.

Night activities:

1. Show - cabaret show (lady boy) , tiger show (rated show)

2. Adult activities (Not sure what it got, I'm not into that)

Incredible size of prawn

Breakfast at shop near New Season Hotel

"Bak Kut Teh" bihun soup

The tourist attraction spot are situated at Songkhla which are 30 minutes driving from Hat Yai.

Three-headed elephant

four faced Buddha

I'm hate this literally because they ask you to buy and release it to show the merciful you are. At where they caught the bird and sell to you?

The standing buddha

The guan yin status

Hawkers at Songkhla Beach.

The Dragon head

The view at Tang Guan Hill

Tilt Shift effect of Songkhla

The mermaid statue

The Wat at Tang Guan Hill

Alright shoppers, the place that you can find really cheap things is at morning market called as "Pasar". Just ask for the any taxi and told them "pasar", they will bring you here. This is just wet market in Hat Yai but we want to find is the indoor shopping market.

Some kind of corn but taste like sweet potato

There are a lot of small shops selling shoes, bag, handbags and clothes in the Pasar.

I would highly recommend this hotel call BP Grand Suite hotel. It is just refurbished and clean hotel. The room is big, and have every thing supplied . The price per night is 1100++ Baht (from Agoda) and included Breakfast. We ordered the American breakfast which include tea/coffee, bacon, ham, orange juice, toast, fried egg, tomatoes and cucumbers. At here I would like to give credit to the bell boy, he is friendly, speak Chinese, helps us a lot by giving opinion what to do and things not to do.

Try the Samurai Pork Burger at McD Lee Garden Plaza. We asked the waitress for any promotion meal, and she gave us the coupon where we bought 1 set of Samurai pork burger and free one burger. Wow.. this is so terrific!!

Our victory gift on the last day, not too much but great deal.

The Chang beer cost 30++ Baht

The BP Grand Suite lobby

The smiley donuts at Hat Yai airport's dunkin donut

New Zealand total 8D/7N expenses

In here, I would like to share more information about our New Zealand 8D7N Tour from planning of route, accommodation, transportation and budget allocation.

Our air ticket was booked on December 2010 which is the first promotion launched by Air Asia to travel to New Zealand. We booked it almost half a year before the travelling date when he suddenly have an idea about travelling to New Zealand and coincidently there is a promotion.

Next is to plan the travelling itinerary as we are doing self-drive tour. It’s depends on which attraction you wish to visit. But considering to have relax and free and easy tour, we didn’t visit the west coast. You must remember to do research on the travelling time from one destination to another as it may take 4-5h time just for travelling. Also, take note on the road condition. I can say most of the road is in good condition, but some may have a very crooked road and travel along hill and valley. Beware of the dead animal on the road too. Take into account some time for a stop to photo-shooting as panoramic view is everywhere when travelling. Then you can plan the activity when you reach an attraction. We also include the must see attraction and any famous food in a certain attraction in our plan. This will give you a perfect arranged schedule and save time on searching. But of course, we need to explore more new things when we reach a destination, not only based on the plan.

For accommodation, we have chosen all types of accommodation, from backpackers, motel, bed and breakfast to luxury hotel. It’s recommended to search and booked online by considering the location of the accommodation and budget before going there. This helps to save some money as online promotion is there for early bird, and you can compare price for each accommodation. Find accommodation which is convenient to have food and attraction depending on your budget. I have done some research on this and one can always refer to Trip Advisor for comment before choosing.

The Car Rental fee with insurance is NZ 345. Our car is a hatch which is Hyundai Getza and itis suitable to travel for couple. More info about transportation can refer to my car rental blog.

Total petrol expenses is NZ 227. Every gas station will have different petrol rate. Also, petrol price will be cheaper in city, for example Lake Tekapo will have a more expensive petrol rate as it’s a small town. Always remember to fully fill your car with petrol before travelling as petrol station is not easy to found along the journey.

Others expenses for activities, daily meals and shopping with total of NZ 600. One can have a self-cooking by choosing some accommodation with kitchenette. For us, we have two self-cook dinners. This gave us great experience cooking with many friends in a backpacker’s kitchen and we enjoy buying groceries in the shopping mall too.

You can check out Air Asia latest deal for New Zealand through https://www.airasiago.com/travel/arc_process.cfm?search=true

New Zealand Dunedin to Timaru 28 May 2011

The longest journey in our trip begins from Garden Motel, Dunedin to next destination at Timaru. We are going up all the way along the east coast. The strong wind has brought us to border of east coast, and we collected some miniature rock as our souvenir. Thanks for the god blessing, today is a bright and blue sky day.

East Coast of NZ

Let give a stop at Moeraki Boulders where you can see huge spherical stones. There is nothing much there but at least we left our footprints.

Moeraki Boulder

Previously, I was planned to stop at Oamaru town as it is famous about blue penguin colony and Waitaki District. After considering all our backpackers, hotel, motel and this time I want to try out farm living experience. Therefore, I cancel my thought and choose to stay at Timaru. Ok, let’s come back. Oamaru, is a beautiful town with culture and heritage. I was fascinated by the magnificient historical building in Oamaru. There are the criterion motel, one of the well-known bed and breakfast accommodation themed in a Victorian style of refurbishment, oamaru botanical garden, very pleasant place for people who like greens, the woolstore, selling souvenir specially for Oamaru, and a it is served café.

Criterion Motel

I-Site Oamaru is just in the corner of the street

In Oamaru, you can’t miss to go for blue penguin colony (yes, you need to pay) and yellow eye penguin colony (free of charge). This is such regret that the blue penguin colony is only opened for visit around the time of 4 – 5 in the evening. In order not to stay longer and waste the other half day, we took a quick lunch at one of the Chinese restaurant in Oamaru to continue our journey.

After 1 hour of driving, we are finally reached Timaru. Timaru is almost similar to Oamru which preserved much of its historic heritage, both in terms of its architecture and through local treasures housed in the excellent local museum. Art gallery is one of the activities you can found but our destination is not absolutely Timaru but is a 19km distance away, the Pleasant Point. It took us 20 minutes to reach and we begin to search for our last accommodation, Long View Bed and Breakfast. Well, it is an urban place and undoubtedly it is quite far from the town. We are so excited when we finally find our farmstay accommodation and we are welcomed by one of the host, Alan where his wife, Anita has no yet return from visiting her grandchildren. Alan is such a friendly man and bringing us to our room. Oh my god, the view is so panoramically great!

Our room, Mt Dohbson

Paranomic field

Garden yard

Booklet filled with guest comment

Comfortable living area

Without wasting the 2 hour left before the sun sink, we drove back to town again to have some walk and food for dinner. The place we went is Botanical garden and Caroline Bay. In New Zealand, one need to try out the local famous beer, the Speight and I got it from liquor store that is still open at 8pm.

Botanical garden

A swarm of duck

Caroline Bay

After dinner, we went back to Long view and take a bath. For the night, we spend time talking with Alan and Anita. They are friendly and the environment in living room is cosy. Making me to spend few nights here.

On next morning, we are walking out to the host’s planting olive grove and watching the sun rise. It is so freezing cool and my hand was shivering pressing the shutter. The grass has already icy and winter is about to come more early this year. We have been served the best breakfast we had in NZ. The meals included are cereal, yogurt, coffee, juice, full breakfast set, and toast. After that, our long waited farm visit has come. Alan is taking us to his cattle farm. When the time we stepped into the cattle farm, there are walking in rush towards us because they know this is their breakfast time. Alan mentioned in winter the grass is growing slower, and he needed to control the fresh grass area that is sufficient for their daily intake. He separated the field with some electrical shock fence to prevent cattle from crossing fresh grass. Cattle has a wet nose and it looks funny way out. Conclusion, the farm stay experience is the best I can say among all the accommodation we have stayed. In here, we can feel the warm and harmony immersed from the host. I would highly recommend this bed and breakfast.

Olive

Icy grass in the morning

Delicious breakfast served

Cattle farm