Traveling Teen #1 : Trip to Hatyai

I just came back from a 2 day 1 night trip to Hatyai หาดใหญ่, Thailand.

I stayed at the Golden Crown Plaza Hotel, a 3-star hotel located at the town centre. My family shared two adjoining rooms as shown below. I still remembered our room number, 510 and 514.

It's not so clean, as other tourists just checked out from the rooms and the room keepers were busy cleaning up the mess they left behind. They were all full, previously. The same condition applies with Lee Garden Hotel, a classy hotel which we were supposed to stay at in the first place.

Photo courtesy of Kim Hooi

You can practically see the "tut-tut" car everywhere. If one or two people goes on the car, the drivers will collect 20 baht each. If there are more people, you can get a ride for 15 baht.

At the Hatyai Klong Hair Floating Market, I bought some nice snacks. They sell duku langsat at the price of 30 baht per kilo. That's equivalent to RM 3.00. If you don't buy them here, don't worry, because you can get them cheaper at 10 or 15 baht at other places. Just a tip while buying duku langsat: If you see a lot of ants on them, don't think they're bad. They must be free of insecticides and very sweet and tasty. I bought 3 pieces doughnuts at the price of 20 baht. And guess what? They tasted just like Dunkin Doughnuts! We also bought fried quill's eggs, keropok ikan, chicken meat balls, some kuihs and manggo+sticky rice. They were quite delicious. Everything here is around 10-30 bahts. Too bad I did not see anyone selling fried cockroaches and grasshoppers.

We had breakfast at Da Ren Dimsum shop at 5.30 Thai time. We were too early, actually, as they start their business at 6 o'clock. But what's the point of sending your customers away when they have arrived? They let us in and we chose an assortment of Hong Kong dimsums. I love the dumplings with prawn fillings. Yummy! Mom ordered two bowls of bak kut teh too. In Hatyai, you can see people selling bak kut teh almost everywhere. We spent a total of 175 bahts, which is totally worth it. It's approximately RM 3 per person.

Photo courtesy of yv0nne

We ate 500 bahts of bird's nest. Once at Nora's Plaza and another one is a specially ordered Betong Bird's Nest. They are wonderful (sweet) and luxurious!

Oh, before I forget, if you see an old man selling corns at the Hat Yai Immigration Office, don't ever buy the corns with PURPLE and WHITE seeds. They are genetically modified. Yes, the are beautiful, but they taste like a total disaster. By this I mean tasteless, not juicy and the texture is just like plastic. And also, they cost 15 bahts each. What a waste of money!

Last but not least, I bought myself some pretty cuff bracelets that look like the one shown above, but less luxurious. One is in eclectic blue and the other one is black and gold. My sister said they look like Indian-style jewelry, which is quite true. The old woman selling these offered 3 bracelets for 100 bahts.

XOXO,

Traveling Teen.