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We arrived in Hat Yai after 4 hours in a mini bus from Krabi at around 5pm. Hat Yai is classed as a stopover town as many bus routes go there and the train station can take you back up north to Bangkok or all the way south through Malaysia to Singapore. Most backpackers either arrive in Hat Yai and then continue their journey, or stay for a night. We did the latter, staying for 2 nights so that we could have a full day in the city.
Once we'd dumped our bags and freshened up we went for a walk toward a department store. We'd been told all you can really do in Hat Yai is shop and having not seen any 'proper' shops for nearly 3 months it was quite fun! Once inside it was obvious they didn't really get many 'farangs' or foreigners in there, as every step we took we were watched like hawks! When Andy reached to touch a teddy there was a shop assistant next to him instantly making sure he wasn't going to steal it! A nice welcome eh?! Nikki actually did pick up a pair of 'fishermans trousers' (a lot nicer and more comfortable than they sound!) and then we carried on our walk.
After turning a corner we found the place that 'farangs' were supposed to go to. We were suddenly surrounded by western hotels, and we stumbled upon a small shopping mall with McDonalds, Pizza Hut, American ice cream parlours, the lot! Now although it was brilliant to feel like a local on Koh Tao eating noodles and rice dishes everyday and eating at the night market in Krabi, we are not afraid to admit that we couldn't resist treating ourselves! As we'd already had dinner we went to Svensens, which is an American chain that sells nothing but extravagant ice cream sundaes and huge banana splits, even something called 'The Earthquake' which consisted of enough ice cream to feed a whole family! We modestly opted to have a dish each which had 4 scoops of ice cream (you pick the different flavours you'd like), bananas, a chocolate covered wafer, a few chocolate truffles thrown in for good measure, and on the side - a shot of melted hot fudge! Sounds amazing, looked amazing, tasted amazing. There was just one problem - for Andy. After going so long without eating anything super indulgent, especially something like a load of ice cream, meant that one scoop down and he was already feeling full and a little bit sick. Nikki on the other hand was a different story. After going so long without eating anything super indulgent, especially something like a load of ice cream, meant that four scoops down and the lot was gone, haha! Women and their desserts, I guess being a huge ice cream fan has its advantages after all!
Our one and only full day in the city was spent simply wandering around past shops and through local markets. There were loads of football shirts that were the most amazing fakes we've ever seen. Everything down to the finest detail was perfect, they even had the correct Nike or Adidas tags hanging off them. Andy didn't get a Man Utd shirt though as the real one is made out of recycled plastic bottles which is pretty cool and obviously is a massive step towards helping the environment too, so he didn't want a fake one. Anyhow we wandered around and found a market which was somewhere locals could sell things they had made themselves, and let us tell you there were some unbelievable things on display from hand carved soaps to paper mache statues, some really talented work had gone into them so that was really nice to see.
The last stop on our itinerary was to head to the train station to buy our ticket out of Thailand and down into Malaysia to Butterworth. The chap behind the counter let us know that we needn't pre book our tickets and simply to come back at 6am the following morning where we could buy them for the 6.55am departure. With only one train running a day, we hit the hay ready to be up super early for the following day. Although we needn't have bothered...
We were up at 5.30am to check out of our room and were walking the streets with all our stuff earlier than the locals. We made our way to the station and the same guy was behind the counter. We tried to buy the tickets but were met with the following response: "Aah, sorry, no train to Butterworth today, you come back tomorrow". Superb! So after being told 12 hours previously to be there, after getting up at ridiculous o clock and checking out of our room, and after spending all our Thai baht other than the price of the tickets which meant we couldn't even buy any food, we were pretty stuck with no other train to get and no explanation as to why this one wasn't running!
After picking our brains and deciding what to do, we headed back to the hostel and managed to book ourselves a bus ticket which luckily turned out cheaper, just a slightly more tedious journey across the border. We were just relieved that we had a way into Malaysia and didn't have to sleep rough with no money for food for a day!
Onto the bus we got for the journey to Penang, Malaysia and country number 2!
- comments
Sarah Hurrah for ice cream. As soon as you mentioned shops that sold ice cream, I knew you were going and Nikki was going to be one chuffed bunny. :-) Hug you lots and am v glad you are both doing well. xxx
Arvind 5 stars just for the ice cream story! Wonder if there's anything like that in London... Sweet tooth hey Nikki?? ;)