I guess you can see from my previous posts on Hat Yai on where to go. I was in Hat Yai end of last month. The family went there after all of us attended our cousin sister’s graduation from Universiti Malaysia Perlis in Kangar. Kangar itself is quite a dead town. But it has breathtaking scenes. This is where the local Chinese production filmed their movie – Tian Tian Hao Tian. I’ve been to Kangar twice – once during a short holiday sometime this year and last month, was my second time. So, I get to witness two scenes – once with the vast green paddy fields and the second time, harvesting – where all paddy had been harvested and second time, only left plots of watery and muddy lands. I guess if you want to see Kangar, you have to see it when the paddy are still green or ripening.
Sunset at Kg. Wai, Kangar, Perlis
The set where local production shot the movie, “Tian tian hao tian”
Sunset at Kg. Wai, Kangar, Perlis
What I want to highlight this time, is the Hat Yai night market, I believed is called Suntisuk Night Market. I think I haven’t been there eventhough I’ve been to Hat Yai twice. Both times, we were too busy watching Simon Cabaret or Thai Girl show. Haha. Well, this time round, we didn’t intend to watch any shows so our driver took us to the night market. If you look at the map, the market is rather near Lee Gardens Hotel. Two blocks away. Here -especially girls, you will go CRAAZZZZYYYYY over shopping. Even my sister – the most thrifty among us went crazy. She ended buying two pairs of shoes – one for only 100 baht and 130 baht, some clothes for Ern Ern and Sasha. As for my cousin sisters – they went crazy buying dresses at only 99 baht each! However, for dresses, you couldn’t try though so you have to estimate if you could wear the dresses or not. As for me, sure no size lah. Haha. So I just bought 6 pairs of slippers (Ranging from 49 baht to 79 baht each!) and a small bag for 150 baht which is now my favorite bag. I kinda regret for not buying more though!
The Elephant temple, Hat Yai
Other than dresses, shoes and girly stuffs, you can also get a tattoo here, phone accessories at really dirt cheap prices, pets (though I don’t think you can get them out undetected.. also, I do not support buying pets, adopt them!), etc. Another thing is the food being sold here! They have all sorts of food from Thai to Western to Japanese. They have stalls of pretty little sushis on sale. We ended eating chicken rice – sold by a Muslim lady. The chicken was crispy and nice! We also went to try other stalls of food – pork rice with siew yok. We could have spent more time here.
The temple on highest point in Hat Yai
Another place you should be shopping is at the Tesco Lotus. You wouldn’t believe that the groceries there – biscuits, instant noodles, canned food, etc were so much cheaper. If you like bread sticks, they have other flavors as well which we couldn’t find here in KL. I love Meiji Panda vanilla biscuits, if not mistaken, in KL, it’s priced about RM3.50 per packet. But in Hat Yai’s Tesco, you can get it for only 19 baht. So you imagine how crazy we went in Tesco. Even aunty-ish stuffs like washing detergent and fabric softener are dirt cheap! The only thing we regretted is we didn’t drive a lorry to Padang Besar to cart all our things back to KL! Haha! I told my friends, in Hat Yai, not only you will go shopping.. you will go sapu-shopping! Everything on the shelf – you just sapu!
The floating market – Khlong Hae
Oh yes – we were staying in Kangar earlier, so we went into Hat Yai via Padang Besar’s entry point instead of the usual Sadao. Sadao is normally more packed compared to Padang Besar. In fact, I think we were the ONLY tourists when we were checking at the Padang Besar checkpoint. It was strange because we were at the check point on a Sunday morning, there weren’t many people going into Hat Yai via Padang Besar.
Another thing I want to highlight about Hat Yai is probably the chicken rice we had on the last day when we were there. It’s Jae Toi’s Hainanese Chicken Rice along along Prachatipat Road, right opposite one rather big 7-11! The chicken rice is made from Siamese fragrant rice. We doused generous servings of fried garlic onto our rice before we tucked in! It was heavenly! I think it’s open everyday from 7 am to 5 pm. Tel: 074-238915
For more photos, click here.