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Published: March 2nd 2014
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After the initial drama of the hospital was over we had to settle down to the idea of spending the next week or so in Hat Yai so the stitches in Stan's fingers could be taken out by the same surgeon at the hospital. Also we need to stay in an air conditioned hotel to lessen the chance of infection setting in.
Hat Yai is an inland city that’s a transport hub, you can basically get buses, trains and planes from here to anywhere in Thailand or Malaysia being so close to the border. It was a natural choice for travellers leaving the peace of the islands behind who wanted to move on.
We decided to spend some time here experiencing the real Thai way of life.
It certainly is an eye opener, we checked into a central guesthouse with all amenities like air con and hot water showers all for less than £12 a night. We even had a window which is quite a luxury in budget hotels in these parts
On our first night out I began to worry that I might slowly starve here as none of the eating places appealed to me at
all, large pieces of animal hung on display cooked hours previously, and half hacked about waiting for you to order it on a plate of cold rice. Eventually after exploring the streets we came across some Western looking bars selling food so all was not lost.
A problem for me were the rats. After dark walking along the streets it was nothing to see rats dash out from the gutter and run in front of you into a bag of garbage. One day I even saw a rat run from a gutter and past the feet of a lady who was stood chatting on her doorstep. The rat ran right into her shop but she never even batted an eyelid as if it was the most natural thing to happen!
The worst thing, though, was the morning we walked out to go and get breakfast and noticed cockroaches all over the pavement, mostly on their backs waggling their feet and feelers around, I noticed one walking along trailing a huge pair of wings so guessed there must have been a swarm arrive overnight. It just looked as if the cockroaches had rained down from the sky. Luckily by
mid day most had gone, probably cleaned up by the rats!! I’m so glad I wasn’t actually walking along the street when they arrived!
It wasn’t all bad though in between exploring the many street markets selling all kinds of fruit vegetables, fish a whole array of sunglasses clothing, flip flops, ironmongery and lots of ‘tat’.
There were several high class air conditioned shopping malls to wander around when the temperature gauge hit above 30 degree C. One boasted a restaurant on the 33rd floor with panoramic views over the city.
Hat Yai is surrounded by forest clad mountains so one day we took a bus ride out to a local park where there was a cable-car at the top of a hill which was home to several temples and golden Budhas
After a few days we felt that we had really and truly experienced the Thai way of life and it was almost time to move on. We spent one day visiting a local seaside resort 30 kms away on the East coast which was quite pretty but you wouldn’t want to stay too long. There was not a lot going on.
Our last
adventure out was to be the lantern Festival we’d noticed advertised in the park we’d visited previously.
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