The last few weeks ago, I had been in Alor Setar for working purposes. During that period I was there, my colleague and I experienced a chance to travel to Thailand on weekends.
There are two ways to reach Hatyai. You can either drive all the way to Hatyai if you support the travelling insurance (around RM20 only) or you can park your car nearby the Malaysia's custom building and travel to Hatyai by van.
I advised you to travel by van cuz the fare is very cheap which is only costing around 60BAHT for one way from Danuk to Hatyai. Assume that 10BAHT = RM1 and 100BAHT = RM10. Hence it is only RM6. Cheap! Plus the parking near the custom building is free of charge. However, you need to walk for 15-20mins from the Malaysia's custom to Thailand's custom/Danuk to find that van.
You can see the van's booth in front of 7-11 store. Do not bother those people who offer you ride because those are taxi ride which is really expensive as they will charge you 1000-2000BAHT to reach Hatyai!
When we found that booth, we can't communicate with both the lady (ticket seller) and the driver. They can't understand English when we asked them where to find this van and what time is the last van coming back to Danuk. They went on to point out a cardboard which is written in Siamese and told us, "Bus station. Bus station. 830pm".
At the beginning, we couldn't understand what they meant. Eventually, we understood what they meant after we kept asking around in Hatyai. It meant that we need to get to the central bus station to find the van and come back to Danuk.
Btw, if you can speak Chinese, it is an advantage cuz they're capable to speak Chinese instead of English. This is because my colleague is a Malay, thus he spoke English to a lady to know where to get transportation back to Danuk and the lady spoke in fluent Chinese to me. LOL
I will talk about Hatyai town/central more in my next post, now we shall spill the beans about the floating market. Even you are in the town or Danuk, you can travel to the floating market with 'tuk tuk'. Tuk tuk is a motorised trishaw which also known as three-wheeled cabin cycle. This is likewise one of the cheapest transportation you can find in Thailand.
Some tuk tuk's drivers in the town will keep bugging you to hire them to the places you want to visit around like Songkhala, floating market and other interesting places. You can bargain with them to obtain the cheapest price and the tuk tuk can be seated up to max 10 people.
Hatyai floating market was smaller compared to the Bangkok one. The vendors will "parked" their boat at the river bank and start selling their goods and food. You don't have to rent a boat to move around that floating market.I heard people say that Hatyai floating market is open for some days in a week. I have forgotten which days, but I remember it is open for 3 days or sometimes, 4 days.
This floating market is almost seems like a park cuz you can find food, goods and even mini games stalls opened in that location. They even have seats and tables for visitors who bought food from the floating market and enjoy their food comfortably instead standing and eating.
Most of the food sold there are Siamese food and halal one. Thus, my Malay colleague can be assured to enjoy most of the food there. He bought one bowl of porridge and it tasted so yummy! Btw, the food there are also cheap! They only cost around 20BAHT-40BAHT.
My boyfriend also joined us for this trip and he bought this grilled squids and fried shrimps. The grilled squids were dipped in a tangy and spicy sauce (I think the sauce is asam pedas sauce, which asam (tamarind) sauce added with chillies). They were heavenly yummy. The squids were fresh and chewy when you bite them.
I don't actually like the fried prawns. They were fried with its shells as well. I thought the prawn meats were fried till they turned orange, but when I bite them, the shells were choking me. I don't really feel comfortable with the shells.
Another prawn stick. The prawns looked so "fresh" and looking good. Only when I took the bite, they were not real prawns. This was crunchy, but it was made to appear like a real prawn. Kena (got) cheated. Cheh.
When walking down the route to the floating market, I saw some young ladies were carrying some mugs with cute designs such as Doraemon, Ultraman or Hello Kitty. So darn cute! Hence, the first thing I want to buy there was the drinks in clay mug. Lol. I chose orange juice and Doraemon cup and it just costs 20BAHT! Only RM2. So cheap right?
I can't find any tom yam soup there, but only spicy noodle soup was sold at that place. Hence, I bought one. Seems like appetizing. Yummy yum yum! When I had my first bite, a spicy noodle soup is seriously spicy! (But still not very spicy like the tom yam I tried. Refer to my previous post).
While sitting down at the benches provided in that location and enjoying the soup's spiciness, my boyfriend went hunting for snacks again. He bought mini pancakes which made of fish eggs and also some small fish snacks.
The fish's eggs pancakes were seems so not convincing to me, but I still ate them. Everything must try for the first time! I ate only one pancake..... Ughhhh. Taste not nice! Blek. Even my boyfriend who is a very appreciating food person, also need to give up on this one.
Then, the small fish snacks. This fish is really small and it has a lot of bones. They just fried the whole fish without taking out any bones and eat it that direction. When I bite the fish, it was really crunchy, but I still feel uncomfortable with the shells or bones. When I swallowed the fish, it choked me! I'm not eating those anymore.
The grilled corn. Oh they smell good and yummy when I walked into the floating market area. The corn grilled with honey and the maize is so big sized! It is so sweet and fresh when you bite the corn.
Last but not least, the dessert. The coconut ice cream also served in a cute clay bowl. Nothing special in the coconut ice cream. Only the bowl is cute. Hahaha
After eating at the floating market, near there also has food stalls or preferably food court. We never checked that place out since we were full after consuming all the tasty food at floating market there. Thus, we walked around the stalls that selling clothes and souvenirs. Bargaining is very useful in that location. You can bargain the price for lower monetary value.
Even though the visit to Hatyai is short, it was a truly enjoyable trip as we learnt and see things thru their cultures and their surroundings.. For Hatyai, I stop till here only. Wait for my next post on Hatyai Central.
Thank you!!!
your lil BFF
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