Nick Chan Dot Net

Hat Yai At Night, Before My Camera Went Dead

Written by Nicholas Chan on January 28, 2010 – 1:52 am -

Yes, you read me. My camera, Canon 400D went dead on the first night in Hat Yai and which made me feel sad and I couldn’t shoot for the second day.

Oh my god. Luckily, I at least got photos on the first day so I could write it up here. To me, traveling without a camera is not call traveling already, I can’t live without a camera when traveling, I want to capture every moment of it because I don’t know whether I will be going there again or not.

Cut the crap and here comes the photos!

During the evening, I went to meet up a relatives who live in Hat Yai. We call him Wen Shok, I don’t know how to relate him to me, I only know he is close to my grandma. He brought us to see his new home in Hat Yai. It’s a 3 storey shop house.

And at there, I also met his very cute grandson, who can listens to Mandarin more than Thai. Cool right? I didn’t get his name though. Not really interested in new home and my phone GPS had some problem locating my location and I was bored at time. No choice, have to follow my parents.

Then we were brought to a very cool Thai restaurant near the university area. They have a very nice garden and the interior has a cottage-liked look. Like.

Gas station. Woo!

After dinner, we went back to our hotel area. Stalls were all set up by the road side and it’s a shopping street again and, Thai-style night street shopping, it’s just the same at every where in Thailand, Phuket, Bangkok. So, it’s nothing special to me already.

Quite many people went shopping too. I heard from the talking, most speaks Mandarin and Hokkien, so I assumed they were tourists who were from somewhere near my place. =D Another interesting thing is that the Thai at there speaks Mandarin too! We don’t need to speak English or point this and that anymore. Though, I don’t really like this because I like pointing this and that, it’s more challenging. Hehe.

Most stuff by the street were clothes and shoes. Nothing much already.

Boy sleeping while mom’s working.

Mango?

Then food is at another corner.

Famous fish tank/aquarium in Hat Yai. O.O

There’s 3 of us, me, dad and mom and the only person who was really shopping was mom only. Me and dad, two were just like bodyguard, following here and there.

The not-boring part was the foot and neck massage. Really relaxing and it’s one hour at there. The person do my foot, then a little bit of my hand and my neck too! Now I know why dad so like Thai massage.

After a massage would be some supper. It’s 11pm and 12am Malaysian time already, no wonder I felt sleepy a little bit at that moment.

Was planning to go to a live band bistro after supper but sadly, the bistro was full and we were not allow to go in, so in the end went back to hotel and at the same time, my camera went dead. Shit man!

Tags: hat yai, massage, Night, Night Market, Shopping, street, Thailand, Travel, trip
Posted in Lifelog, Shopping, Thailand, Travel | Comments

Afternoon Walkaround in Hat Yai City

Written by Nicholas Chan on January 24, 2010 – 9:02 pm -

After checking into the hotel, Novotel Central in Hat Yai, mom went to do her shopping on her own, dad went to look for massage and I was alone walking around on the street. It’s the downtown or city center of Hat Yai and it’s both tourist and locals populated area, everyone is here, very easy to roam around and I didn’t even have a map on my hand.

Right below my hotel is a shopping centre, Central. I didn’t went in to see, it’s a department store. Instead, I started off my walk from the shopping centre which is right across the street, Lee Garden. I was attracted by the large Lacoste logo and Apple logo. Cool, imagine such a small city has Lacoste and Apple. I only can find Lacoste in Kuala Lumpur here in my own country.

Enjoying the view and wind. =D

It’s nice to see people walking on the street. I always love happenings street and we usually can’t find it in Penang. Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur is happenings though. It’s not very hot in the afternoon, sun shines were blocked by the building so it’s shady.

Lee Garden is a very small shopping mall. I notice that most Hat Yai’s teenager and youngster come here to hang out just like I always go to Gurney Plaza with friends here in Penang.

Although it’s small, there’s many thing to see. The Lacoste shop is in there and Apple too! There’s little area in the mall called Idea Market, it’s like flea market and can see a lot of handmade stuff, and the best part is that it’s air-conned and pop music blasting around. Pretty cool.

Big prawn! Dare to eat?

I like coconut juice. Do you?

I didn’t really buy things because nothing interest me there. It’s just the same as in Phuket, Bangkok which I had visited several times before.

I only bought a mobile sim pack which was used to contact my parents and post photo to my Away From Computer.

Keep walking along the street and found another departmental store, Odean Shopping Mall. Although I am not a fan of departmental store, I did go in to take a look to see how different is their departmental store with us. Surprisingly, interior was not pretty but there’s many people inside and many brands too.

What to buy in Thailand? Thai made funny shirt, I have a few already so I was not interested. Fake AA imitation product? Even if I do buy, I don’t dare to take out also. Genuine FTW!

Food stalls are everywhere. Every few walks, you will see food stalls, cooked and not cooked. Thai’s street food seems delicious but I scared it’s not clean. I only drink coconut juice by the road side before only.

A motel’s lobby. A bit scary.

Walked a few street and things were the same. It’s just like an exercising walk for me on that afternoon, hanging a camera around my neck. For sure, I am a tourist there!

Cute kitty. Do you want to zh’ng (pimp) your car like that?

Walked until very far, didn’t know where was I but I still know the way back the hotel. I believe I walked to Kim Yong Market. There’s many things to see and I was just getting into it, and my mom called me for afternoon tea. Oh shit, didn’t get to roam the whole area.

Another thing I wanted to say is there’s many 7 Eleven convenience store in just a small area. Every few turn into different street, I saw 7 Eleven, I think I saw 3-4 7 Eleven outlets there.

Many fruits! Apple, you like?

I asked her to wait for a while before I was quite far away from her. Another 10 minutes walk only can reach her, she was at a coffee shop near Odean. =D

Tags: city, Downtown, Food, hat yai, Market, Shopping, street, Thailand, Travel, trip, walkaround
Posted in Lifelog, Thailand | Comments

Weekend Roadtrip to Hat Yai from Penang

Written by Nicholas Chan on January 21, 2010 – 11:47 pm -

It’s been a long time I’ve never been to Hat Yai, Thailand already, very very very long time. I hardly have the memory in my mind. I know my parents always bring me to Hat Yai when I was small but my real Hat Yai trip would be this time which happened two weeks ago on the weekend.

Hat Yai located on the southern part of Thailand and it’s just right across the border of the northern part of Malaysia. So they’re connected, and dad drove all the way there, for like 2 hours. It’s shorter than going to Kuala Lumpur from my Penang.

Dad didn’t bring the Touch N Go card so have to go back to the ancient way of paying toll which is queue for ticket and pay by cash. It’s smooth smooth all the way, no traffic jam or anything, passed by a lot of padi field which usually don’t get to see when traveling north and the rest houses are not so pretty. Hehe.

The road trip was good, I slept all the way, it’s so sleepy when sitting in the car for a long time and nothing to do. Didn’t even bother to listen to the music, sleeping is good for pasting time.

We then arrived at place called Changloon, no idea where the place is, but I only know the name and at there, we were already very close to the Thai border.

This is the place where we stopped by for a coffee break, toilet break, money changing and the purchase of insurance for entering the Thai.

I didn’t have toilet feel or anything, so I just wait my dad to settle the car insurance thing. It’s like around RM14 per car for entering Thai and a car can stay in Thailand for 14 days, after that need to come out and renew again.

Then back to car and drive for like 10 minutes and we arrived the border where the immigration buildings of the two countries are.

After passing the Malaysian custom, we need to park our car and got out to go to chop our passport. I waited so long at the queue for like half an hour, very very very slow Thai officer. I was like OMG and the line was so long already.

Mom told me to place RM1 note or 10Baht inside the passport when passing it to the officer. I didn’t know about this because the place didn’t have any sign for us to pay 10Baht for going into Thai, I think this is tips for them.

After the long long wait at the immigration, finally I got cleared and got into Thailand. Mobile phone still showing Malaysian mobile at that time and after a while it only changed to Thai roaming mobile.

It’s not Hat Yai yet, it’s only I-don’t-know-what-it’s-called after the border. I still have to sit in the car for another 45 minutes to reach the city of Hat Yai.

There’s no high rise building but you will see building almost the same height at like 7-10 floors and there’s the city. After a long hour car ride, we arrived in Hat Yai, the city. We went to lunch first only then to look for the hotel. We didn’t have any hotel booking in advance which made us encountered a little problem when looking for hotel.

Dad dropped grandma at a relative’s house, only we went to look for hotel. We actually wanted to go for New Season Hotel, but then it’s fulled. Then walked down a few blocks to May Flower Hotel, it’s full again, in the end went to Novotel Central Hotel. Mom doesn’t really like that hotel because she said the toilet is not very clean. They like New Season Hotel more.

Now we only know that so many Malaysian like to come to Hat Yai on the weekend and we need to book the hotel in advance.

Hat Yai is much alike like other place in Thailand, like Phuket and Bangkok, they all look the same with many cables and not so pretty building and same Thai architecture.

After we parked the car at the hotel carpark, checked in, dropped all our luggage in the hotel room, we went out to walk! Dad went to massage, mom went to shopping, I went to walkaround. Stay tune!

Tags: hat yai, roadtrip, Thailand, Travel, trip, weekend
Posted in Lifelog, Thailand | Comments

Phuket Night Market and Streets

Written by Nicholas Chan on December 4, 2009 – 11:21 am -

My brother is now in Phuket with his friends and this reminded me that I still have some photos of my last Phuket trip haven’t share them with you guys. To make it simple, I’ll let the photos and captions talk.

I like Phuket, do you like Phuket?

Handmade keychains and armband.

Nice Starbucks promotion. I like!

They have this Thai boxing vehicle moving around to promote their Thai boxing event and some drunk kids climbed up “Thai Boxing WOOHOOO”.

Pubs with dancers. (Some) Thai girls do look good, but we always doubt whether they are a real she, or a she-man.

Street magic. This guy locked his arm on the pole, but somehow manage to get of the pole. Pro.

Jungceylon, nearest and biggest shopping mall near my hotel and Patong Beach. Got cinema and departmental stores. Nice place.

At night even got water show.

Saw a fight. Caucasian man vs Thai lady. Throwing of glass and shouting “Fuck you”. I was having dinner opposite and didn’t know what happen, the police came later. End of show.

Thailand-made and designed T-shirts. I have plenty but don’t really like to wear them now.

Usual Phuket’s street market.

Thai’s Starbucks tasted the same.

Tags: Night Market, patong beach, photolog, photos, Phuket, Shopping, Thailand, travel trip
Posted in Thailand, Travel | Comments

Visit to Wat Chalong temple in Phuket

Written by Nicholas Chan on October 6, 2009 – 11:30 pm -

Buddhist temple or also known as Wat is one of the attraction in Thailand. I can’t say that I am a fan of temples, but I kinda like to visit to some well-known temples to take a look, make some prayers, look at the old old buildings and take some photos.

I was in Phuket and how could I not visit their temple at there? On my one day inner Phuket tour, the tour guide brought us to one of the famous temple and it’s called Wat Chalong. I don’t really know where it is located, but it’s not very far from their little so-called Phuket city.

There’s nothing much you can do there. It’s just do some prayers if you are Buddhist, take some photos and look at the statue and the monument. That’s all.

Do you like to visit to temples?

While on the way home, I saw the big giant Buddha statue on top of the hill. According to the tour guide, it was still under construction, so I guess it’s already done by this time.

Tags: photo, Phuket, prayer, shrine, Temple, Thailand, Travel, trip
Posted in Cool Stuff, Thailand, Travel | Comments

Shopping at Phuket Square in Phuket City

Written by Nicholas Chan on October 4, 2009 – 11:38 pm -

If you think of keeping yourself at the beach, walking along the street and night market along the beach at Patong are boring, try take the taxi or look for a local tour guide to bring you to a tour to downtown Phuket, or Phuket city. There’s isn’t really a downtown but somewhere far from the beach, a 30 minutes car ride from Patong Beach will takes you to their very little city.

At there, you can find shoplots, some admin office and houses. We found a local tour guide while we were shopping at Patong Beach, he offered to drive us around inner Phuket for only 500baht which started from 8am to 4.30pm. Of course, they did bring us to those jewellery, souvenir shops which are quite boring, that’s the reason I don’t like to go with the tour company. No choice, since we don’t know the way around and a reasonable price.

A place that we went in the city is Phuket Square, a indoor shopping market which you can find stuff like clothing, souvenirs, food, toys and many more. The things are more or like the same at the beach market but the price is cheaper. I think this place are not so tourist-concentrated and are more to the local and that’s why.

Well, shopping is fun for mom, but not really exciting for me, not that I dislike shopping, it’s just that I got no idea what to buy at that time. Afterall, I bought a pair of pants and a T-shirt for a total of 300baht. Cheap right?

The place was pretty quiet when were there. There’s like more local than tourist shopping inside. One thing I’ve forget to say is that this place is air-conditioned, so it’s a nice to get rid of the hot atmosphere at Phuket. It’s hotter at the city because there’s no sea breeze like at the beach.

This shopping market, Phuket Square, is located in the city, near to the Royal Phuket City hotel.

Tags: city, fun, Phuket, Shopping, Thailand, Travel, trip
Posted in Shopping, Thailand, Travel | Comments