People who know about these things and have been in this part of the world for, let's say, more than three years know that holiday makers avoid the east coast of Malaysia and Thailand if they want pleasant sun drenched beaches before April / May each year. So it was with head in hands type resignation that Lawrences arrived at Samila Beach, Songkhla, (East Coast) Thailand to remember the above that we really should have never forgotten, especially after the last time that we went for an east coast holiday in February. The sea was rough, the weather was very windy, but it was still warm.
Fortunately what the weather has allowed us to do is to enjoy a bit of exploring. Yesterday we set about finding Songkhla Zoo. As a rule I am not a great fan of zoos but this place seemed to manage to create the feeling, atmosphere and reality of a large scale safari park and small scale zoo at the same time. The place encouraged people to drive from area to area and then get out and explore before moving on to the next exhibits. Yes the animals were still exhibits but they had plenty of space, quite a lot of stimulation and the tropical animals were at least in the right climate. There was also a small water park there too (the water slides were not working for some reason) and there were plenty of loose planks on board walks so you needed to keep your eyes peeled but overall it was a very positive way to spend most of the day. It was also good value for money too. We were not ripped off with the 560 Baht entrance fee and 300 Baht lunch. Children tackled fried rice with gusto, which was an additional plus point.
Two other joys from the day were splendid iced coffees from a roadside stall on the way to the zoo and, later a delicious steamed fish / tom yam seafood soup and other associated niceties for dinner.
Today we sought out Hat Yai Municipal Park and its cable car and Buddha combinations. When the Thais build Buddhas they do it in style. And that style is usually large. So perching at the highest point overlooking Hat Yai and Songkhla is a whopping great standing Buddha. Right hand raised and benign smile beaming over all and so this huge statue is visible from a long way off. To help the tourist appreciate the sheer scale construction photos in the attached gallery showed the statue's feet section, after having been unloaded from a delivery lorry, towering over a bloke who looked like Thailand's Mr Average.
To get up to this first Buddha we could have walked, driven or taken the shuttle bus. The shuttle bus was a purpose built, open sided creation about the size of a fire engine with attached music system that rivalled any self-respecting Simon Snorkel's siren. We paid our money, clambered on, waited the customary ten minutes before anything happened, and then a driver arrived. Clearly not satisfied with the tunes he changed the music, turned the volume up and off we drove up some very steep hills.
On arrival we admired the Buddha, took a photo or two and then set about buying cable car tickets to cross to the main attraction, a shrine. All was going well until we discovered that the price for 'foreigner' (carefully written in English) and the price for Thai nationals (equally carefully written in Thai) were very different. Feigning enraged tourists and gabbling away in confident sounding Lao (identical to a North Eastern Thaliand dialect) we claimed that we were just the same as others who were not being charged double and that because we spoke the lingo should therefore pay the same. The special 'foreigner' tickets were hastily put away and Thai tickets sold to us. We got our way and did it through insistent good humour, knowing that creating a scene is precisely what the ticket sellers did my want and that is what Drama teachers are especially good at doing. Jokes aside though such policies are simply racist.
Disembarking the cable car we found ourselves in a fug of holy incense and firecracker smoke with added gold painted elephants. We had clearly arrived on a very holy day, what with it being Chinese New Year and that. The shrine smelt like a fragrant 40-a-dayer as worshipper after worshipper lit bundle after bundle of incense sticks and placed them round a rather beautiful shrine. Rupert and Trixie did their bit to add to the smells and smoke as well as admiring the 80 or more gold elephants. The elephant statues all had messages from their donors painted on them and it became clear that the larger the elephant the more the donor had given to the cause. Many of the elephant donors were Malaysian businesses including the rather vague sounding Mr Lim and Mrs Liew, akin to Mr Smith and Mrs Jones. More smoke was created by the letting off of fire crackers. Generally fire crackers are used at Chinese New Year to ward off evil spirits and, in Malaysia, they are often set off at, appropriately, ungodly hours. Today though pilgrim after pilgrim arrived at the shrine, handed over a special box to official fire-cracker setter-offers, and away we went. (It should be noted that the main setter-offer was wearing a protective blue wooly balaclava complete with added bobble on top.). The crackers were hoisted into a specially constructed, three side concrete chimney that sheltered the sparks and flashes while also magnifying the noise. I really would not have fancied my chances being and evil spirit up there today and would certainly have stayed well away.
An important thing to note though. All the fire-crackers appeared to have been made by the same Chinese company in that everyone had identical packaging. Chinese companies know a good opportunity when they see it. But, there were often different number identifiers on the boxes. Hence the 10000 series fire-crackers were bright and loud, the 50000 series were deafening and lasted longer while the 100000 series that we saw being carried by one pilgrim..... well, we moved on swiftly.