The closest airport to Songkhla is Hat Yai international, which has a surprising amount of junk food and insufficient places to charge a cell phone. The announcements are truly constant, irrationally repetitive; it’s loud, busy and unbearable. Vietjet wouldn’t let me check my suitcase early, a necessity to get past security and into a business lounge, so instead I paid a nominal amount (I think 30 baht? Maybe 50?) to leave my suitcase in the luggage room and hit Hat Yai town.
Founded in 1928, there’s really nothing of historic importance in Hat Yai. Until perhaps 10 years ago there were only two hotels in town, the cheap Mandarin and the expensive Lee Gardens, which was the site of a car bomb attack in the continuing ant-Thai Muslim terrorism in the area. The town can be seen in an afternoon, so the first place I checked out was the oldest Chinese restaurant in town, Nai Roo, which came highly recommended. I had two of their most famous dishes, black pepper seafood and abalone. Honestly? The black pepper seafood was just OK and the abalone was less than OK. The quality was the same or lower than any cheap Chinese takeout place in New York. I think Hat Yai is small enough that this is the closest thing they have to a foodie/heritage type restaurant, but it’s definitely not worth going out of your way for.
Next, I headed over to picturesque Wat Chue Chang, a very big, very new place. Again, just . . . whatever. It’s fine for a photo I guess, or to get out of the sun. My last couple hours I spent at Lorem Ipsum café, the local LGBT coffee shop. It’s located on one of the two blocks in Hat Yai that actually dates back to the 1930s, so I took some photos of the old fashioned buildings and actually read the entire lorem ipsum passage by Cicero, conveniently printed on the cup. I attempted and failed to engage the staff, who had no idea who Cicero was or what the passage meant or its significnce in graphic design. Exciting times, I tell you!
Hat Yai: not worth visiting but better than sitting in the airport if you can spare the approximately $15 for round trip cab fare (250 baht from the airport to Nai Roo via airport taxi, 160 baht from Lorem Ipsum back to the airport via grab).
