Wat Hat Yai Nai 23 Dec 2019

At the entrance of Lee Garden Plaza we book a grab car to go to our next destination – Wat Hat Yai Nai.

Wat Hat Yai Nai, one of the city’s major Buddha temples, is located near the city center on Phetkasem Road.

There were not much people there when we arrived, may be it is because it is about 1.00pm and most of the people were having their lunch in the air cool indoor. The weather was hot and the sun was shining bright.

It is a temple without walls, Wat Hat Yai Nai features massive multi-roof tiers and its intricate exterior design makes it a formidable sight from afar.

It gives the appearance of a giant pavillion with pillars and a traditional Thai roof. Some pillars treated with really detailed carvings represents some important elements in their culture.

The temple’s center of attraction is Phra Phuttha Hattha Mongkhon. It is being 10 meters wide, 15 meters tall and 35 meters long.

It is the world’s third largest reclining Buddha, after the Monywa Myanmar and Bangkok Thailand.

In addition to watching this amazing statue at Wat Hat Yai Nai, you can also buy from some of the items on sale such as joss sticks and small statuettes.

The feet of the Buddha.

There is a shrine and mausoleum inside the Wat Hat Yai Nai behind the huge reclining Buddha. The details carvings on the outer walls are so beautiful. It is all related to Buddha stories.

Upon entering, we find hundreds of cubby holes around the walls containing the ashes of the deceased people.

Some of them have photographs of the occupant along with other details such as their date of birth and demise.

Inside the mausoleum, we find a fortune telling device. Inserting a 5 or a 10 Baht coin will make the wheel spin around.

When the wheel comes to a complete halt, the pointer will stop on a particular number. There are numbered shelves on either side of the device, each containing a fortune written on a piece of paper.

Taking the one out that corresponds to your number will give you an accurate summary of your entire life.

There is a resting open areas at the temple ground, we can see some of the smaller Buddha statues with different standing and sitting positions being placed.

Next to it is a smaller building where housed the seated position Buddha.

Another building at the temple ground with the beautiful apex roof designs.

There is big tree in the middle of the temple ground. Underneath the tree, there is a standing Buddha.

And behind the Buddha at the other side of the tree, there is an old big bell.

We rest a while before we end our visit here at the Wat Hat Yai Nai. The weather is so hot.

When we walked out from the temple ground compound, we only noticed the main door of the Wat. Thus, we took our family photo here before we continue our journey back to our hotel.

We noticed that there are stalls outside the temple that sell fish, snakes, birds and other animals for liberation ceremony.

Further down the road, we came across it and found a wet market. I am a bit surprised that at this hour of time, the wet market still open.

Most of them were selling vegetables and fruits. As the fishmongers and butchers already closed at this point of time.

We just walked back towards our hotel direction, as it is about 1.7km from the hotel we are staying.

Here is my selfie with the Buddha!

Gim Yong Market & Garden Lee Plaza Hat Yai 23 Dec 2019

Gym Yong Market I can say it is just like the Ben Thanh Market or Binh Tey Market at Saigon that we travelled to 2 years ago. It is located right in the centre of the Hat Yai city.

We walked into the complex and the alleyways are very narrow. we can see with the widest variety of goods that are here.

There are clothes, groceries, imported fruits, dried foods, canned foods, toiletries, toys, appliances, watches, and so much more.

Somewhere nearer to the entrance or exit of the building we saw some fishmongers selling fish and butcher selling pork.

At the outside of the Gym Yong Market complex, there are wet markets along the streets.

Once we set our feet on this busy street, we could find many fruits, vegetables and seafood vendors as well as some local street food vendors. It is practically a local street food paradise with lots of hidden food gems.

Alvin walked to a restaurant just next to the street. I do not know what is the name of the shop. He so eagerly wanted us to try her food. He had been here before during his trip with his ex-collegues and found this shop.

The lady was selling mixed rice and Alvin chose a few dishes,  stir fried minced pork with basils, stir fried chicken with ginger, braised pork knuckles and eggs and the salted vegetable pork ribs soup with white rice.

We have our first meal at Hat Yai officially at 10.15am local time. It is good. The taste is different from our Chinese cooking. I found out that Thais love to eat pork and the way they cook the pork is way different from us but it is nice!

After our meal, we walked towards to the Lee Garden Plaza’s McDonald’s because we are eagerly want to try the McDonald’s pork burger. We wrongly ordered the beef burger but it is very nice too!

We found out that having McDonald’s in Thailand is more expensive than what we have in Malaysia! Any how is our first try here.

After which we went in to the Lee Garden Plaza have a walk. It is considered like Sg. Wang Mall at Kuala Lumpur back in Malaysia for me. There are shops include electronics, clothing, shoes, bags, cell phones and accessories.

There are a lot of small kiosks along the walkways selling souvenirs, handcrafts, artwork and small little cute things which we saw. After awhile walking almost the whole mall, we decided to head for our next destination – Wat Hat Yai Nai.

Hello Hat Yai! 23 Dec 2019

Alvin was planning to go to Hat Yai this year. Initially we were planning for may be 4 days, after did some research we decided go to Phatthalung with this trip too. Thus we planned that we will go to Hat Yai by bus by night and may be come back Kuala Lumpur by train.

The intention is to let the children experience different experiences travelling with the bus and the train. Thus the date was set to go on 22nd and back by 30th December. All together about 7 days.

We had purchased the Alisan Golden Coach tickets departure on 22nd 9.30pm departure at Terminal Bus Selatan (TBS) last Tuesday. Yesterday evening we went to TBS by LRT. We are indeed lucky that there is a LRT station nearby our house – Puchong Prima LRT Station.

The coach is clean and nice. Annabelle and Issac sit together in double seat, Alvin and I sit in front of them in double seat as well. Our coach was delayed till 10.00pm only arrived at the station. It was almost 10.30pm that the coach headed out towards our destination.

The coach was considered fast as we arrived at the Malaysia Bukit Kayu Hitam border immigration building about 4.00am. We were not only the bus that queuing. The immigration building is going to open at 6.00am. We woke up for toilet breaks, and waited for 2 hours. We got off the bus and queuing with others from different bus companies.

As Malaysians, the officer just checked, scanned and chopped on our passport. Foreigners need to have their both index finger to be scanned electronically. Then, we got on the bus again and we across Malaysia-Thailand border and got off at Thailand Sadao Immigration. The queue was considered long but it was considered fast.

This time our fingerprint to scan the both right and left hands 4 fingers and finally both thumbprint and lastly they would snap a photo of your face by asking you to look at the camera. I have difficulties in scanning my fingerprints as usual, but after apply the lotion provided it works.

Outside the immigration building, I saw a counter as that is for the Malaysians whom drive their own cars into Thailand, they need to provide the relevant documents for verification and purchase Thailand local car insurance and fill up the relevant forms and other necessary procedures.

It was an hour drive from the immigration to Hat Yai city. We reached Alisan Golden Coach’s office in central Hat Yai within an hour. It was around 7.35am local time. It would mean 8.35am Malaysia time, as Thailand time is earlier than Malaysia by an hour.

We got down from the bus, taken our luggage. Alvin bought a Thailand sim card for the internet about a week for our usage here.

Then, we hired a TuK Tuk to the Silom Boutique Hotel. the Tuk Tuk is different from what we saw on the TV. I think that it is a modified or new version of Tuk Tuk that we have here at Hat Yai.

After settled the luggage in the hotel. We began our journey by exploring the neighbourhood around the Silom Boutique Hotel which we stays.

It is sort of mixture of residential area and shops. We found a self-service laundry which we intend to come and wash our laundry.

We were heading to the Gym Yong Market which is at the other side of the railway station. We crossed the overhead highway and walked towards to the central of Hat Yai.

After we walked down from the highway, we came under the bridge. There were so many small stalls underneath the bridge, mainly selling second hand shoes, framing the deities statues, and so on.

I do not know that here are also the place to do business as well.

We walked further down then crossed over the main road to have a peep into the famous Gim Yong Market. See what there have inside.