Roadtrips

Phattalung – more to it than you expect

My fourteenth and final trip to Thailand for 2024 was to this quiet town of Phattalung which is located about 100km north of the popular Southern town of Hatyai. We arrived into Hatyai late on December 24 and departed Hatyai after a lovely dimsum breakfast in Ama Dimsum.

The road to Phattalung has improved a lot since the almost completion of the upgrade work on Highway 4. Only a small stretch is in the final stages of completion, a delay due to the recent stretch of bad weather that brought one of the worst flood to the south including Hatyai, however the weather is now fine and Tourism Authority of Thailand is expecting more than half a million Malaysian tourists to the region. The drive from Phattalung to Hatyai takes about 75 minutes on a leisure drive and the first stop we made was for their legendary Khao Man Gain (chicken rice) in this shop that is said to be in existence for more than 50 years.

We go there about 1pm and there was a queue for table for about 30 minutes before our food arrive. We wanted both the steam and fried chicken but was told the fried was already sold out, so we went for steam chicken, sweet sausage and the moo daeng (red pork). The rice was prepared very well, grainy, with slight oil coating and comes with a nice fragrant. The chicken is also very tender and juicy, very well done. The sweet sausage was also very delicious while the moo daeng was OK.

After having our chicken rice, it was time for us to check into one of Phattalung finest and newest resort, the Dusit Princess.

We had the pool view superior room and the room was nicely appointed, nice warm earth tone colors, full amenities, bathrobes, bedroom slippers, mini fridge, complimentary drinking water as well as coffee and tea making facilities. The room size is good, roughly about 30sqm.

Bathroom amenities were complete too and we do have a rain shower in the separared standing bath. We chilled at our room for a while, taking some lovely photos and videos before heading out to Dusit Gourmet for their afternoon tea.The tea set comprises of both savory and sweet local delicacies alongside with a pot of TWG tea, in which we chose Premium Oolong. The savories were very delicious, with well marinated Thai satay chicken alongside a nice peanut sauce with hint citrus, springrolls, a meatball on pineapple slice and a dry minced meat curry in a pie tea cup. For sweets, there were a few local thai desserts such as lub chup (pretty dessert that looks like fruits with sweetened mung bean paste inside), kanom chan (a firm pandan jelly) and kanom sod saiThe tea set was indeed very lovely.

After the high tea, the pool was so inviting, so we decided to chill at the poolside before dinner.

We drove out a short km or so for a popular local porridge and rice shop called Bao Wee Rice Porridge 3 (they have four outlets here in Phattalung).

Dinner was satisfying, with orders of phak liang pad khai (melinjo leaf fried with egg), khai jiao (omelette), gengsom pla krapong (southern yellow curry with seabass) and goong pad makaam (tamarind prawn).

Everything was so delicious and the meal for 3 only cost us a mere 420baht.We had a wonderful rest at Dusit Princess and we woke up for sunrise with a boat ride out from Pakpra canal to catch some photos and videos of the Yok Yor fishing structures on Lake Songkhla before heading over to Thale Noi to savor in the beautiful lotus flowers growing naturally all over the lake.

After the early morning excursion, we came back to the hotel for its sumptous buffet breakfast. The breakfast was very complete with a good selection of breads and pastries, some Thai food, khanom jeen (rice noodles with curry), khaotom (rice porridge), some western selections, cooked to order eggs, salad, fruits and we do have both chilled juices and premium coffee as well as oliang (thai local black coffee) and hot chocolate.

After breakfast, we headed out to Srinaka Model, where are exposed to the art of Thai Batik and tie-dye techniques. This OTOP program is supported by Thaksin University as their outreach program to assist in the enrichment of the local community.

We learn and experience the hot wax stamping of a batik, but due to time constraints, we did not go into the coloring process as well as the wax removal stages. We then learn about the tie-dye process which we had the opportunity to design and dye for ourselves a teeshirt and a scarf.

They taught us to use stones, shells and even ice cream sticks to create designs and later to the dyeing process where they only use local indigenous plants extracts for the coloring. Coupled with various mordants (ash water, rust water, lime water, or alum water), you are able to get hundreds of different shades of colors for your shirt, dress, hats, handkerchief or scarf. The whole process here takes about 2 hours and this is one of the perfect immersive activities for young and old alike.

Our local lunch was served at Srinaka where we experienced some very local cooking, with fresh organic vegetables. We have fresh vegetables with namprik kapit (sambal belacan), lemongrass yam (salad), khaijiao (omelette), a vegetable soup and a minced catfish curry with sator (petai). I am personally not a vegatable lover but this meal was indeeed satisfying.

After our experience at Srinaka Model, we headed back in town and went to oldest temple in Phattalung and the first to be accorded the royal temple status, Wat Khuha Sawan.

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This is a beautiful Buddhist cave temple, with the cave having recorded mentions back in Ayutthaya period, 400 plus years ago but is assumed to be built in the 8 to 10th century.

There are a few new buildings outside of the cave that are beautiful and the cave entrance is just right behind the buildings. Inside the cave, it is very tranquil with many Buddha statues, mostly sitting Buddha with one sleeping Buddha, a few votile tablet from the Srivijaya period as well as inscriptions of royal initial belongings to King Rama V.You can hike up the the hill behind Wat Khuha Sawan for more ancient shrines and a good viewpoint of Khao OK Thalu.

This beautiful temple is open free to visitors from 8am to 5pm daily.After the Wat Khuha Sawan, our next stop was the Chaloem Phrakiat’s 80th Anniversary Birthday Bridge, the longest bridge across a lake in Thailand with a distance of about 5.5km connecting Khuan Khanun district in Phattalung Province to Ranot district in Songkhla Province.

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We were looking out for the water buffaloes but I guess we arrived too late and the buffaloes were already back in their enclosures, although we did get some nice photos from the viewpoint as well as on the bridge with the twin house.

Our dinner was at a local food court as the the places we planned to go overcrowded with a 45 minutes wait and another was close till the weekend.

We had our breakfast at the hotel for our third and final day before saying goodbye to Dusit Princess, vowing to be back again to futher explore this lovely township of Phattalung. From Phattalung, we headed south to the Betong in the Yala Province and that adventure will in another post.

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