After two days of fun-filled adventure in Penang, my friends and I headed out up north to our friendly neighbour's land, Thailand. Specifically, we were Haadyai bound to get our yearly dose of porkiliciousness, shopping and sight-seeing. Our excitement, enthusiasm and expectations were high but somehow, it just took a small dip and sometimes mingle with a lemonistic twist of disappointments as the days went by. Nevertheless, I must say that we had quite a good time at times and that should overshadow some of the nasty experiences we had encountered over the days. 
For me, I had a brand new experience in Thai massages. For the record, I experienced Thai Oil massage and Thai traditional massage during our stay in Haadyai. I really love the Thai traditional massage but it also caused me to sustain an old injury to my knee area. Bah! All in all, I still manged to have a great time out there. It is not the place that matters, actually. It is the friends and the company that matters. With good friend and great company, good times will prevail 100%. I will never forget the experience I had gone through while doing the oil massage which was meticulously and craftily executed by middle-aged strong hands to soothe away the tense muscles and aches. I almost choked with laughter when I was asked if I would like to have my stick and nuts ( referred as Ping Pong ) massaged for better mileage usage in the future! My curt, firm but pleasing answer was a straight "NO" as my mileage is still within the top flight performance! Thereafter, I could have sworn that the pressure points massage were simply more intense but subtly smooth at times. In the toot-toot, as Vive & Jason joked on what had happened to Shirley and Sathy, we could only burst out in thunderous laughter and laughed at the lighter moments of our experience. That's what sharing of experience is all about. For the traditional massage, I had a rather serious but sweet looking experienced middle-aged massager who almost emptied the entire contents in my bowels and my stomach during the massage. The pain during the massage was intense and at times, I could feel my pee running through the pipeline but I like it. Call me a pain sadist if you want but I REALLY enjoyed this massage. The sound of dump, crackle and thud can be heard as my body is being moulded, twisted, moved around and worked like a dough of bread! I loved it! I truly loved it. Somehow, after the massages, your stomach seemed be growling for food and there is no shortage of food when you are in Haadyai.
Later on, we joined with the rest of our families to have a great dinner. This time, there weren't any pork leg stew or fried pork leg on the platter. Instead, we opted for "healthier" pork parts, the crispy ears and some nice parts. So, that fulfilled our quota of having pork on this land. What we enjoyed most was actually walking around and spending time shopping for items. Bargaining we had to do but somehow, this doesn't augur well with the locals. My personal observation is that the people in this town had become less hospitable and more impatient. We had some nasty experience while at the market when we tried to bargain for some food stuff and also on clothing. The rudeness and impatience level had indeed gone up while tourism is a major income garner for the people of Haadyai. It is a crying shame if this pattern of humanistic behaviour persists and carries on. It will definitely affect tourist like me to go to other places in the future. Afterall, it has been my third year being in this town and I like it here when the people were so friendly and hospitable at that time. I have also come to realisation that things aren't what they used to be one year ago. There seemed to be a steady rise in prices and I really don't know if the people in Haadyai had been hard pressed by the economy affecting their country or simply have a go at the tourists. One thing I do know is that fruit prices are just insanely expensive while some favourite foods such as Padthai, BBQ satay pork sausages and some local sweet cakes aren't at the the prices they used to be. I don't know if I was the only person feeling this way but it certainly was felt by my friends too. 
Anyway, the bright spots of the trip were still aplenty especially the night porridge meal, teh tarik, wan tan mee, Samurai Pork burger and the ginger drink. That was truly awesome! The dinner seafood meal was also great especially the freshness of the seafood fare and the herbs & spices. Every meal was like hot, hot, hot and the chillies are really extravagantly hot. It was one hot and arduous time as one sits in the bathroom toilet to carry out the morning ritualistic bowels cleansing exercise each morning, I tell you! But it was fun all the way. Anyway, where in the world are you going to see an elephant in the restaurant when you are having your dinner? Yes, you got it right - only in Haadyai!
The one thing I have always enjoyed while in Haadyai is the morning walks. Usually, I would wake up early together with SLing and we would take our walks at the market. For me, I just wanted to catch up with the other side of Haadyai which was at a standstill before the chaos starts. You could see office workers, people of all shapes and size plus the traders doing their early morning shopping and so on. The Buddhist monks were there to offer prayers to the people who would take up an offering to them. Everyone wants a touch of blessing from the monks, somehow. It was humbling to see smartly dressed men and womenfolk on their knees handing out an offering to the monks to have them bless their day. I almost wanted to shout out to them and tell them that there is an even greater God in sight that needs only an offering of a repented heart rather than all these offerings. If only they would come to know of this Son of God...if only they know Him......
Anyway, as we strolled down the street that morning, I also had the opportunity to see the beautiful rows of flower selling stalls. The sights and smells were awesome. So fragrant and so .........fresh! As usual, the market food captivates me alot. The sight, smell and taste of good market food always gets me in my element. However, I have to be on my watch as my body doesn't permits me to gobble up or chow down any food I like especially when dealing with carbos. One thing I enjoyed on one of the mornings was the burnt kopi -o at one of the run down shops in the market area. I love that burnt coffee taste and with some mini yue char kuehs , it was just simply marvelous. Food and sights fills my palate each day as I am in Haadyai. I guess, this is the uniqueness of Haadyai or for that matter any place in the world.
I constantly take my walks alone as I roamed the streets of Haadyai in the mornings. It was really good to see people in their early morning rituals. I saw a dim sum shop, a pork stand selling grilled pork, kueh teow soup shop, another stall selling Thai cakes and kuehs ( I tried a few and they are mildly sweet ) plus a host of beautiful people preparing to face the brunt of the day. They are generally courteous and they smiled at me as I flashed my not-so-Darlie white teeth and smiles to them. Like I said, I am always intrigued by people's everyday life and what I saw plus experience added a whole new spectrum of culture in my life. I love to travel and eat. I just wished someone would just offered me a job to travel, eat and write articles over the experiences! Now, that would be a real dream of mine! Anyway, fat hopes and fat belly are what I am going to get for the time being. I can hear my doctor screaming in my ears in my next appointment telling me that there will be an extension of my medication and probably an increase of dosages in my medication in my never-ending quest to fight for a better healthy life. Hahahahahaaaaaaa................it sounds so moronic and brilliant at the same time! Sometimes, I really don't know who and what I am anymore! Hmmmmmnnnnnnnn...............wouldn't it be interesting to publish a book on my travels and experiences over the years? Probably entitled my book "1000 places to go, eat and still not die !" Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa...........
As we end our journey in Haadyai and crossed over the darker side of town.....oooopssss....the brighter side of Malaysian border, we were exhausted by all the happenings, eating , laughter and fun shared during these 6 days of adventure starting from Melaka - Penang- Haadyai, Thailand. The beautiful families and good friends have made this trip a truly wonderful experience. I have always followed Andrew Zimmen's catch phrase wherever I go : If it looks good, EAT IT!
We may have no new bras/panties ( Haadyai was once famous for slashed down prices of the undergarment world, ok? ) to show nor new items to show but we have had one good wealth of togetherness and fun which would last us a momentous life time. Kap Kun Ka, sweet, sour and hot Haadyai!~
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