I survived southern Thailand!

Leaving Thailand by train was an exercise in persistence and cold hard calculation. Following the mad-transit, Transit van experience getting into Bangkok from Cambodia, I have sworn off any bus travel unless forced to at gun-point. When I made my train booking to Chumphon, I also tried to book the next leg from there to Butterworth in Malaysia, but I could only get to Hat Yai (or Haad Yai depending on your spelling). Chumphon itself is known as the gateway to Southern Thailand and Hat Yai is the capital of the southern region. 


Before I started out, absolutely everyone but everyone told me "DO NOT GO TO SOUTHERN THAILAND" due to all the terrorist bombings that have happened there. So you can imagine that I was a little concerned about having to stop at Hat Yai and then find my own way out of the country from there. I worked it out so that I would go through there between Christmas and New Year. I figured that if anyone wanted to bomb anything, then either of those 2 times would be far more attractive than the Wednesday inbetween. Also, I quickly profiled the locations that have previously been targeted and just avoided those kinds of places, except for the railway station which was unavoidable obviously.


To get from Hat Yai to Butterworth, my choice was scary bus ride over hills (ummm, NO!), an even scarier minivan ride at high speed (ha-bloody-ha!) or spending a night in a town that has been plagued by terrorist bombings. I made the safest choice of course and stayed the night.


As I was wandering around the town, I was struck by how down at heel it all seemed to be. A lot of businesses were closed, it was dirty and also rather mouldy. I had flash backs to South Korea in summer time when it turns into a peninsular of reeking moulds. Even relatively new vehicles were rusting and banged around and the people, while generally friendly enough, had an equally jaded air about them. The source of all this dejectedness finally revealed itself to me when I was in a bookshop. They were selling pics of the severe flooding that happened there on 01/11/10 (note the date). With Hat Yai being to Malaysians as Pattaya is to Westerners, I'm sure business will pick up, being that it's 'wrong' kind of business, that could refocus terrorist efforts on the town again. 


I have since meet a few foreigners who travelled Southern Thailand and all seemed to agree that the south was the best part of the country with the friendliest people. Damn shame about the hot-heads.