31/10/07 - 01/11/07 Cathay Guesthouse 200B

We had attempted to read up about places to stay in Hat Yai before we got there... but the reviews basically made it sound like everywhere was either falling to pieces, or looked like a prison cell! So we asked at PJ Guesthouse before we left and they recommended the Cathay Guesthouse, which they said was near everything and "ok"... which is always a bit of a worrying statement. They also told us to get off at the clocktower... which apparently we couldn't miss... they obviously don't know us very well!

The rough guide write up for Hat Yai basically describes it as a big interchange for people leaving or entering the country with not much on offer except brothels for the Malays who cross the border... sounded delightful... but it was a way for us to break up the journey and not arrive in Malaysia in the middle of the night.

When we got there we realised just how big the city was and there was not a clocktower in sight... no really! Eventually we passed a sign for the train station pointing the opposite way to the way we were driving and as the station is central and near the guesthouse we had planned to stay at we decided to jump off. Ten minutes later we had finally convinced the driver and ticket guy that we DID actually want to stay in Hat Yai... not go straight to the international bus terminal and that we really did need to be off the bus. So we got dropped off at the side of the highway... great! Things were looking bleak and our backpacks were feeling heavy when we stumbled across a tuk-tuk guy on a break chatting to his mates and convinced him to take us to the train station.

We tried to book train tickets to cross the border... but would you believe there was a trainstrike, so instead we booked a minibus through our guesthouse. The description of the guesthouse in the rough guide was pretty accurate really... as it was all concrete and a bit prisoner cell block H, with squat toilets in each room. But despite looking like it was falling down it was clean and the staff were super nice... plus they served an awesome (and really cheap) breakfast... so everyone's a winner!

Hat Yai itself, or at least the area we were in, was ok too. Seemed a bit seedy in places, but didn't feel unsafe and we were fairly central to the shopping centres and eateries etc. It's not a place you could visit for any length of time.. but as a way of breaking up a journey it was fine.