Day 28 - Motorbikin’ Around Songkhla

Despite having a lovely comfortable bed we both had dreadful night sleeps. At 9am, I popped down to reception to get a couple of free coffees. Around 10am, we headed around the corner to Temptation Car & Motorbike For Rent & saw the very attractive & pleasant lady who was being hassled last night.

She rented us a more powerful motorbike & we set off on Simon’s Tours. Bizarrely as the driver, I had to wear a crash helmet, but Jackie didn’t! Our first stop was Samila Beach to see & touch the Golden Mermaid Statue. We took our photographs & a Thai tourist asked if we wanted him to take a photo of both of us. We accepted & then I offered to return the favour. He said “Yes” then gave his phone to Jackie & insisted I pose with him. It made a nice change.

We next visited the Cat & Rat statue then returned to our motorbike to discover a monkey was trying to ride off on it!! The troop of at least 20 monkeys in this location were very aggressive & we saw a sign warning of monkeys stealing purses.

Once we had shooed the monkey away, we continued through Seree Public Park & headed to Tang Kuan Hill. It was my intention to take the funicular railway to the viewpoint to the top, but sadly it was closed, presumably due to Covid.

We motorbiked around Tang Kuan Hill & then set off on a ten mile ride to Ko Yo, an island in the middle of Songkhla Lake. The plan was to have lunch at Sunset Café, which had been highly recommended by the motorbike rental lady.

On Ko Yo, we stopped at the Reclining Buddha at Wat Phranon Laem Pho for a photo opportunity, then we cruised around the scenic coastal circumference of Ko Yo. We found the empty of customers Sunset Café & asked for 2 menus & ordered a beer. Our beer arrived in two paper cups & we perused the menu, which was ridiculously extensive especially the range of beers & ciders from Europe. After 20 minutes the 4 waitresses were still sat on their phones & hadn’t come back to us, so we just paid up & walked out.

We tried another restaurant that was full of Thais & tried to order a beer. After lots of gesticulating we finally succeeded in ordering to Changs. The menu arrived & was solely in Thai. Despite Jackie doing her chicken & fish impressions, we couldn’t make ourselves understood so we drank up & left.

We were now starving, so we motorbiked back to the historic Songkhla Old Town & parked up. We stopped in a Chinese restaurant & the miserable waitress literally dropped the menu down on our table & said they didn’t sell beer. We got up & walked out yet again.

Two doors down, we found a cafe/pizzeria serving homemade pizza & beer. We shared a very nice beef & chilli pizza with a Chang. After we strolled around the old town admiring the street art before the searing heat took it’s toll. We drove back to our hotel & had a siesta in the air conditioned room.

At 7pm, we ventured back out on foot & found a market place restaurant full of locals. Luckily they had an English version of their menu & I ordered a chicken & cashew nuts, not the dish above it. Jackie ordered fried squid with garlic. The food was excellent & we washed it down with bottles of water.

Song of the Day: Me And My Monkey by Robbie Williams.
Monkey 23 by The Kills.
Motorbike Beat by The Revillos.Read more