Hat Yai - Day 2 (Songkhla Zoo - Samila Beach - The Golden Mermaid Statue

Our stay at Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel Hat Yai includes breakfast for two people. The buffet selection is limited and the quality of the food is only average. There's noodles station, egg station, fruits (honey dew and watermelon), cereals, waffles, salad, bread section, porridge, vegetables, fried rice, fried vermicelli, fried chicken wings, sausages and ham. They have a station that only prepares Khanom krok, a popular Thai street food dessert. It's creamy in the middle and consists of rice flour, coconut cream and sugar with various toppings. I had the corn topping and it's nice but slightly too sweet for my liking.

Khanom krok (Thai coconut pancakes) in the making

Egg station

Noodles station and dessert

Cereals, waffles and deep fried dough stick

Waffles

Deep fried dough stick

Honey dew and watermelon

Salad section

Bread section

Fish porridge

Condiments for porridge

Fried vermicelli

Ham and sausages

Fried rice

Fried mix vegetables

Stir fried squid with chili and fried mix vegetables

Eggs

Drink section

Plain water and orange juice

My breakfast

His breakfast

Address:

Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel Hat Yai

The Garden Coffee Shop (10th floor)

29, Prachathipat Road,
Tambon Hat Yai, Amphoe Hat Yai,
Songkhla 90110, Thailand
Tel: +66 74 261 111

Opening hours: 6.30am to 9.30am (daily)

Our driver picked us up at the hotel at 9am and drove us to Songkhla Zoo. The trip took about an hour, and we arrived at the zoo around 10am. The zoo admission charge is THB 150 per person, plus THB 50 for the van. Songkhla Zoo has 14 zones and the zoo is huge! It's meant to be driven around rather than walked. Feed the tiger is unavailable until further notice. So we only get to watch the survival of wildlife, seal show and penguin parade. Both shows require a THB 20 admission fee. We went to watch the deers and birds while waiting for the survival of wildlife to begin at 10.30am. Sadly, it's a boring 30 minutes show.

Next, we went for the seal show and penguin parade at 11.30am. It's a 25 minutes show and glad that it's more entertaining than the survival of wildlife show. It was a really hot day. Our last stop was the lion station. The zoo was in poor condition and the lion looked really tired and sick. On the way out we saw some flamingos and monkeys.

Activities at Songkhla Zoo

1. Survival of wildlife - round 1: 10.30am to 11am / round 2: 1.30pm to 2pm (THB 20 per person for adult and THB 10 per person for child)

2. Seal show and penguin parade - round 1: 11.30am to 12pm / round 2: 2.30pm to 3pm (THB 20 per person for adult and THB 10 per person for child)

3. Feeding tiger - round 1: 12.30pm to 1pm / round 2: 3.30pm to 4pm (FOC) - unavailable until further notice

Explore zones at Songkhla Zoo:

1. Australia Zone - red kangaroo and hyena

2. Survival of wildlife - red deer and nilgai

3. Penguin parade

4. Hippopotamus and capybara

5. Elephant, rhino, banteng, otter and deer garden

6. Cat complex

7. Hornbill aviary

8. Bear

9. Africa zone - giraffe and meerkat

10. Bird park

11. Primates complex - chimpanzee and lemur

12. Tapir

13. Flamingo

14. Mountain View cafe & restaurant

Songkhla Zoo

Deer

Survival of wildlife ticket counter

Survival of wildlife

Binturong (bearcat)

Binturong and parrot

Albino python and hornbill

Water buffalo

The seal show and penguin parade ticket counter

The seal show and penguin parade

Penguin parade

Seal show

Lion

Songkhla Zoo route

Giraffe

Address:

Songkhla Zoo

189, หมู่ที่ 5 ถนน สงขลา-นาทวี Khao Rup Chang,

Mueang Songkhla District,

Songkhla 90000,

Thailand

Opening hours: 8.30am to 5.30pm (daily)

We had our lunch at Sujinda Seafood Restaurant, approximately 25 minutes drive from Songkhla Zoo. You get to select your own seafood and decide how you want it prepared. I just love their baked crab. The crab meat is sweet and succulent. Apart from that, I like their steamed fish Thai style. It has this sour, spicy and very appetizing dish. We ordered four coconut drinks and this is one of the best coconut drinks that I've ever tasted. It's sweet, aromatic, refreshing and has this soft jelly like meat. However, their salted egg squid cooking style is very different from ours. It tastes below average to me.

Sujinda Seafood Restaurant

Restaurant ambience

Coconut drink and Thai milk tea

Kerabu mangga (mango salad)

Stir fried vegetables

Prawns

Salted egg squid

Crab

Steamed fish Thai style

Rice

Address:

Sujinda Seafood Restaurant

Ratchadamnoen Alley, Bo Yang,

Mueang Songkhla District,

Songkhla 90000,

Thailand

After lunch, we dropped by Samila Beach and took photos of The Golden Mermaid Statue. This statue was sculpted in 1966 by Jitr Buabus based on an old Thai story written by Soonthorn Phu. According to Thai folklore, a mermaid sat on a beautiful beach one starry night to comb her hair. She was startled by a young fisherman and fled into the sea. The fisherman waited for her but she never returned. Since then, it has served as a landmark on Samila Beach.

Seaview

Samila Beach

The Golden Mermaid statue

Samila Beach

Horse riding at Samila Beach

Samila Beach

Address:

The Golden Mermaid Statue (Samila Beach)

6H8W+687,

Mueang Songkhla District,

Songkhla 90000,

Thailand

Central Festival Hatyai Mall is approximately 40 minutes drive from Samila Beach. We had chocolate soft serve ice cream from Mimi Ice stall and it's good. It's smooth, creamy and rich in taste. They have five flavours - hokkaido milk, strawberry, mango, chocolate or blue sea vanilla. However, on that day they only served chocolate, blue sea vanilla or mixture of chocolate and blue sea vanilla flavour. You may choose your ice cream either on a wafer (THB 19), waffle (THB 29), chocolate waffle (THB 35) or cup (THB 35).

We were lucky because there was a food festival at the mall. My partner bought pickled mango while I bought a cup of Thai dessert. Sadly, the dessert was very sweet and we ended up throwing it away. Whereas my partner's pickled mango has a crunchy texture and a good sour flavour, which he really enjoys.

Central Festival Hatyai Mall

Pickled mango - THB 50

Mimi Ice (premium soft serve) chocolate flavour with waffle - THB 29

Food carnival

Thai dessert - THB 60

Food carnival

Address:

Central Festival Hatyai Mall

1518 Kanjanavanich Rd,

Kho Hong, Hat Yai District,

Songkhla 90110,

Thailand

Our driver picked us up at the mall and we headed to Payang Restaurant Hatyai for dinner at 7.20pm. We had a wonderful dinner thanks to Jon. Both pandan chicken and seafood tom yam soup are good. While the rest of them went for foot massages after dinner, I decided to chill in the hotel room. Since the night is still young, all of us went for a drinking session at 11pm after their massage session.

There's many pubs around our hotel area, and we ended up at the Westside Saloon Hatyai Pub & Restaurant, just 4 minutes walking distance from Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel Hat Yai. They have a live band singing 80s and 90s songs until 12.30am. We had a bottle of Singha beer which I don't really enjoy because it has a faint bitterness lingering in the aftertaste. We were their last customers and the pub closed at 1.30am. That ends our second day in Hatyai...