Random Shots of Hatyai, Thailand

          I took out my camera and just started clicking pictures like a mad woman. Crazy Westerner.

       Cute blue Christmas tree stuck out in the intersection, sort of jumped out at me from the "blue".

                                      It's a shop, yep. What can I say? "HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

                                           Anybody wanna buy a wheel barrow? So pretty.

                                        Plastic wrapped, really, really hard furniture... for little people.

         Imagine my surprise at seeing a snowman here in the subtropics where even I am MELTING!

It wasn't easy finding a cheap hotel. Well, my idea of cheap is totally different than most people's, I realise. I wanted to pay 30RM, like the last time I was here. I had stayed at the Merlin Hotel, which was very clean. There were a polite Chinese clerk and even a fish tank in the little lobby. But, I walked and walked and didn't recognise a THING. I knew the Crystal Hotel but couldn't see it again after passing it on the bus. In frustration, I relented to getting on the back of a motorcycle taxi. He charged me 30 Batt to take me halfway across the city. (That's 3 ringgit or roughly 1 dollar Canadian.)

The hotel he dropped me at cost 350 Batt (35RM) a night. But, it was crazy ugly! The lady took me into the room, turned on the flourescent light and it didn't work.She fiddled around with it until the bulb popped out. I thought, "Guess you'll have to show me another room then." But, she turned on another light over the bed so there was only partial lighting and I was supposed to be happy with that. Well, I wasn't in the mood to argue with someone who couldn't understand English. I took a look out the window and the roof that gullied at my window was littered with trash. I just hoped a rat wouldn't climb in through the bars.

After she left me, I checked out the bathroom. When you flushed the toilet, water spewed out of the back!
Then, later that night, a sick, gurgling noise rose up from beneath the pipes and everything came up and OUT of the toilet bowl. Disgusting. You get what you pay for. Right?

I have graced my viewers by not posting pictures of the hotel. The walls were filthy. But, the sheets were clean (only one triangular tear at the bottom) and I haven't seen any cockroaches... yet.

Female bird (top right) says to male bird, "I told you we should stop coming here. This place has really gone to the birds."

                                           Thai fashion, albeit a few fingers missing...

This little lady allowed me to take her picture. I had accidentally switched my camera to "negative" mode so when I showed her her picture, she looked see-through. She just smiled and said, "Numba one! Numba one!"