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I stopped in Hat Yai more times than I care to count. The visa run from Koh Samui to Malaysia has a particular rhythm to it: ferry to the mainland at dawn, four hours in a minibus watching paddy fields give way to rubber plantations, then Hat Yai. A plate of fried chicken at Kim Yong Market, because everyone does, and it is extremely good fried chicken and you would be foolish not to. Then back on a bus heading south toward the border at Sadao or Padang Besar, cross into Malaysia, collect your stamp, turn around, and repeat the journey in reverse. Hat Yai was something I passed through. It was something I ate fried chicken in.
What I did not know, on any of those trips, was that thirty kilometres to the east of Hat Yai, sitting on a narrow peninsula between Songkhla Lake and the Gulf of Thailand, was one of the most quietly absorbing small cities in southern Thailand.
Songkhla town is not Hat Yai. This distinction matters more than it might appear. Hat Yai is the commercial centre of the south, a proper city with traffic and shopping malls and the particular energy of a place that has grown faster than anyone planned. Songkhla, by contrast, is the provincial capital in name and the peninsula in character: three parallel streets of Sino-Portuguese shophouses in varying states of graceful collapse, a hilltop golden chedi with a cable car and a few hundred opportunistic monkeys, a golden mermaid on the beach, and the lake on one side and the Gulf on the other. It feels like a city that decided some time ago not to try too hard.
The province wraps around both of them. It is worth noting that the UK FCO advises against all but essential travel to four of Songkhla’s southernmost districts: Chana, Thepa, Na Thawi, and Saba Yoi, near the border where the insurgency that affects Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat spills over. Hat Yai and Songkhla town are well outside these areas and carry no advisory whatsoever. Check the FCO website before you travel, as these things change, but for the purposes of this Songkhla travel guide, the relevant parts of the province are straightforwardly safe.
This guide covers four days at a pace that does not involve getting back on a minibus within three hours. Consider it, in part, my attempt to make up for approximately a dozen border runs’ worth of inattention.
Day One: The Peninsula City
Getting to Songkhla from Hat Yai is straightforward enough to make you wonder why you never bothered before. Minivans run frequently from Hat Yai’s Talad Kaset terminal and from near the clock tower on Phetkasem Road: thirty to forty baht (around £0.70 to £0.90), forty-five minutes, and you are deposited near the Ramwithi Road clock tower in Songkhla. Return vehicles gather at the same spot.
The first instinct, and the correct one, is to walk. The old town spreads across three parallel streets: Nakhon Nai, Nang Ngam, and Nakhon Nok roads, running roughly north to south with Songkhla Lake on the western side and the old commercial waterfront on the east. The shophouses here are the Sino-Portuguese vernacular that you find from Penang up through Phuket and across to Songkhla: ground-floor arcaded walkways, shuttered upper windows, the occasional burst of ornamental plasterwork, and a general air of buildings that have survived more than they were built for. Some have been restored with care. Others are hanging on. The combination is, in an unplanned way, more interesting than either alone.
Wat Matchimawat, on Saiburi Road, dates from the mid-19th century and is worth finding for its murals alone. The interior walls mix Thai, Chinese, and European imagery with a freedom that suggests the artist had not been told this was supposed to be a Buddhist temple: European figures in 19th-century dress, sailing ships with rigging, Chinese landscapes and local legends all occupying the same wall space without any apparent sense of conflict. It is odd and it is wonderful and it costs nothing to visit.
Hub Ho Hin, the Red Rice Mill, sits near the waterfront and is exactly as described: a century-old red-painted rice mill turned into a heritage and cultural centre. The building retains its original dock, its original bones, and a working relationship with the harbour that feels genuine rather than staged. Worth an hour for the building alone; check what exhibitions are running when you visit.
After lunch, Khao Tang Kuan. The hill that rises at the northern tip of the peninsula is known locally as Monkey Hill, which prepares you for the monkeys but does not entirely prepare you for the sheer number of them. They line the 305-step Naga-guarded staircase with the casual proprietorial confidence of animals that have been fed by tourists long enough to consider it an entitlement. A cable car also runs to the summit for thirty to sixty baht (around £0.68 to £1.36) for those who prefer to make the ascent without negotiating past macaques. At the top, the golden Phra Chedi Luang sits with views across the entire peninsula: the Gulf of Thailand on one side, Songkhla Lake on the other, the town arranged between them in the particular way of places that ran out of land and had to be creative about what they did with it.
Samila Beach runs south from the hill along the Gulf side. The golden mermaid statue is the city symbol and you will see photographs of it on every surface in the province; the actual statue, standing in the surf at low tide, is smaller than the photographs suggest and rather lovely for it. Further south on Chalatad Road, two bronze figures represent a cat and a mouse from a local legend that I will not spoil here, except to say that the legend does not end especially well for either party, which is probably the point.
Friday and Saturday evenings, a market runs on Chana Road near the old city walls from five until ten, selling the usual market configuration of grilled things, sticky rice, things in batter, and fresh fruit in cups. The giant steamed buns are a local speciality and are exactly as large as the name suggests. It is about as far from a tourist market as you can get, which is entirely in its favour.
A note on the Songkhla National Museum: it occupies a beautiful 1878 Sino-Portuguese mansion that served as the deputy governor’s residence and later as city hall. It was closed for renovation at the time of writing, with no confirmed reopening date. Check whether it has reopened before you visit; if it has, go immediately.
Dinner: the beef noodle soup shops on Nakhon Nai Road do a serious bowl at around forty-five baht (roughly £1). The rice and curry stalls in Yaring Alley are the other obvious choice, with a rotating selection of southern Thai-Muslim curries that remind you, not for the first time, that this end of the country does not receive nearly enough credit for its food.
Day Two: The Island in the Lake
Songkhla Lake is one of the largest natural lakes in Thailand, which understates it somewhat, since it is large enough to have islands, its own fishing industry, a distinct ecosystem, and an intermittent population of migratory pink dolphins that were apparently as surprised to find themselves here as everyone else was. The lake connects to the Gulf of Thailand through a narrow channel to the southeast, which means it is technically a lagoon, which is the sort of pedantic geographical point that I mention only because it explains why the water has a faintly brackish quality and why the ecosystem is considerably more interesting than a purely freshwater lake would be.
Ko Yo sits in the southwestern portion of the lake, connected to the mainland by the Tinsulanonda Bridge, one of the longest concrete bridges in Thailand. You can reach it by songthaew from Songkhla’s clock tower on Chana Road for fifteen baht (around £0.34); the last one back leaves around five in the afternoon, which gives you adequate time and a deadline.
The main reason to come is the Southern Thai Folklore Museum, which operates under the academic auspices of the Institute for Southern Thai Studies and is consequently more serious than the average provincial museum and considerably better for it. The collection spans ancient beadwork going back four thousand years, Chinese ceramics from a millennium ago, Nang thalung shadow puppets in the elaborate painted style of the southern tradition, Srivijaya-period Buddhist statuary, traditional musical instruments, carved coconut graters, and the magnificent buffalo-headed kites that are flown in the south during the monsoon season and that deserve to be more famous than they are. The textiles section covers Ko Yo cotton weaving, which is the island’s most enduring cottage industry: hand-woven fabric in geometric patterns that has been produced here for generations and is sold at modest prices at workshops around the island. If you buy one thing in Songkhla Province, it should probably be a length of Ko Yo cloth.
Wat Laem Pho, on the island’s southern shore, has a twenty-metre reclining Buddha laid out in the open air without a shelter roof above it. This is unusual enough that it registers as a decision rather than an oversight: the Buddha faces the lake, the proportions are correct, and the surrounding statuary includes representations of Brahma, Vishnu, and Erawan that reflect the syncretism between Buddhist and Hindu traditions that runs through much of southern Thai religious practice.
A viewing tower at Baan Ao Sai looks out over a fishing village of stilted houses and working boats that has been operating on roughly the same lines for several centuries and has no particular obligation to be picturesque about it. It is, nonetheless, picturesque.
Lunch should be at one of the lakeside restaurants on Ko Yo that serve fresh fish pulled from the lake that morning. Order the whole fish. You will not regret it.
Day Three: Hat Yai, Done Properly
The minivan back to Hat Yai deposits you in a different city from the one most transit travellers experience. Hat Yai without a border crossing in mind is considerably more interesting.
Start at Kim Yong Market, and start early: the market runs from six in the morning until six in the evening, and the food stalls do their best work before the heat of the day makes standing in front of a frying pan seem like a commitment. Hat Yai fried chicken is the specific thing: not the same as any fried chicken you have had elsewhere, because it is fried twice, finished with crispy fried shallots, and served with sticky rice and a dipping sauce that is sweet, salty, and slightly sour simultaneously. This is what I was eating during the border runs and it is why the border runs were, on reflection, not entirely wasted time.
The market also does dried fruits of the kind that disappear into your bag and are still being discovered weeks later: mango, jackfruit, durian for the committed. Local coffee blends. Fresh tropical fruit shakes at twenty to forty baht (around £0.45 to £0.90). The electronics stalls exist and the bargaining culture is real; the food is the reason to be there.
Hat Yai Municipal Park sits on a hill with views over the city and the surrounding landscape. The scale of the park is larger than it appears from below, and the Buddha statue at the summit is considerably larger than it appears from anywhere. Spend an hour here in the mid-morning before the afternoon heat makes the ascent feel like an achievement.
Ton Nga Chang Wildlife Sanctuary is twenty-five kilometres from Hat Yai, best reached by hired car or motorbike. Entry is 200 baht (around £4.55) and the sanctuary is open from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. The name translates as Elephant’s Tusk Falls, and the waterfall has seventeen sections that wrap around the hillside in a configuration that justifies the name from above. Most visitors see the first three or four levels, which is adequate: the paths become seriously steep above level three and the leeches become more numerous, which tends to concentrate the mind. The lower pools allow swimming and the Mahseer Barb fish, large and unhurried, can be fed with biscuits available at the entrance. It is the sort of place that takes half a day without feeling like you rushed it.
The Greenway Night Market in Hat Yai runs in the evenings and is roughly what every Thai night market aspires to be: food stalls in organised rows, live music at a volume that does not require you to shout over it, and the atmosphere of a city that takes its evenings seriously. Hat Yai eats late and eats well, and the fried chicken from Kim Yong in the morning and the market in the evening form the brackets of a day that, for once, has nothing to do with the Malaysian border.
Day Four: The Border on Your Own Terms
The train from Hat Yai to Padang Besar takes just under an hour and costs a few baht, which is how you go from a transit experience to a leisure one: by choosing it. Book through 12GO. On the Thai side, Padang Besar is a trading town that exists almost entirely because the border exists: two countries’ worth of goods moving in both directions, and the market that has grown up around that movement.
The Padang Besar market operates on both sides of the border, with Thai traders selling to Malaysians and Malaysian goods making their way north. The specific combination of dried spices, fabrics, electronics, and food products that characterises a functioning land border market is present in full. Malaysian ringgit and Thai baht are both accepted with equal indifference by most stalls. The food runs to roti canai, curry, fresh coconut, and the southern Thai-Malaysian hybrid cuisine that this part of the world does without bothering to name it anything.
Crossing into Malaysia requires only a passport and a willingness to queue. The Malaysian side is Perlis, the smallest state in Malaysia, with its own character and the sense of a place that gets overlooked even within Malaysia. A walk across and back takes an hour; a proper exploration of the Perlis side takes considerably longer and starts a different kind of trip.
What struck me, doing this without a clock ticking, was how different the border felt. The visa run version of Padang Besar is a bureaucratic exercise conducted at speed, notable mainly for the exit and entry stamps and the faint anxiety that something will go wrong with the paperwork. The version where you have taken the train, bought something at the market, and eaten a roti canai on a plastic chair in the sun is something else. The border is still a border. The geography is unchanged. The experience, however, is completely different.
Back to Hat Yai in the afternoon. For the last evening, the city rewards a slow walk with no agenda.
Getting There and Getting Around
Hat Yai airport receives flights from Bangkok on multiple budget carriers in under two hours. Overnight sleeper trains from Bangkok take fourteen to sixteen hours; book through 12GO. From Koh Samui or Koh Phangan, the route runs via ferry to the mainland at Donsak or Surat Thani pier, then a minibus or train south to Hat Yai: typically six to eight hours in total, also bookable through 12GO.
Hat Yai to Songkhla town: minivans from Talad Kaset terminal or near the clock tower on Phetkasem Road, 30 to 40 baht (around £0.70 to £0.90), forty-five minutes. Return vehicles gather near the Ramwithi Road clock tower in Songkhla.
Within Hat Yai, tuk-tuks and Grab cover most destinations. For Ton Nga Chang and day trips out of the city, hire a driver through your accommodation: expect 600 to 900 baht (roughly £13.60 to £20.45) for a half-day.
Where to Stay
In Songkhla old town, Baan Nai Nakhon is a six-room guesthouse in a restored century-old house with free bicycles and a local breakfast; the most characterful base in the province. BP Samila Beach Hotel and Resort sits on the Gulf side near Samila Beach for those who want the water rather than the architecture outside the window. In Hat Yai, Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel puts you within walking distance of Kim Yong Market. Centara Hotel Hat Yai is the mid-range option for the city. Search current rates on Agoda or Trip.com.
Connectivity
Airalo’s Thailand plan covers Hat Yai and Songkhla reliably. Coverage in Ton Nga Chang Wildlife Sanctuary is patchy at best, which is either a problem or a feature depending on your view of the matter. For a full guide to staying connected without paying over the odds, see How to Stay Connected Abroad Without Paying Roaming Charges.
Best Time to Visit
The Gulf of Thailand coast has a different weather pattern from the Andaman side. November through February brings rainfall from the northeast monsoon; January through April is the driest and most reliably pleasant period. Unlike the Andaman provinces, Songkhla does not have a sharp seasonal closure, but the wettest months between October and December can bring significant rain and rough coastal conditions.
The Food
Hat Yai fried chicken is a legitimate reason to visit a city and I will not apologise for saying so. Beyond it: the beef noodle soup shops of Songkhla old town, the rice and curry stalls in Yaring Alley, the fresh lake fish on Ko Yo, the roti canai at Padang Besar, and the Thai-Muslim hybrid cuisine that runs through the province in the same vein as Satun and Trang. The Greenway Night Market in Hat Yai is the most efficient way to try several things in an evening. Kim Yong Market in the morning handles everything else.
A Final Thought
I spent years stopping in Hat Yai for forty-five minutes at a time, eating the fried chicken and boarding the next vehicle south. This is not the worst way to experience the place. The fried chicken genuinely merits the brief stop on its own terms.
But Songkhla Province is larger than its border crossing. The old town on the peninsula is the sort of place that would be famous if it were in Europe, with its own walking tours and dedicated guidebook sections and restaurant queues. As things stand, it gets approximately the attention of somewhere that most visitors are already on their way to somewhere else.
Ko Yo has been weaving cotton on the same island, in the same way, for generations, and will continue to do so with complete indifference to whether anyone books a songthaew to come and watch.
Padang Besar is a more interesting border town than it appears from the window of a minibus at speed.
This Songkhla travel guide covers what the province offers when you stop moving long enough to look. The fried chicken, for what it is worth, is still excellent. I would still eat it. It just no longer needs to be the only reason I stop.
More from the Thailand series: Solo in Trang: A 4-Day Guide | Solo in Satun: A 4-Day Guide | Ko Lipe Travel Guide for Solo Travellers Over 50 | Thailand Solo Travel Over 50: A First Timer’s Guide | Great Destinations for Men Over 50 Travelling Solo
A note on how I write: Every trip starts with a journal, filled in wherever I happen to be; on a bus, plane, train, or in a backstreet cafe that has clearly seen better days. It’s not tidy, and it’s not always legible even to me. When I get the time, I use AI to help turn those notes into something readable, organising drafts and occasionally rescuing a sentence that has wandered off without me. The experiences, the perspective, the humour and every editorial decision remain entirely mine. As for the photos, I’m not remotely fond of having my picture taken, family portraits included, so I also use AI to help visualise the places and moments I write about.
