Travels In Southern Thailand

[PattayaOneTeam]

TRAVEL: Thailand & Beyond

Sungai Golok, Narathiwat

In recent years the internal tensions in the four predominantly Muslim southern provinces bordering Malaysia have been the most violent in the modern history of Thailand. Therefore, it may seem somewhat reckless to suggest taking a train journey to the border town of Sungai Golok in troubled Narathiwat province. Well, if you take the train, stay at an inexpensive hotel, and only want to cross the border and come back, it really shouldn’t be any more dangerous than trying to cross South Pattaya Road on a

market day.

Since having four paying customers killed by insurgents back in June 2008 on the Sungai Golok-Yala train, the government has heavily armed soldiers board each train at Had Yai. All the stations between there and Sungai Golok were full of troops and police and secured by sandbagged emplacements for added protection.

There’s not much to see in Sungai Golok unless you like checking out the variety of uniforms worn by the security personnel. It’s a border town after all. The Sungai River, only about 30 metres wide in places, separates Thailand and Malaysia. Thai Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdul Razak officially opened the bridge spanning it on 21 May 1973. There is a Malay satellite town on the other side and if you have the time and the inclination it is about 40 kilometres to Kota Baharu.

A couple of faded mosques impress upon the visitor the Islamic nature of the bulk of the Sungai Golok community. There’s a park with a rusting steam locomotive and a statue of King Chulalongkorn; another park has a rarely used fitness area, broken concrete seats and a couple of quite unrealistic, but suitably imposing, dinosaur statues.

Near the municipal offices is a large park covered by shade trees and loads of swings and rides for children, seating for adults and rustic-style restaurants. A 7-11 convenience store was the only franchise operation I noticed while the Toh Moh Goddess Shrine, a Chinese religious edifice, is right in the middle of the night bar area. Older buildings still outnumber newer constructions, unlike many Thai urban centres.

One thing Sungai Golok is not short on is hotels, of all shapes and sizes, and catering to all budgets. A decade ago when I chanced upon a sleeping den bearing the cognomen ‘Savoy Hotel’ I knew I’d come to the right place. It is still in business, and hasn’t changed a bit. Even before entering its portals I was acutely aware this was not linked in any way to the famous London Savoy. There were no liveried footman doffing their hats and opening glass doors with gloved hands. In fact, there were no doors -let alone footmen- at the entrance to the Sungai Golok version.

In 2000, the room tariff was a mere 130 baht. The Savoy then had ladies who seemed to be either just past, or well past, the prime of life, sitting or lying on beds and who exchanged bemused glances as if they couldn’t believe a foreigner would actually want to stay in the hotel. I soon discovered these women rarely ventured far from their rooms and were always eager to engage me in conversation, even suggesting a private consultation for a most reasonable monetary consideration.

Once the manager showed me the room I could understand the reason for their curious looks. A ceiling fan, cold water, Thai-style toilet, a mattress with no bedding, and walls that probably hadn’t seen a coat of paint since Winston Churchill died, in 1965. Closer inspection revealed the hand basin had no drainage pipe, so water just ended up on the bathroom floor. Sickly green tiles stretched half-way to the ceiling around the walls of the room, a faded mirror hung precariously from a wall hook and beneath it was a plastic tray -also green- designed to hold combs and brushes and the like but from the cigarette scars it clearly doubled as an ashtray.

Apart from the bed with a thin mattress and two pieces of concrete meant to serve as pillows, the furniture consisted of two wooden chairs with brown vinyl cushions, a small wooden table with a laminate top, and a wall hanging masquerading as a wardrobe. Brown curtains that hadn’t seen water since the day they were hung, possibly as long ago as the 1930s, covered a window with a view of the washing line. The window missed a number of slats and the mosquito netting possessed holes big enough to admit a large rat. The room phone would have been cutting edge technology…in 1945. But then, what would you expect for 130 Baht a night: the Savoy?

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-- Pattaya One 2010-10-27