I forced myself to like this place like I did some years ago to eggplant, tomatoes, the smell of milk and the word 'fuck'.

Arrived. With a small pain on my neck, a little hunger on my stomach, a slight thirst on my throat. The railway station was a sad thing, miserably dirty and a home for the feebly beggars and drunkards. Anyway, that’s Thai. I looked up at Hat Yai when a tuk tuk driver enquiring my destination, when a lady with a straw hat on her head selling me stuffs I don’t know and when the sun wasn’t a hot thing.

I was not excited. Everything here a photocopy of the place I came from, Malaysia except for a Thai song from somebody’s radio. I walked through the worn and stale buildings of Hat Yai towards a small bunch of new ones, clearly visible for their heights. I should have travelled further north, where the smell and sound of Malaysia is completely gone. Where there is abandonment of broken Malay on the Siamese tongues. Where mangoes, breasts and tom yam manifest themselves more like Thai fellows. First thing to settle was the accommodation. I am not keen into hotels with extravagant price tags, with comfortable thick bed, with five-stars meal, with the roar of an air-conditioner overshadowing the croaks of frogs at night. I am a street person. Backpackers lounge is posh enough and I do not grumble about sleeping in the open parks. But with demanding co-travellers beside me, at least a decent hotel is a must now. You know – someone to make your bed every morning, someone to replace your dirty towels and top up the fridge, something to be eaten in a morning hotel buffet and some numbers to dial when you’re in need of a body massage. And if you can get all these for just 600 Baht for a night, why not sometimes pamper your good self. At the entrance of my hotel, a Ronald McDonald was standing with his palms kissing each other. Welcome to Lee Gardens Hotel, he said without saying, with his swollen lips smiling.

I was in my room, high enough to see the most of Hat Yai. Old gray buildings planted like maize in a farm, with paint smelled of erstwhile memories. I forced myself to like this place like I did some years ago to eggplant, tomatoes, the smell of milk and the word 'fuck'.

I slurped with pleasure the tomyam reminiscing my earlier encounters on my way to this restaurant. “Kampong girls? Yuu wan kampong girls. I bring yuu der.” the voice of the tuk tuk drivers still audible around my temples. Kampong girls means village girls. And the fact that they were asking me means prostitution, as simple as that. Minutes ago, my co-travellers declared to the waitress that they couldn’t consume pork and pineapples. Thank God you don’t put these things into tomyam and I continued tasting my tomyam (without pork and pineapples in it). And I can certainly forget about pork and pineapples for the next two days. Even though so, I forced myself to like this place like I did some years ago to eggplant, tomatoes, the smell of milk and the word 'fuck'.