Arrived in George Town, Malaysia - getting new pictures on my HD, and new impressions - time to share cool shots from sunny Songkhla I still have, and turn over the page.
Home, sweet home:
Those windows behind ornamental grilles in the middle are my room in the wonderful Yuma Guesthouse (180$ a month). The roof in front of the windows, that's where I could see monkey visitors sometimes.
Just 200 meters away, the old town's townhouses with amazing details like antique doors and windows, rich textures, and, best of all, they’re home to adorable cats, spoiled house princesses and lords:
Fortunately for cats, Songkhla is the best birdwatching location ever.
Even when I was leaving the city on a bus, I spotted cool feathered creatures: a bright blue Indochinese roller and a white-breasted waterhen.
A typical spectacle - a day watch of a great myna:
She was always sitting there when I was drinking afternoon coffee or hot chocolate at a 7/11 convenience store, almost daily.
This feathered tribe is the great myna:
A portrait of a monkey in each Songkhla post - unavoidably:
A young long-tailed lady, a thief and a brawler, lol.
Time to have a long walk:
The Khao Daeng mountain in the background - that's where the day ends, behind its crest.
Walking to a pier, hoping to meet another kingfisher or spot a Brahminy kite soaring over the water
or another friendly cat person.
These are ships hiding in the lagoon-lake. On the other side of the city, there is the sea, the Gulf of Thailand:
Fake pine trees, casuarinas, local non-coniferous species with needles and cones, grow along the beach as well as in a part of the peninsula free of the city.
The tree often forms hollows, which are used by great mynas and red-breasted parakeets (urban parrots!).
Swimming was fun for a while... I didn't pay attention to this poster for a whole... Why? Because they have many warning posters in Thailand, like:
Should I stay away from the beach because of falling trees?..
Or this:
A cursed street with everlasting heavy rains and strong winds? Would you risk visiting it despite the clear message "PLEASE, AVOID CHALATAT ROAD AT ANY COST"?..
Now you see why I wasn't serious about the jellyfish warning?..
So, I had late-afternoon swims in the sea twice a week. Yes, from time to time, the skin slightly burned, but I thought, "Maybe that's natural micro cracks in my skin..."
It lasted until one day I was almost dissolved by jellyfish juices, lol. That day, each time I stepped on the seabed, I was feeling like there were plastic bags floating above the sand... Jellyfish!
Soon, I experienced skin burning on the unpleasant scale so I left the water. Standing on the beach, I realized that the strong scratchy feeling was turning into pain on some sensitive areas of my skin, and I also noticed red areas on my body, and rushed back to the room to have a shower.
The pain eventually subsided but that was the last time I swam in Songkhla.
Several days later during a beach walk, I found plenty of these jelly guys:
Probably, May is the month of dying for them.
On weekdays, it's quite empty on the beach, especially in the afternoon. But many come at sunset.
The locals actually don't swim, and I was the only foreign beachgoer there.
Weird experience, felt embarrassed being in only underpants in a crowd of dressed people even for several moments between leaving the sea and wrapping myself in a towel. That and jellyfish and rough sea made me feel "enough swimming in Songkhla".
Songkhla was cool but 3 months is a lot - I got used to the city first and then got bored with it.
On June 11, I took a morning minibus to Hatyai City, where I booked a bus to George Town, Malaysia, and was leaving with a feeling of gratitude to cozy Songkhla, and anticipating a new life on the other side of the Thai-Malay border.
All photos were taken with a Nikkor 50mm / Nikkor 70-300mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 by the author in 2025 in Songkhla, Thailand
