Hadyai Idea Market

Hatyai- Thailand’s southern entertainment capital.
Hat Yai’s skyline is very flat and spread out, but in actual fact, almost all the tourist activity central’s around a very small area. It is possible to explore Hat Yai City either by foot combined with tuk tuk or just by motorcycle.
One of the attraction within Hatyai worth visiting is the Idea Market held in Lee Garden Plaza.
This weekly market was originally held outside the Lee Garden Plaza but has been moved into the shopping complex due to the overwhelming response and also to improve the shoppers experience as the indoors are air conditioned compared the outside.
After they shifted the market indoors, it is less affected by rain and sun shine. We still remember about 1 1/2 years back. When it started to rain, everyone will be scattered running for shelter. Stalls will be closed and what a let down!

Panorama sweep shot of Hat Yai Skyline

Most of the traders here comprises of teenagers and young adults. These young minds adds to the refreshing burst of creativity and difference in the products and craft sold here.
Despite the small space area, almost everything is handmade and different from each other. This creates so much variety of things to see here.

Weekend Idea Market at Lee Garden Plaza

Among the interesting things you will see here are, custom made fridge magnets and home made wall clocks. They also make their own ear rings.They love to make them in nice colorful cartoonish designs. They make excelent gifts for kids and girls. The wooden wall clocks are pretty ingenious as well. They simply install a simple clock movement on to their drawing or art piece. And voila! a designer clock! Thailand is the only place in Asia that i’ve seen these type of clocks been made. There are also clocks that spot your favorite foot ball team, others have cute loving comments and some with vintage vehicles.

There is a stall that lets you pick your metal bracelet / ring and then write down what wordings you want imprinted on it. He doesnt use the conventional engraving. He uses a chisel and hammer to knock your letters in. Therefore it stays there forever and lasts longer. Knocking is FREE! How cool is that. Nowadays not many things are free. ONLY IN THAILAND!!

Personal Engraving on stainless steel and silver jewellery

The stall below sells nice handmade leather key chains, phone rings ( i think that’s what its called. Its to be hung on hand phones so that you can hold it). They also have bracelets and book marks. Again, you get to let him write down what kind of wordings you want on it. FREE WORDINGS! Im so loving Thailand!

customized leather key chains, book marks and bracelets

I think the Thai’s have managed to find a niche market in terms of customization. This is the very first time Ive seen customized plastic rings. You get to choose what ever icons or letters to be put on the ring. The ring, alphabets and icons come in many vibrant colors!

Customized colorful alphabet plastic rings

You can also find leather belts, wallets, hand phone pouches, belt buckles, and bracelets. They are quite reasonably priced too too. For example, a studded leather belt with a fancy cowboy buckle will cost around 550 THB.

leather products

I wonder why they only sell Liverpool dolls.

Liverpool - you will never walk alone!

Here are the rings again! Im showing it because i bought one. Its to add to my bling bling accessories when i go out clubbing.

customized rings

Talking about plastic stuff. Check out what else they sell here. LEGO looking pendants that will get the kids screaming, and also plastic bracelets. The colorful mix was the one that got me attracted.

creative necklaces made from lego

But if WOOD is your thing then check out the wooden dolls sold here. These wooden puppets can move and dance when you pull its strings.

wooden dolls

There also seems to be plenty of watches sold here. These watches are different from what you will find in Hat Yai city. These are more colourful and have artsy designs on them

Check out the customized shoes. Take a pick of what design you want and the artist will draw it for you. Your spanking new designer shoes will be ready in a few hours.

hand drawn fabric shoes

One of the things that never bores me is their own designed t-shirts. Love the wordings and graphics on these t’s. Cheap too. A t-shirt costs around 120 THB.

nicely designed t shirts

Below are some other stuff we saw at the market

paper mache coin boxes, key chains, and table ornaments

CD pouches, coin purse, hand bag

very nice unique handphone pouches and bags can be found here

hand crafted flower candles

even the miniature street food tempts me!

After you are done shopping and you are hungry, you can always check out the many restaurants within Lee Garden Plaza or just walk out to the streets where there are plenty of road side stalls available.

Once again we at backpackies wish you guys a safe and fun-tastic holiday!
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Pondok Lodge Guesthouse KL by backpackies

Backpacking in the Urban Jungle of Kuala Lumpur (Capital of Malaysia) or just on a one day transit because your connecting Air Asia flights are on the next day and you don’t know where to stay?
Well one of the more decent guesthouses in KL is Pondok Lodge. It is located on Changkat Bukit Bintang which is an upcoming clubbing area. Pondok Lodge is strategically located in KL’s Golden Triangle. It will take you around 3 minutes to walk to the nearest food stall, shopping complex or pub for a beer. It is also near to the monorial station. (Nearest monorial station is Bukit Bintang).
So if you dont mind the outside appearance of this Guesthouse, lets begin the inside tour.
Before we continue any further we need to highlight that so far the only problem we found with this place is the noise. Because of the line of pubs around and infront of this guesthouse. Expect to hear booming music till late at night. You will need to bring your own earplugs.

Pondok Lodge is on the top floor of a dubious looking building

Pondok Lodge has a sign board but its waaaay up on the top floor of the building. You will need to bend up and look hard to find it amongst the many sign boards in the area.
There is only a small “hand written” sign to show where the entrance is. So we took a picture to show you where it is.

The entrance to Pondok Lodge is a small side entrance which opens to a flight of stairs

The place is pretty safe. When you stay here, you get a key for the lock to your room and also the main gate. (This orange gate here). There is no curfew time. But you will need to let yourself in, if you are out late.

Metal gate locked by key lock is the only protection against the raunchy clubbing scene at Changkat Bukit Bintang

Stairs leading to Pondok Lodge. They occupy 2 stories

Public phone inside the premises to make calls (international and local)

Seating lounge on 2nd floor

Dining area

Cozy area

We feel that the rooms lack lighting. It is still dark in the room even with all the lights switched on. They use yellow bulbs. So its a dimmer in the rooms. Some might think this is romantic ?

Triple room

There are enough toilets and showers to use. So no need to fight for them. Water pressure for the showers are so so only (average). I remember on of them being very low. I was practically standing 3cm away from the toilet wall to get a shaower. The toilets are the bare basic.The need a proper scrub and clean!

Shared toilets with hot water

One thing is, throughout our stay here at Pondok Lodge. We have not encountered any bed bugs. So our sleep here was pretty good.

Rooms are not exactly spick and span, but its clean. We found out that they spray the rooms with insecticide after check out time. So its a good thing.

Double bed

twin beds

The beds are not too soft or hard. Just nice. Rooms aren’t too cold either. But blankets are available.
This is the information on the bookmark they gave us for free.

Contact numbers and email

 

Directions to the pondok lodge guesthouse kl

 

 

Pondok Lodge
20-1B Jalan Changkat Bukit Bintang
50200 kuala lumpur
Tel – 03 21428449/21440288
email: pondoklodge_kl@yahoo.com
their website is www.pondoklodge.com

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Have fun backpacking!

Batu Caves KL – Kuala Lumpur’s Attractions by backpackies

We are back and very much BOLDER! At Backpackies we once again bring you the wackiest reviews on the many attractions in Kuala Lumpur. (Also known as KL in short to the locals)
At backpackies we painstakingly take the pictures, do the writeup, go home,  compile, bullshit and come up with a blog like this so when you read it. You go “Wow, this is awesome”!. So please do bloody read it and comment!

Whats so attractive about a bunch of 400 million year old lime rock you ask?

We are here to find out.
This series of lime stone caves in Batu Caves is an Indian temple dedicated to Lord Muruga,a popular Hindu deity among Tamil Hindus. He is known as the God of War and patron deity of Tamil Nadu. The founder of this temple was inspired by the “vel” shaped entrance of the main cave. He decided to build and dedicate this temple to Lord Muruga. Back in the 1920’s, when the temple was first built, wooden steps were used to go up to the Main Temple. This was then replaced with the 272 concrete steps.
For more reading information on this place please read Batu Caves Kuala Lumpur

We will touch on how to get to Batu Caves towards the end of this blog (as its such a pain in the ass, getting here on a budget and using the public transport)

Get here before 7.30am as it starts to get unbearably hot after that. This shot below of the main gate was taken around 7.45am. Plus if you reach here earlier, you beat the bus loads of tourists. So you get to explore the entire temple and caves at your own pace.

Batu caves is one of the most popular Hindu Shrine outside of India. The name “Batu Caves” was derived from the name of the river behind it called “Sungai Batu” or Batu River.
These caves rise almost 150 m above the ground, Batu Caves temple complex consists of three main caves and a few smaller ones. The biggest, referred to as Cathedral Cave or Temple Cave, has a 100 m-high ceiling, and features ornate Hindu shrines. To reach it, you need to climb the steep flight of 272 steps. At the base of the Main Cave is the Art Cave and the Museum Cave.  These caves showcases some Hindu Statues and Paintings. Most of these paintings and statues tell the story of the victory of Lord Muragan over the demon  Soorapadman.

Entrance gate to Batu Caves

To the left of the “almost vertical” staircase is another lime stone out crop. Walking there you will pass a huge 60 foot high Hanuman Statue (Monkey God) on a small temple on the left and another bigger temple to the right. The smaller cave seemed to be closed. We later found out that this cave was known as the Ramayana Cave. It was supposed to contain pictures and graphic statues telling the chronicles of Rama. When we checked, it was shamefully full of rubbish and the upkeep was obviously terrible.

In ancient times, these cave entrances were used as shelters by the indigenous Temuan people (a tribe of Orang Asli). Now rubbish takes shelter in this cave? The temple commitee should do something about this. It is a potential tourist attraction.

One of the smaller caves

The smaller cave seems to be closed up for some time

The picture below is the bigger temple opposite the Hanuman Temple. You are allowed observe the prayers,take pictures, pay respects and even donate at the donation box.  You will need to take off your shoes at the steps.One more thing we forgot to tell you is, LEAVE YOUR NIKE’S back home. People here will come with a broken slipper and end up going back with a leather PUMA. You get the drift. Wear only the broken slippers your mother threw away.

Indian Temple at the Base of the Caves

Somehow, “feeding the pigeons” seems to be an activity on its own. We saw  a few families buying bread crumbs and rice to feed them.

Feed the pigeons on the temple grounds

The golden Lord Muruga Statue is the tallest Lord Muruga Statue in the world. It stands at 42.7m (140.09 feet ) high and was unveiled in January 2006. It took 3 years to construct.

Now for the main attraction 272 Steps to Climb!

Plenty of people have asked us whether the steps are dangerous to climb and whether it is hard for older people to climb it.  we must admit, the steps are a bit steep so it is safer to hold on to the hand rails. There are resting stops (wider slabs of concrete) separating the many steps. These are great for older people to stop climbing and rest in between.  As you are reaching the top, the overhanging stalagmites and stalactites are pretty impressive when you look up at it.

These steps used to be made of wood back in the olden days before it was renovated.

The hike up is pretty safe although the steps can be a little small

Along the steps up and also inside the caves, are a gang of monkeys. They have grown pretty big sized (from all those fatty stolen food) due to tourist’s voluntary and involuntary donations. Take care of your bags and make sure you don’t have any plastic bags exposed or carry anything that looks like food. For they will go ahead and grab it from you. Trust me, they aren’t afraid of a little shout.

Ive got the balls to steal! Look at my big balls

Looking back after your climb up, you can see the entire town below. It is an amazing sight.

Looking down at your accomplishment

For all you “Rocky Wannabes” the temple gates at the top of the stairs is as far as you get. No more jogging and exercise beyond this point. (Due to the fact that plenty of people come here to train and exercise in the mornings). And no victory shouting when you make it to the top of the stairs please! 😀

This sign says it all

Arriving at the caves

The caves can be  a little wet due to the rain and fresh water from the mountains. So watch your cameras and other stuff you don’t want to get wet properly. Inside the caves are colourful indian god statues decorating the inside of the cave.

Colorful godly statues decorate the caves

There are some stalls selling ugly souvenirs and junk food (which are normally used to feed the monkeys)

heading further into the caves

There is a huge opening in the middle of the big cave. When it rains, the water that flows down the cave walls form tiny crystals against the sun light. Wonderful!

Lime stone roofs - so it can get really wet especially when it rains

Zooming into the hole in the roof

More statues in the main caves

Gods watching us from up high in the cave walls

Temple in the last cave

In the last cave, there is like a high vertical wall chimny-ing to the top. Another group of monkeys live here. They seem to be the star of the show here. Everybody seems to be taking pictures of them.

Plenty of Monkeys in the last cave

Batu Caves receives millions of tourist and devotees from around the world here. The biggest celebrations here is the Thaipusam. Read more on Thaipusam . Celebrations are usually held in January or February

panorama view of the inner cave

Getting to the Caves. Is a pain in the ass. There are direct taxis to the Caves, but they wont go unless you agree to a crazy price of RM 40. Getting to the caves, you can always hail a metered taxi which will cost you around Rm 16 one way. Once you are there, you are at the mercy of the taxi bandits. If you don’t agree on the price, just walk away. You can also walk out to the main road and hail a cab there.
The other way of getting here is by bus. You can take the 11/11d Buses from Bangkok Bank Terminal (Near to Puduraya Terminal) or Bus U6 from Titiwangsa. This is the longest method of coming. The other down side is that there are plenty of bus stops. And the route aint scenic at all.

Recently there is a new KTM service that connects Batu Caves to KL Sentral. Hooray you would think. God damn! You need to note down the timing of the train. Also, don’t be in a hurry to board it. (It doesn’t leave on time).

We ran for the train seeing that it had arrived. The station master told us that the train wont be leaving for another 45 minutes. So we sit and wait (disgruntled). When it was time to get on the train, we did. #!%^#$.  The train took 1 hour to reach KL Sentral. The only comfort is probably the comfortable seats compared to the bus. And it is also cheaper than the taxi.

Taking the KTM train from KL sentral to Batu Caves is agony

Best time to witness Batu Caves in full action is during the Thaipusam Festival. Check to see when it is held. This place will be filled with thousands of Hindu devotees from around the world. So expect it to get really packed and sweaty.
So heed our warnings and we pray you have a safe and enjoyable trip! For more free backpacking tips, do visit us on www.backpackies.com or if you have a facebook account, do add us on BACKPACKIES IS NOW ON FACEBOOK.

Till then see ya!