If anyone remembers my ride up to Bangkok with my friend on his Harley Davidson Streetglide, we decided to do a short trip to Danok, which is located right at the border of Malaysia and Thailand.
Why Danok only? Why not Hat Yai? Well basically we don’t need to head into Hat Yai to get our Thai fix. Here you can find Thai massage, pubs, food and its a smoking haven for smokers because you can smoke almost everywhere.
Since it was our first trip here as a holiday destination, we had to abide with the motto “PAY TO LEARN”. I will share what we learnt and hopefully it will help you plan your own agenda. We might have not learnt everything but we will be marking this place as our destination for weekend riding trips.
First things first, Danok caters to Malaysians, so you don’t have to change to any thai baht. Everything runs on ringgit here.
Unlike Bangkok, beer is more popular here. You go to a club and you can order 5 bottles of beer for 100RM / 1000THB. A bottle of Johnny Walker Black label at a club will set you back 290RM / 2900THB which I immediately rejected. I can get it way cheaper in other parts of Thailand. The first thing we did after we crossed the border was head to the restaurant we went to the last time round and ordered a bottle of beer to cool down.
4 dishes, 3 servings of rice and 2 bottles of beer cost us 71 RM / 710THB. This place (J.J. Court) is basically our favourite joint for this kind of food, it is located near McDonalds and you can see the typical grey fridges you see at Zhi Char stalls.
Once you check into a hotel, you can be sure that you will be greeted by a pimp at the lobby who never fails to ask if you want a girl. Even if you want a massage, it is really a gamble. Most are terrible at it, some are good. But most want to give you something extra because they want money. Bottom line is that if you want a proper massage, skip all pimps no matter how good they say their girls are good at massage.
After paying and learning, we found out that there is a spa located at He Jia hotel, called Mei Spa. Inside is the typical Malaysian spa. You pay a fee, you get to laze around inside for hours, access to jacuzzi, steam and sauna. You get wifi, food, movies, you can smoke inside there and most importantly, decent massage. Unlike other spa joints which are sleazy, we were surprised to see female tourists also using the spa so that makes it “cleaner”. The oil massage was good compared to the ones we got via the pimp. We spent 4 hours in there and it cost us 76RM / 760THB.
For those who like dim sum, you can consider going to Hailam Coffee, located at the corner where you turn out of Oliver hotel. The har gau, siew mai, carrot cake, fried beancurd skin, congee were all not bad, but just skip the xiao long bao. The soup in it was tasteless and the meat has a slimy texture.
If you want to buy some clothes or other items, you can cross over to the side going towards Malaysia and do your shopping at the street stalls. In the photo above, you can see the immigration complex just up ahead. Usually you have to buy Thai vehicle insurance if you ride within Thailand, but we skipped that.