i think i think i found the perfect city the best city i've ever been to in my life here
in southern thailand the second i arrived in this city hat yai in southern thailand i was just like
every single second i'm like like this just like i love it i love every single
street of this place so i sat down and i wrote a list
of all of the like essentials that if i was going to design a city to live in it would
have these elements okay and this city has them all big but not too big a mix of cultures and
religions nice and multicultural delicious local foods of course western comforts like shopping
and western foods and you know western you know i want to be able to get pint of guinness
nature i want nature within reach mountains you know and if possible a beach and this one has
mountains and a beach an international airport as well because then you know you can travel easily
get to bangkok get outside of the country and of course has to be cheap and this city hat yai has
everything has all of those things and more and in this video we're gonna go explore it's gonna
be amazing you're probably gonna end up moving here and i'll probably end up moving here as well
let's go my name is paddy doyle and this is my little honda dream and welcome to next
level adventures right now we are attempting to visit every single province in thailand
we've had some incredible adventures already but the best part is we're only just getting started
so subscribe and join us as we discover this incredible country together okay welcome back
so what i thought we could do in the first part of this video is go get breakfast
and i want to show you this like area that i'm staying in um i'm staying at this guest house up
here called get guest house in this really nice little local area there's people eating on the
streets there's just really cool businesses thai people selling random things doing random things
it's such an interesting place to be i'm always just stopping and looking and being
nosy and looking at everyone's business because it's just so interesting what i thought i would
do is literally like this in almost real time is we'll go for breakfast then we'll go explore some
of the multicultural aspects of this city then we'll get on the bike i'll show you some of the
western comforts we'll go up to the nature i'll show you the mountains i'll show you the beach
but first things first 711 americano coffee for 40 baht yes please
my guest house does have breakfast and coffee but it's just toast and jam and the coffee is rubbish
so 7-eleven hello 40 bar i've just discovered this on the road trip there is something which i'll
tell you at the end of the video which is the one the one problem with this city and it's a big one
actually uh it's a deal breaker as well but i'll save that until then to the end because it's quite
funny um but it's also really not funny so this city is really famous for food especially fried
chicken and in the last video when i arrived you saw at the very end of the video i had
the local halal style fried chicken with the green mango salad and it was amazing but another
thing that this area in the south is famous for is fusion food malaysian food singaporean
food chinese food and this is something that you don't get up north for sure and that's breakfast
roti with a fried egg and um some sort of curry sauce here so what i think i'm gonna do
is just tear a bit of this fried egg which you just fried fresh on a massive pan and
maybe dip some of this yeah i'm going to put some of the curry sauce on the egg
and then i'm going to use the roti to to to pick it up a little bit like india's style
wow the the roti is really thick it's quite stodgy but it's also quite flexible and stringy
and then when you dip it in the sauce you can see it holds it quite well
the sauce is really sweet it's not spicy actually and there's bits of um looks to be chicken in the
bottom of the pole but i've already identified a problem and that is i need another one
this place is next level and look i'll be honest with you
sometimes travel video makers travel vloggers uh get to a place like this they don't know anything
about it and they quickly go on wikipedia and then they research what it is and then they
pretend like they know what they're talking about but i don't do that there's nobody here but i'm
going to be polite and talk low and it is the only way i can describe this place is detail
every single thing that you look at if you look again it just becomes ten times more interesting
so you know you look at the buddhist wheel behind you and you're like okay so it's a buddhist wheel
and then you see that there's 3d heads three headed buddhas in every single one of the bits of
the wheel and then you look at the wall and you're like oh it's colorful and then you zoom in and you
look closely and you realize it's all hand painted detailed pictures and symbols and then you look up
and there are paintings across the entire roof in every single room and then you go into the main
room and there's a big you know ceremonial area i don't know what it is but it looks amazing and
then there's two other rooms with two other areas that people like candles give offerings pray to
that particular sect of whatever this is like i'm sorry i don't know what it is but
it's just incredibly beautiful colorful there's dragons there's buddhas there's candles there's
white tiles there's hand paintings there's animals there's birds there's elephants there's tigers
everything seems to be made like like a pottery and it's massive
and it's just next to my hotel and then down there is a huge buddhist temple like a thai style one
this is obviously chinese in origin because you see chinese writing everywhere as well
and it doesn't look like a thai temple and this is what i'm talking about multicultural
interesting i've just seen another massive painting on the back of the gate there it's just
one of the coolest places uh is hat yai and um it's not just buddhism there's also mosques here
the scale of this place is huge and uh you know just looking at it obviously you can see it's it's
based on the taj mahal in a way and if you've ever been to the taj mahal it's about the same
size it i mean i've driven up to it but there's people praying so i don't want to go too close
but it is huge up close and the gardens in this area
are nice but it's definitely not the taj mahal you've got a busy highway over there
um and the gardens aren't spectacular like there are like like they are in india but um that's
that's not the point the point is it's just really interesting to see a beautiful mosque the biggest
mosque in southern thailand and it is stunning and it's just another reason why i love hatyai
because you know chinese temples thai temples mosques incredible beautiful mosques actually
it's a real cultural melting pot and that's what i love so um and the beach is another
20 minutes that way and i really wish i brought sunglasses because i'm like this the whole time
this one's called similar beach and it's famous because there's a golden statue of a mermaid
and everyone's taking a picture over there and um you guys all right yeah
are you all right um and then um there's another beach and it's super long and uh the water is blue
the water is flat and uh it's beautiful here and okay okay i'll be honest it's 30 minute drive from
the city center but that's okay okay it's not bang in the middle of the city center all right
we're not on koh tao or anything like that this is a city in the south of thailand it's still got
mountains which we'll go see it's still got lots of culture and western comforts that we'll go see
and it's got a beautiful beach come on guys you've really got to start considering living
here like i'm strongly considering living here i mean look at this guy's dance moves
um
doesn't taste like strawberry at all a lot of kids running around i think it's like school
field trip day because there's like a pink uniform a red uniform an orange uniform everyone's here
but um very local beach obviously but there are hotels there are big resorts with swimming pools
and slides and all of the things that you would imagine in hotel resorts for families
the beach is lovely but i do want to come here in the afternoon so what i'm thinking is in the next
video i'll come and stay in this town because there's a beautiful quaint suncla old town just
two minutes up the road and then i'd like to come running here in the evenings and go for a swim at
sunset but right now it's boiling hot it's like 12 o'clock at lunch time my lollipop is melting
okay welcome to central festival now before you think oh paddy why are you bringing us
to starbucks why are you bringing us to the shopping mall um i just wanted to actually show
you that you know there are cinemas and western restaurants and western chains mcdonald's kfc
so we're gonna go see godzilla versus gong now funny story i was in uh where was i i was in trang
and they had a cinema and i went to go see this movie but it was only available in thai
and so i didn't know what was going on except for like godzilla and king kong had a massive
fight for two hours and it was brilliant so i think because it says thai subtitles i think it's
going to be actually in english but then they're going to have the thai writing at the bottom so at
least this time i'll know what actually is going on like why are they fighting i had no idea what
was going on um so yeah western comforts you can go to the cinema in hatyai let's do a little dance
well after the movie in english i'm uh still not massively sold on why they were fighting the
humans built a metal version um for some reason and now we're gonna go up the mountains believe
it or not just like in chiang mai overlooking the city is a mini mountain range they're not you know
the himalayas but they're beautiful and green and there's temples on top just like in chiang mai
and it's about 20 minute drive from downtown where we are now so let's go up there let's
get some fresh air that have some views hopefully it is a little bit misty today so um but nature
another great reason why i love hot yeah so let's get on the bike let's get up there
yeah this is what awaits you at the top is an incredible golden statue of the buddha and he's
overlooking all of the city and the views up here are incredible is it admittedly a little bit misty
out in the distance the other day when i came up here i just sort of scout this place out it was
incredible visibility must be some sort of mist blowing in from the sea there's a lot of people
just up here with their families relaxing um boyfriend girlfriends having romantic moments
you can see mountains in the distance you can see the mosque that we were at uh this
morning and the lake in the distance where the ocean is and where the is um so you get a real
lay of the land you can see the malls you can see the skyscrapers i can see a plane taking
off from the international airport so this is a really this is a quality little city it really
reminds me of chiang mai but it has the beach and it has a muslim influence a malaysian influence a
chinese influence there's a chinese influence in chiang mai as well to be honest but um
fantastic next level um i've actually been here four days as i've told you before i even made
this video just getting to know this uh city and there's so much to this city that i have not been
able to fit in this video every evening i've been going to the university and running around the
lake there's a gorgeous campus with an incredible lake and they have a running path that goes around
the lake and at sunset i've been getting in 5k runs every evening and it's been amazing
there's also loads of really nice parks that i've been going to lots of really cool restaurants lots
of really cool bars and um it's just a proper quality city i have to address the one problem
the one thing that i really hate about hatyai are you ready because if you have a motorbike like me
or a car or you're gonna be driving around this is a deal breaker you see these traffic lights
okay they're on every single street in every single direction this city is like a grid a
bit like new york in downtown now this one's nothing but have a look at this three two one
48 seconds that's not too bad that's not too bad bear in mind the next traffic light is about 100
meters away so let's go to the next one okay right this one 100 meters away it's just about to change
are you ready 127 seconds more than two minutes of your life gone let's go to the next traffic lights
again less than 100 meters away that little side street which is like 10 meters from that one so
if you wanted to go straight then turn right that one just changed and went to red for 137 seconds
that's much more than two minutes of your life gone if you wanted to wait go 30 meters and then
turn right that's four minutes four minutes of your life gone yeah yeah give me one of these
yes thank you with a little bit of butter thank you i'm starving doing all this walking for you
to prove a point about the craziness of these lights look at this this corner is next level
slightly unrelated topic but
sweet corn in thailand unbelievable this uh this green light is only green for 27 seconds
so you've got 20 second window to get from that red light to this red light and you're ready look
it's 10 second countdown can you see seven what's what do you reckon i'm gonna go 425. two one
152 seconds you have to wait at this one and then i've saved the best till last not even 100 meters
past that one is the final one of this like mini block area and wait till you see wait
this is what i've been up this is literally what i've been doing for four days
my buddy why didn't you make more content in high eye
i would have done but i was at the traffic lights
oh it didn't say why is it didn't say i got here the other day 199 seconds and it didn't
even start ticking until like 30 seconds later so i think it was on 240 seconds
four minutes this thing here four minutes after waiting down there for 25 minutes
okay it's now time to answer the final and most important question really of this entire video
and that is paddy look hi looks next level okay it's a multicultural melting pot of religion and
culture in perfect harmony it's cheap it's got an airport it's got beaches it's got nature it's
got mountains it's got temples got mosques it's got everything that i'm looking for paddy yes
but does it have craft beer and delicious barbecue okay because if it doesn't i'm not interested and
the answer to that question my friends yes it does look at the state of this oh my god cheers
i'm going to smash this now perfect city hatyai song cloud province like where do i actually start
yummy