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Old 08-08-2011, 01:51 PM
Yokosi Yokosi is offline
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Re: Sungai Golok, Southern Thailand

4. Venice Palace Hotel on Cheonmakka Rd. The Gucci Super Club or disco in the basement is baricaded and closed. Only the restaurant, barber and small massage parlour with dinos are opened for business. Rates starts from RM 46.

No safe deposit box and Wifi in rooms here. The room is small. The bathroom is bigger than Grand Garden Hotel. Got a fridge with drinks and tit bits. Got small TV with few channels and a Japanese porn channel during the night.

5. Merlin Inn on Charoenkit Rd, got bombed some time ago. The lowest rate is just above RM40 but unavailable as these were fully booked. The next available category was RM66 with a bathtub that i do not need. Only a restaurant here. Skipped this hotel and spent my first day in Venice Palace Hotel which is within walking distance.

6. Riveira Hotel on Prachawiwat Rd, on the same road with Grand Garden Hotel has a functioning disco with near naked agogo ladies. Located where the farms are. Another hotel is Tara Regent Hotel which is on Charoenkit Rd and is opposite Marina Hotel. I have stayed in Genting, Marina, Grand Garden,Venice Palace, Merlin, Tara Regent before. And went to Tara Regent Disco many years ago but i never went inside this disco now so i do not know if it is still open or not.

The other hotels are smaller and these are Taksin 1 and 2, Impress, San Sabai, SWAT, Valentine, Harry, Pairin, City, Intertower, etc hotels. And i do not believe that any cheongster would come and stay in these hotels unless deperate and short of rooms !!!.

The quality of the 3 hotels i stayed in, such as Venice Palace 4/8/11, Marina 5/8/11, Grand Garden 6/8/11 are rather not well maintained. The hotels in Danok such as Oliver, KPK, Siam Thana, SP, New Satit, Heijian are of a better quality and those hotels near Lee Garden in Hatyai are much better maintained than the hotels in Sungai Golok.

The insurgency stated on January 2004 in the South after the Tak Bak incident. Today, Thai army soldiers with automatic weapons move around Sungai Golok on foot, on motorbikes, in pickups, in trucks all day and night.
They are not permenantly stationed in a few locations. They moved and set up check points anywhere in this small town. Saw them just stopping people on motorbikes and other vehicles to check. I only saw soldiers temporarily stationed in a few strategic locations in town such as road junctions, near Merlin Inn and Venice Palace hotels, in the police station.

Merlin Inn, Soi Sawadee beer bars, some hotels and many banks have plastic and metal baricades in front of the roads that surround their premises. Even the ATMs in the banks have such baricades as a few kena bombed before. But the people in town are mai pen lai to the violence now. Yes, there are people with families here, young and old males with syts in tow, shoppers, people eating in the road side hawker center and restaurants,etc but the quantity is well below the start of the insurgency period.

Next; sanuking on 4/8/2011