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Things looking up for Sungai Golok

Report from The New Straits Times dated Friday 14 April 2006 :-

Things looking up for Sungai Golok

SUNGAI GOLOK: Things appear to be slowly on the mend for this once-thriving town on the Malaysian-Thai border that is popular with Malaysians.

If in the two previous years, operators of hotels, bars and restaurants were reeling from the sudden drop in tourist arrivals because of the violence, "this year" they seem to be off to a good a start — "this year" being the start of the traditional Thai lunar year which the locals call "Songkran", and celebrated over three days.

In Sanskrit, Songkran means "to enter".

The streets of the town were choked with revellers and vehicles as Thais came out in droves to drench each other with water to mark the auspicious occasion.

Children and adults rode around the streets on the back of pick-up trucks with tanks, water guns and pails ready to drench any passing motorist or pedestrian.

Most of the motorcyclists were seen riding around drenched to the bone, courtesy of groups of men and women who waited on the sidewalks with buckets and hoses.

For businesses here dependent on the Malaysian tourist ringgit, the celebrations marked a tentative hope that the cycle of violence seen in the last two years is beginning to end.

"Malaysians are trickling back. No doubt about it," said a soup seller on Marina Road known as Ming Ming.

The 44-year-old attributes this to tighter security in the town, seen in the almost hourly police and military patrols.

"It is still not as good as five years ago. But this year, Malaysians are more confident of travelling here," he said.

The act of greeting the new year by splashing water signifies the cleansing and purification of all ills, misfortune and evil, and starting with all that is good and pure for the new year.

Water is symbolic of cleanliness and purity.

Before the insurgency began in January 2004, the occupancy rate of the town’s hotels was 100 per cent during the Songkran festival.

According to Narathiwat Business Council chairman Abdul Aziz Awang Seman, the hotel occupancy rate fell to 10 per cent in 2004 and last year as Malaysians shied away.

Aziz said in the same period this year, hotels recorded a slight rise of 15 per cent in reservations by Malaysians.

Mariana Hotel manager Walairat Chot is guardedly optimistic about the future despite the fact that all the hotel’s 156 rooms have been taken up.

"I would say that this year is more or less the same as the previous two. But Malaysians do seem to be trickling back," she said.

Tourist Charles Wong, from Kuala Lumpur, said this was his first trip to Sungai Golok.

"My friends and I wanted to come here last year, but were advised against it by other friends as it was not very safe," the 46-year-old businessman said.

This year, Wong and six of this friends decided that it was safe enough for them to visit.