After having a look around the border town of Dannok recently a few people asked if I could do a similar thing with Padang Besar. These border towns are very popular with Malaysian tourists who make short visits to shop in Thailand and just to experience the Thai way of life.
Despite both of them being border towns, Dannok and Padang Besar are very different. There was hardly anything in Dannok fifteen years ago, but there has been a huge amount of development in the last ten years and now there are lots of hotels. Padang Besar, on the other hand, is a lot more authentic and has probably remained the same for decades. Dannok is mainly for tourists who want to enjoy the Asian Cultural Village in the daytime and the town’s unique brand of nightlife in the evenings. Some of the new hotels are very pleasant. Padang Besar seems to be more about food shopping. The accommodation I saw was quite old and rundown, not making Padang very attractive for overnight stays.
This was quite an interesting trip for me personally. I have visited Dannok quite a few times and I am familiar with it, but this was only my second trip to Padang Besar and I can’t remember anything about my first trip because it was so long ago.
Lots of Malaysians watching this video will know Padang Besar far better than I do. You can fill in the gaps and correct my mistakes in the comments below!
I was also planning to visit Sungai Kolok to do a similar thing, but it is in Narathiwat province and this will mean some inter-provincial travel. I’m not sure if there are travel restrictions and on the way back into Songkhla province I don’t want to find that I have to quarantine for 14 days! This particular trip may therefore have to wait a while.
Note: This video was previously uploaded to my language channel on 10 June 2021. In order to separate different kinds of content I am moving my non-language videos to this channel.
