I
t was roughly 6 in the morning as I stood watching a group of Muslim
kids on their way to school, walking from their village down to the
pier by the Perak River. Here on the river border between Thailand
and Malaysia – in the Sankalakiri mountain range, which acts as the
natural border between the 2 countries and stretches over 1,000 km
– it was pretty common from where I was staying to see all the kids going
off to school in the morning. As part of an expedition team experiencing
Homestay-style tourism in Kampung Beng Village, located on the
Malaysian side of the Perak, the whole picture laid out before me was
like a scene from a fairy tale; complete with a grandmother taking her
little grandchild on her boat to school. Such a simple yet charming way
of life that these people have, nestled tranquilly in an area surrounded by
mountainous terrain.
There were 8 members in our team, including the driver and the tour
guide, and after our initial meeting in Southern Thailand I couldn’t wait to
then take some photos at the Krue Se Mosque in Pattani – a sacred venue
that has become a tourist site with an adjacent museum featuring exhibits
depicting the lifestyle of the Pattani locals. There’s a state-of-the-art digital
information display system inside the museum, according to one of our
team members (a local from Hat Yai studying for a PhD), however, there
wasn’t enough time for a proper visit inside the museum, but we managed
to take some nice photos of the mosque itself.
When entering the Tak Bai district of Narathiwat province (Thailand) before
it leads to the border town of Su-ngai Kolok, we stopped by a historic temple
called Chon Thara Singhe, locally known as Wat Pitak Pandin, which was
built near the very end of HM the King Phra Jomklao’s dynasty (Rama IV),
almost 50 years before the establishment of Tak Bai district, as the district
was then known as a part of the state of Kelantan.
The temple historically played a key role during the separation of Malay
from Siam, when Malay was ruled by the British Empire. The kingdom of
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