Songkhla -- it was such a port in a storm, this quiet, unpretentious, very liveable town.

And I was really sorry to leave.

Our stay there also made for a different kind of travel. I had to spend quite a lot of time working, and we were there for four weeks. So it definitely felt like "living there", rather than "travelling". And I wondered if this would be an interesting rhythm to incorporate as part of the Big OE that I'm still determined to do one day. One country, one town, one month... Low-key stuff, small pleasures. Songkhla was the perfect place to employ that approach.

A month is a sufficient space of time for particular little pleasures to become part of your routine. Like walking the beach, and then sitting on a bench, eating mango, and watching the people, the sea, and the boats. Or planning your week around visits to the Walking Street, your favourite coffee-and/or-cake venues, and your local evening snack stalls.

I've mentioned the big-ticket items already, not to mention some of the snack opportunities.

But if you like the low-key and non-touristy, there is lots more to do. We really enjoyed, for example:

-- walking the old town -- I never failed to find this interesting, and by the time we left yesterday, it was just beginning to prettify itself with lanterns and flags for Lunar New Year;

-- climbing up the little hill to the statue of Prince Lop Buri Ramet -- go by way of the overgrown fitness park: now riotous with flowers and butterflies and emblematic of so many broken New Year's resolutions...

-- catching a van into Hat Yai, getting a little bit of a mall fix at Lee Gardens Plaza, and dipping into the maze of market lanes near the railway station;

-- visiting Songkhla's Wat Matchimawas, an old and important pilgrimage place, with lovely murals and an interesting museum;

-- walking to Gao Seng, the fishing village at the end of Chalathat beach;

-- climbing up Ko Yor's big hill to the temple at the top;

-- eating succulent, fragrant, right-in-season longans;

-- and exploring yet more contours of the Thai snack map (battered, fried, semi-dried bananas; grilled bananas tossed in sweet coconut milk; sticky rice in bamboo; little soft sweets made with mung beans and soy; yellow cakes steamed in little leaf boats; tiny cakes cooked in dimpled pans and sandwiched together with coconut (khanom krok); little coconut mouthfuls in rice-paper wrappers -- the list is never-ending)...

But it's also nice to be back in Malaysia.

We are actually not very far at all from Songkhla, in Alor Star. Just a short train journey through harvested rice-fields that looked like corduroy.

But it's a different world, of course. Chinese New Year preparations are in full swing here; Malay heritage is very apparent in the Galeri Sultan Abdul Halim, which we visited this morning, and the beautiful Masjid Zahir; and just up the road is the Thai temple we visited last time (and I still reckon the Thai spiciness is apparent in the food up here). It's the same cultural combination as in Songkhla -- Chinese, Malay, and Thai -- just in different proportions (and in Alor Star's case with the honourable addition of the Indian community).

And the snacks are different -- but still delicious. In the very lively little area of hotels, eateries, and small businesses just down from the Masjid Zahir (which we completely missed last time), a busy roadside snack market fires up towards sunset. Our trawl from there tonight included crispy pancakes with peanuts, turnip cake (Chinese radish, water, and rice flour, pan-fried till crispy and golden on the outside); chai tow kway (chopped turnip cake, fried up with egg, beansprouts, and dark soy sauce); and deliciously moist cassava cake.

Southeast Asia's variety and yet underlying continuity never cease to enthral me.