Getting around Phatthalung.

Phatthalung railway station is the single most useful piece of infrastructure in the province and it sits in the middle of the provincial town, in Khuha Sawan subdistrict. It is a class 1 station on the State Railway of Thailand's Southern Line, 846.01 kilometres from Thon Buri, and it opened in January 1913 as part of the Phatthalung–U Taphao Junction section — U Taphao Junction being what is now Hat Yai. Trains run north toward Bangkok, both Hua Lamphong and Krung Thep Aphiwat, and south toward Hat Yai Junction and on to Su-ngai Kolok on the Malaysian border. For a rural province of half a million people, having an overnight sleeper to the capital departing from the town centre is a genuinely unusual asset, and it is the reason the town sits where it does.

Phatthalung has no airport of any kind. The nearest is Trang Airport, 66 kilometres west over the Banthat range, which serves Bangkok. The more useful option for most residents is Hat Yai International, roughly a hundred kilometres south, which has both domestic and international service including regional connections to Malaysia and Singapore. Neither is in the province, so an airport run is a planned journey rather than a hop — but under two hours to an international airport is a considerably better position than most inland Thai provinces are in, and the train covers part of the distance if you would rather not drive.

Phatthalung town is about 851 kilometres from Bangkok by road. Within the province, the main north–south road runs parallel to the railway along the strip between the mountains and the lake, linking the provincial town with Khuan Khanun to the north and Khao Chaison, Bang Kaeo and Pa Bon to the south, and it is the road to Hat Yai. West, roads climb over the Banthat range to Trang. If you live anywhere in Phatthalung except the immediate town centre, a car or motorbike is not a convenience but a requirement — eleven districts across 3,861 square kilometres with no mass transit make that unavoidable.

There is no mass transit in Phatthalung of any kind. In the provincial town — the province's only town-municipality — you can walk to most things, and songthaews and motorbike taxis fill the gaps out to Lam Pam, the lake shore and the outlying subdistricts. Beyond that the network thins fast, and ride-hailing coverage is unreliable outside the town. Most residents own a motorbike; anyone living in the rice plain or the foothills, or with school-age children, generally ends up with a car as well.

It is worth being explicit, because the map suggests otherwise: Songkhla Lake is not a transport corridor for residents. There are long-tail boats at Thale Noi and at Lam Pam, and they are for birdwatching, fishing and getting between lakeside villages — not for commuting to Songkhla town on the far shore. The lagoon is shallow, averaging little more than a metre in the Thale Noi basin, and the practical route to anywhere across the water is around it by road. Treat the lake as scenery and recreation rather than infrastructure.