Hub Ho Hin Red Rice Mill

Hook

The red-painted rice mill at 13 Nakhon Nok Road has stood on the Songkhla Lake waterfront since 1914, built by a Chinese-Thai merchant family under the trade name “Hub Ho Hin.” It’s free to visit, open daily 08:00-18:00, and now works as a small community heritage museum rather than an active mill.

Experience

Local businessman Khun Rajkitjari built the mill during Songkhla’s boom years as a rice-trading port, when Sino-Portuguese shophouses lined the streets running back from the lake. “Hub Ho Hin” — the Hokkien name painted across the facade — signalled the kind of trading-house unity and prosperity Chinese merchant families wanted associated with their name. The building did the job it was built for well into the 20th century, milling rice brought in by boat from the surrounding delta.

Today the third-generation family, working with the Songkhla Heritage Trust, has turned the ground floor into a small exhibition space: old rice-milling machinery left in place, black-and-white photographs of the old town from the early 1900s, and information panels on how the Malay, Chinese and Thai communities that settled around the lake built Songkhla’s trading economy. It’s a modest, single-building stop rather than a sprawling museum complex — most of the value is in the building itself and the story behind it.

Atmosphere & Timing

The red facade is the reason most people stop — it’s the single most photographed building on Nakhon Nok Road, distinct from the pastel Sino-Portuguese shophouses around it. Inside is quiet and unstaffed for long stretches; there’s no crowd to work around at any time of day.

Insider Tip: Shoot the exterior from across the street in the late afternoon, when the low sun catches the red paint directly — the building faces roughly east-west along the lakefront road.

Watch out: Interior displays are in Thai with limited English signage, so the history above is worth reading before you go if you want the context rather than just the photo.

Practical

The mill sits on Nakhon Nok Road in Songkhla’s old town, a five-minute walk from Samila Beach’s mermaid statue and within the same walkable grid as the old town’s other Sino-Portuguese shophouses. There’s no dedicated parking lot — street parking along Nakhon Nok or Nang Ngam roads is the norm, or walk in from a hotel in the old town.