Connecting to remote MySQL via SSH in Ubuntu

I had to access my MySQL server via SSH tunnel on my Ubuntu desktop machine.  First up, setup ssh to tunnel the server's MySQL port (default 3306) to my Ubuntu's desktop machine port 13306:

ssh mylogin@myserver.com -p 4265 -L 13306:127.0.0.1:3306

However, when I tried accessing port 13306 on my Ubuntu desktop, it failed:

$ mysql -u root -p -P 13306
Enter password:
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

It seems the default localhost server used by mysql client does a socket connection instead of TCP/IP.  In order to overcome this, I had to use the --host option:

$ mysql -u root -p -P 13306 --host 127.0.0.1
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 115946
Server version: 5.1.49-3 (Debian)
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This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software,
and you are welcome to modify and redistribute it under the GPL v2 license
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
mysql> 

That took me a while to figure out :)