Hua Hin Adventures

I'm BACK!  After three days of being in a town situated on the Gulf of Thailand I have returned to Bangkok to explore my temporary home a little more and familiarize myself with this city that is so much bigger than home.  Hua Hin was a lot of fun, and we had a really good time.

We left Bangkok in vans at 5:30pm on Thursday night and got to Hua Hin at around 8:30pm.  We made one stop on the way at a 7-11 (of course) and it was my first encounter with insects and such to any major extent.  There were wasp/stingy things everywhere outside the 7-11 as well as inside so I looked like my usual maniac self as I booked it into the shop, grabbed whatever looked safe to eat, paid as fast as possible and ran out the door so to avoid drawing attention to myself.  As you might imagine, this behaviour had the opposite effect but that's alright because I did manage to remain unstung, just looked like a fool in the process.

Once in Hua Hin we threw our stuff in our room and headed a block down the street to the night market where we did a large amount of shopping in a short amount of time.  I got some gifts for you at home (not telling what they are:P) as well as some pants for myself.  Fisherman pants and these pants that we have dubbed 'MC Hammer' pants.  Both are quite comfortable and I wore them over the course of the weekend.  At the end of the night market, there was a Railway Restaurant so we sat down and hung out there for a bit.  Chelsea ordered a drink and ended up getting a beautiful tna glass.

The next day was pretty chill, as we were left to our own devices.  Sam and I met up with Will and we set off exploring toward the beach and looking for breakfast on the way.  We made it to the beach and were walking along when a guard came walking out and shoo-ed us toward the street.  Turns out we were about to walk onto the stretch of beach attached to the King's home in Hua Hin, which is not allowed.  (For those of you who don't know, the King is loved by most Thai's and must be shown the up-most respect).


Our detour lead us to a grocery store with a public toilet beside it (thank God).  Here we found a wonderful banana cake so we ate that... well, Will ate most of it.

  

After our break we preceded to find our way back down to the beach (once we had walked around the square km that protected the King's home).  We walked and talked until we realized... where the hell are we?  We had actually walked out of the town all the way to the airport!  So we obviously had to turn around and then next challenge was finding a place to cut through in order to get back to the main road.  After being yelled at by a security guard who then followed us onto the next property we made our way farther down the beach and cut through an access point for a resort that did not require that we walk through  the resort.  From here we gained access to the highway.  Since we were on the edge of town, it was somewhat challenging to find a cab driving into the city, and ended up settling for a tuk tuk.

 

The rest of the afternoon was spent by the pool, where we got a little too much sun.  What was really nice was that the pool water was actually cool, while the gulf had felt like a bathtub (not very refreshing).  That night we went for dinner as a group - the Lertlah practicums - to BamBam's.  It was delicious.  In fact, it was so good that we tried to go there the next night but we had run them ragged the night before (or so it would seem) and they were closed!

Before our hunt for dinner (in the rain I might add), we did a couple of crazy things.  Sam and I started our day after breakfast by going down to the fishspa not even a block from our hotel.  Here we stuck our feet in these pools with fish in them who feed on flesh.  To answer your question; no they were not piranhas.  This was done with some screaming by Amanda at first, but once you get used to it it really isn't that bad.  The small fish felt like bubbles and the bigger fish felt like a cat licking your foot.

Our other adventure was taking a taxi to a national park near by (relatively) and climbing up a section of the waterfalls.  There are 15 levels that make up the waterfall - we made it up to 6 or 7.  Factors affecting success:

• inappropriate footwear as we didn't know that it was a hike beforehand
• it started to rain which made the rocks quite slippery
• the trail disappeared as did all the people
• other unpreparedness

As it was, we did get to see a beautiful landscape.  Also, this coming weekend we are planning to go to Kanchaniburi where there are other waterfalls to climb.  This time we will be ready, plus it is only 7 levels to climb instead of 15!

Yesterday was a chill day consisting of going to the beach and lying by the pool before needing to catch the train back to Bangkok.  Taking the train (3rd class) is an interesting experience and I would recommend doing it over a short journey, just once.  It was absolute chaos trying to get on while people were getting off and other people on the platform were throwing bags through the windows to claim a seat and/or people were climbing through the windows to grab a seat.  Sam and I got separated from the others but were able to get seats so it was all good.  We had been warned that the trains tend to run late here but it was actually on time in terms of the estimated time of arrival based on the late departure.

5 short hours later we arrived in Bangkok and took cabs home.  All in all an interesting weekend with several of what we have dubbed 'experiences'.  Fresh air is exhausting.  Love you lots and I'll post again soon.