I went to have coffee at a shop down the street from
Sascha's Uno Hotel the very first day I arrived in Bangkok few weeks ago. I met a Dutch man there and we chatted about different places in Thailand. He told me that he liked to spend time in Hua Hin, even for months on end. So I decided to take the 2 hour van trip down west of Bangkok on the coast to check it out.
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| Really nice gate. I didn't pay attention if it was a residence or a guest house. |
It's a nice place, much less hectic than Bangkok, but more touristy than Rangsit. They tell me it's very popular with retirees and golfers, and it's larger than I thought.
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| Street scene near the bus station |
I met some new friends on the trip, Jerry and Shannon. They are Canadians living in Islamabad, Pakistan and teaching at an international school there. Jerry talked with me the entire trip, and they both informed me that Pakistan is a great place to live. Of course I inquired about the violence and kidnappings you hear about on the news, and they both insist it's a bunch of overblown hype.
When we arrived at the Hua Hin bus station we started walking around trying to get our bearings and thinking about the best way to go about finding their guest house. I just tagged along since I didn't feel like reinventing the wheel. I'd take a look at their place and see if I wanted to stay there too.
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| Just looking around. Lots of traffic, like everywhere else. |
They took a room at this place, and I did too. It's way more expensive for what you get than any other place I've stayed at in Thailand, 1,800 baht. And no breakfast, internet computers or even a place to eat breakfast nearby. But it's 2 min. from the ocean and it seems very luxurious. If I don't like it tomorrow, I'll move. Then we all took a walking tour of the downtown area and part of the beach, ending near the Hilton, a real palace of a hotel.
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This is Huff, not sure if that's how you spell it. He's a photo journalist
posing here with a copy of his travel book of Pakistan (it's not in English) |
I got to meet Huff, a really interesting guy and old friend of Shannon. He runs a nice little bookstore called "Rhythm & Books" selling jazz records, art, etc. There's a write up on him
here, halfway down the page.
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| Not really a very good beach today...run for it dude. |
There were high winds the last couple days, very unusual, and some tide walls were knocked down.
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| Our guesthouse is on the north part of town, this is looking south along the beach. |
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| Winds were kicking up a little. |
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| The avenue we walked down, towards the Hilton. |
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Our bus came in about 2 PM, and it was around 3:30 when we started walking.
Lots of kids getting out of school. This one kid was really conked out. The other one
wasn't really as dopey as she looks, I unfortunately caught her in mid-bite. |
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| Always fascinated by these different kinds of bicycles they have over here. |
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| As far as I can tell, this is a Thai Santa sporting boxing gloves |
Our walk took us by this one restaurant way out on the end of a pier, with some nice scenes. We hung out there about half an hour and drank a beer.
