We arrived to Bangkok at 6 something to a huge bus terminal, called Mo Chit. From the second we disembarked, we were bombarded by taxi drivers asking where we needed to go.. We just needed to find the metro, but once we explained this to the drivers they could no longer understand English, which we found frustrating. One guy even tried to rip us off by saying he would take us to the metro station (about 1.5 km from where we were) for 450 baht! That's almost as much as we paid for a hotel room. Needless to say we laughed at him and kept walking... Sometimes being western in a foreign land can be annoying.
We finally found the station after a kind motorcycle taxi driver pointed us in the right direction (no way 2 of us and all our bags could fit on the motor taxi) and boarded the train, sweaty and exhausted from the journey and walking all over trying to find it with all our gear. We made our way to th Bangkok airport, where we would board another bus to Hua Hin.
Hua Hin, from what I had read, was once a royal vacation spot for the king and his family. It looked beautiful in the pictures, and is only 3 hours from Bangkok, so with out time crunch it seemed like a nice place to have some beach time.. If we had more time, we wouldn have venture far south to the islands, but we didn't have that luxury this time... Maybe we can make our way down there before we leave Southeast Asia.
Anyways, we had yet another bus ride ahead of us, which was supposed to take 4 hours and ended up taking 6... So that made for a fun filled 26 hours of buses and transit. I was surprised at how well I handled it, usually I get grouchy and want to jump out of my skin after sitting for any longer than 3 hours. Travel has taught me a lot!
We arrived to Hua Hin, dropped our bags at the hotel, and set off to explore.. It was not brilliant, or what I had seen in pictures. It was also was expensive compared to Bangkok, where we were eating for a couple of bucks off the street. But, we were there, and endured the long journey, so vowed to make the best of it.
Our first night, we had dinner at a random English pub, naturally. It seemed everyone in Hua Hin was over the age of 60 and either Scandinavian, Russian, or British. The nightlife was basically nonexistent, which was okay since we were exhausted. We decided on an early night and do more sightseeing in the morning.
We walked all around the town, and on the beach.. The beach was crazy, you could hardly walk on most parts because it was covered with umbrellas and sun beds.. It also seemed to be perpetually high tide, so the beach was pretty much nonexistent. It was kind of a bummer, because all we wanted to do was have some time to chill by the beach, but that really didn't happen. There's always other places to do that, though! I'm sure we will get our beach time at some point.
We visited the night market that evening, which was packed. There were tons of places to eat outside, and the seafood looked amazing. I think I saw the biggest prawns I've ever a seen while walking through the night market.. There were also all kinds of clothes and other goods for sale, but it was so busy you could hardly move or look to see what was for sale. Definitely an experience!
Our last day in Hua Hin we decided to venture down to Chopsticks Hill, which is about 7.5. Km south of the city. We had planned on getting a taxi, but ended up walking the whole way down the beach since we had nothing else to do! It was pretty hot, but we love a walk and we both got some vitamin d.. Thai people think you are nuts if you walk because of the heat, and everyone offers you a taxi. We have gotten so good at saying "no, thank you." At this point I may just make a tshirt that has "no thanks" in multiple languages and just point to it whenever anyone tries to sell us anything.. It's almost an immediate reaction now haha!
We made it to Chopsticks Hill, and saw all these crazy monkeys all over the place... They were so many of them! We walked up the steep steps to the top and got some good views of the coast.
I even managed to capture this monkey mid bite and caught him pulling a Paul face!
See the similarities? I can't believe this is the only photographic evidence of this face on my photo stream but you people know what I'm talking about.
Ah, there's a throwback from London.
We spent a little while at the nearby beach, and then made our way back to Hua Hin.. Walking, naturally. A total of like 10 miles we walked that day.. I guess we made up for the 26 hours of buses and stuff..
In a nutshell, Hua Hin was a bit of a letdown.. If we were loaded and staying in an all inclusive, or needed some medical or dental work done, we were in the right place. But for a beach getaway, not the place to stay for a few days. I know at some point during this trip we will have our fun island/beach chill out time.. I've heard some great things about the Vietnam beaches and some cool places in Cambodia. We made the most of our stay, had enough room to do some yoga and I was able to get some new running shoes and get a couple runs in, so not all was lost!
We made our way back to Bangkok for our last night in Thailand and luckily the bus only took the 4 hours as advertised! We made our way to our hotel for the night and then met up with our friends Raul, Meagan, and Andrew for a reunion.. And that will be all in my next post about Bangkok and saying goodbye to new friends and the beautiful country of Thailand! Until next time!
MC
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