Thailand: Hua Hin, a beach full of life

After a few days in Bangkok that we will include on our next post, we went to get some rest in the town of Hua Hin, 4h south from the capital, and well known for its beach and resorts. 

From Bangkok, you have the option to take the Southern train or the bus. 

We opted for the train from Bang Sue station (pronounced Bang Suuue like the announcer in the metro 😂). 

We bought the tickets in advance at the "advance ticket" booth in Bang Sue station. The station is huge, looking more like an airport than a train station and it took 13 min to go from one side to the other.

We took the train 171 from Bangkok which departs at 1:10pm. This is important to mention because, at that point of the day, it was scorching hot on the train, and there was no A/C, only fans and open windows... 🥵

We should have known that was the case considering the cheap price of the ticket, 150 THB for a 4h30min ride. 

It helped though that the windows stayed open except when we were in the sun. We could only find some relief by going to the few A/C cars at the back of the train. The ticket agent could have at least suggested those to us 😠. The most annoying thing on the train, though, were the vendors that kept roaming up and down the cars with their goods yelling what they had to sell and ending their sentences with "kaaaa". We felt like we were in the middle of a very narrow market. 

We finally arrived after 5h (yeah, we stopped multiple times in the middle of nowhere for no reason), and discovered a charming red train station that I would invite you to visit even if you are not taking the train. 

In this town, the songthaew or tuk tuk are the main means of transportation. We took a taxi to the hotel but there are several tuk tuk "bus lines" that you can take to move around for less than 20 THB - see this riveting website that explains everything:

https://beyondbintabaht.com/page/hua-hin-songthaew-map/

We were in a hotel in the south of town, and one we would recommend if you are staying in this area, the Bonne Nuit hotel. The staff is excellent and have a lot of attention to detail, the room was sparkling clean and smelled good. And they do love their teddy bears 🐻

The hotel is 5 min away from the beach, a very lively one. Of course, there were people enjoying the beach, practicing water sports such as kite surfing or jetski, but there were also a lot of small crabs, like billions of them.

It was so entertaining to watch those crabs creating tiny balls of sand (we think they were filtering their food), moving on the beach to avoid massive human feet, or fighting each other for their burrows. 

There were also other animals like fish, hermit crabs (interesting to observe how the bigger hermit crabs fight each other for the smaller ones) and birds. The elusive Asian koel is one we want to mention because of its particular call, and that we heard everywhere in SE Asia. 

The other nice thing about that beach is the sand banks that form very close to the beach creating a sort of mini islands separated by a thin strait that becomes a mini heated bay. 

And because the sand on the beach is thin and wet, it is a perfect ground to build sand castles, but it is not as comfortable for lying down. We would recommend this beach for families with kids. 

For grown ups, there is the Wat Khao Takiap temple located on the southern side of the beach, on a mountain with a nice view of the city. There was a large community of monkeys so we went up and down quickly. 

After we had fun on the beach, we took the tuk tuk to the two shopping malls in town. 

There were also two weekend night markets close to our hotel, the cicada and tamarind markets. 

The cicada market is a very "white" market, not only because of the white color of the stalls but also because of the numbers of westerners there. We admit that the whole city had more westerners than the rest of Asia 😜. We found it interesting how big the Russian community was.

The Tamarind market is more focused on food with so many types of food and desserts. We could even try grasshoppers and crickets 🦗.

It was a relaxing trip to Hua Hin and we went back to Bangkok by bus, with the company Sombat for a little less than 300 THB, with A/C this time. We did not want to waste those resting days!