BEAUTIFUL AND QUAINT HUA HIN, THAILAND

I travel to Bangkok monthly on business and recently, I thought to myself that apart from going once to Chiangmai and Chiangrai and recently to the southern part of the country, I have not seen much of Thailand. So, I made a decision to at least make a trip to the various parts of the country every few months to open my eyes.

The most recent trip was to Hua Hin in the middle of August 2009. This seaside town is approximately 250 km from Bangkok located in the Gulf of Thailand. It took us about 3 hours to drive to Hua Hin. With my GPS and my wife being Thai, it was not a problem at all. The roads are pretty good and construction is still on going.

My trusted Garmin GPS

I was actually quite surprised when I got to the town. There were a lot of construction going on whether it was to built new hotels and resorts or refurbishing old ones. This town has been a favorite for people from Bangkok as a weekend holiday getaway for a long time and that is why there are quite a number of older hotels.

The town is famous for the King's seaside place named Klai Klangwon which means "To be far away from trouble". It holds true as the quaintness of the town makes you feel relaxed. It is a far cry from the chaotic Bangkok as well as the touristy places like Pattaya and Phuket. However, the number of tourists is increasing rapidly evidenced by the number of ongoing development. The palace area was beautifully lighted up as it was the Queen's birthday just a day before we arrived.

Pictures from a public beach in Hua Hin


Hua Hin's railway station is very interesting and has a history of more than 100 years.

I love the huge trees lining the streets.....hard to find this in Malaysia (except in the smaller towns)

We stayed in a newly completed resort called Banyan resort. It is made up of villas and I think it is sold to investors and managed by the developers. As we were there in midweek, it was quite empty and Saturday, there seem to be quite a crowd which suited us just fine as we had the place almost to ourselves.

Nice villas with pool (almost to ourselves)

We had dinner one night at a restaurant based on an advertisement on the road. It had advertisement prawns which were farmed by themselves. The restaurant was called "Rim Rabieng". We were sceptical at first but we had no reason to. The restaurant was a quaint place located very near the sea and the food was fresh and delicous. I loved the fresh oysters eaten the Thai way which is with a vegetable that when eaten with the oysters is very sweet and with fried onions, garlic, a type of "belacan". The oysters are much larger and thicker than its western counterpart and therefore 2 each is just about right. The fried fish in fish sauce, "Pla phad nam pla" was fantastic. The fish was very fresh and crispy.

Lunch the next day was barbecued pork ribs at Great American Rib Company. It is a southern US styled restaurants and have outlets in Bangkok and Pattaya. The food came in healthy portions and overall it was not bad. We noticed that the wall had a picture of the owner with the famous Malaysian cartoonist Lat. I must remind myself to take more pictures to show in the blog.

Nice ribs

Gumbo soup (or what's left)....must remember to take picture first.

Later in the evening, we went to a beach which had local restaurants. We managed to try the local food which was good. We were accompanied by a dog whom we fed the extra ribs from lunch and he was literally eating from our hands after a while.

One can just relax by the sea and order the food and drinks....heaven with the wind blowing.

Yummy local food............

This doggy enjoyed our leftover ribs from lunch. He was HAPPY!!!!!!!!

All lined up to go home at the end of the day....

Nice beach area and it was windy and not crowded

Dinner was at a place recommended by the hotel staff, Baan Issara. This was also a Thai restaurant located in the town area in an old villa. However, it is hugely popular and was packed with tourists both Thai and foreign. Surprisingly, even with the large crowd, the food arrived within 10 minutes. Maybe, this is due to the fact that most people ordered only the restaurants popular dishes so the cook had only to make few types of dishes.

Look at the size of the oyster....juicy too!!!

However, we found the food not as good as the one we had the night before, probably, this place had become too touristy.

There was a boy at the restaurant selling flowers and fruits and we asked him how old was he and he answered 7 years old. We were there on a Friday not and sure whether he sells these stuff daily or only during the weekends but either way, he does invoke a lot of sympathy probably sold quite a lot of stuff as well, including from us. My wife kept commenting that the parents must be ashamed for doing this but I suppose it may not have been a choice.

The boy selling the fruits and flowers.

Hua Hin has also built a new shopping mall called the Market Village and it should be able to keep the tourists happy for shopping apart from the various night street markets.

These short trips have really opened my eyes on the developments going on in the various provinces and also its actually quite fun to experience the driving, food and people's lifestyle in the Thai provinces.

Until next time, cheers.