30.6.24

We slept well and enjoyed our breakfast, eggs, bacon, toast and marmalade.

We went down to the main Hua Hin beach. We saw jetties on the way. Previous blog readers will remember our Penang Jetty dramas, but it’s still one of our more memorable adventures. For some reason John was pulling me away.

As John said, the beach is probably one of the most beautiful we’ve ever seen. He hates sand in his toes, but it’s not gritty, just soft powder.

The only disappointing thing was the lack of a prom.

Once you’re on the beach it’s a fair walk to find an exit back to the main road. On the plus side it means there’s no Madgemobiles or electric bikes to contend with. They’re a nightmare in Fethiye, Turkiye where we live.

We first saw beach 23, and were told the front sunbeds are free, the ones behind are 100 thb. Not sure of that logic.

We got to beach 17 and bored of being offered sun loungers we walked along in the sea instead. They weren’t pushy we just ran out of polite replies, well I did, John said just ignore them.

The sea was so warm and the larger pools of water were like very warm baths.

Huge palms, frangipans and manicured hotel gardens make a stunning backdrop. Unlike Fethiye there’s no fag butts or discarded Efes beer bottles either.

We turned back up from the beach up a painted pathway. As graffiti goes it’s quite attractive. The eye paintings were started by a local artist in Hua Hin apparently.

Next we decided to walk to Bluport. It’s mentioned so much on all the Hua Hin groups. It’s nice, but we much preferred Market Village.

There’s lots of floors, but we decided we couldn’t be bothered and just had drinks on Level 1.

We’d heard about the renovation and beauty of the train station, so that was our next stop. It seemed a shame that there were so many rough sleepers, some in hammocks, those not so lucky were on the floor. The building is not finished yet, and we later found out that the people catching up on sleep were clearly workers. Thats a tough job,sleeping on the floor after a day grafting in the high temperatures and humidity.

It really is an amazing building and said to be the best station in Thailand.

We quite fancy getting on a train and just see where we want to get off. The time table is a minefield and my brain couldn’t compute anything. Some of the times and incredibly long distances are hard to comprehend.

My next idea was to walk up to a view point I’d read about. We needed sustenance first and opted for the place with the most locals in it. Basically a garage with tables and chairs.

They offered beef or pok noodles. Pok was as we guessed, pork and it was very good, although I gave my pok balls to John.

Online it said we might see some monkeys😂😂. We certainly did, it was amazing, they were coming down the hill, raiding bins, swinging on the electric cables and having just the best monkey life🐒

We remembered to not make eye contact and tried as hard as we could to ignore their antics.

It was a long, hilly walk in ridiculously high temperatures, me wearing flip flops. We’ve found it much more comfortable than the  temperatures we’ve had in Turkey, until now. We were  dripping with the exertion.

The views are amazing from the top, but apart from the beach I didn’t feel any connection emotionally to any of it.

It was really lovely to be surrounded by nature as there doesn’t seem to be many green spaces in this city. The walk down was a breeze, we passed a small holding with pygmy goats, chickens, dogs and monkeys just living together.

We’d earned a couple of Leo beers before going back to de- sweat.

We had cashew chicken, rice and satay skewers for dinner.

John had been researching places we could play darts. They’re few and far between because they need a special licence. So off we went to find the Cat bar.

We walked through the very noisy bar street, past all the scantily dressed girls and found the bar. We decided to brave it to the dart board on the other side of the large room, but gave up after 10 paces and wimped out. It was incredibly loud in there, dark and not somewhere we’d choose to be even without the girls. The whole area was horrible, really seedy. We found our way back to normal territory and played rummicub back at the hotel. Far more sedate! Well it would be without the incessant traffic.

Tomorrow we leave Hua Hin and head off to our next accomodation, only about a 15 minute drive away from here.

Favourite things : the food, the iced coffees, the diverse range of shops, the birdsong all around, even at night, people watching, beautiful beach.

Least favourite : the noisy traffic, the incredibly thin toilet paper, the seedy bar area.