We've been really busy lately now that our CELTA course is under way, and haven't been doing a lot of blogging. It's going great, and there will be more on that. But before we started it, we took a trip south to Hua Hin. We woke up early and took a 3.5 hour train ride to a small gulf side beach town. We spent the day, 1 night and the next day, then headed back by bus(for variety). They were both around the same travel time, but the bus ride was much cheaper and rightfully so.
Water temp. -- around 85 degrees. No joke. It was too hot. Not even refreshing. But still it felt great to swim in the ocean. We'd been in Bangkok for 2 weeks where you drip sweat no matter what you're wearing and at any time of day or night the second you leave air conditioning. And the air quality isn't the best due to fuel emissions. So Hua Hin was a nice change for us. It's actually cooled off a bit in BKK now. I think the season is changing.
It's quite a bit more touristy, and there is a large German and Dutch expatriate presence. We found a higher concentration of restaurants catering to western tastes -- Italian, English, German, Indian. Tourist pricing though. We ate at a top notch Indian restaurant. Some of the best palaak paneer I've had.
We splurged on a hotel room with a balcony and ocean view for $8 U.S. which was 1/2 block walk to the beach. The whole town is small enough that you explore it easily on foot. Lots of night markets, food vendors, restaurants and bars. We wandered around the Hilton and took an elevator ride to get some shots of the city. It's nestled in between some hills and the beach.
