Joyce has been visiting us in Chiang Mai for a couple of weeks after she finished the fall semester at the graduate school. She arrived a few days earlier than I did and spent some time with Kristin, including Thai Cooking School, Queens Botanical Garden, Umbrella Making Center, Art Museum etc.
Kristin made an arrangement for us to travel to Hua Hin, located 3 hours south of Bangkok. So we flew to Don Mueang Airport and rented a car to drive to Hua Hin.
Hua Hin is a beach town, just south of Cha Am Beach, a lot bigger and more commercialized beach. Hua Hin is famous for hosting the Royal Family's vacation homes. The beach was wide open and a lot quieter than other Thai beaches I have been to.
On the day we arrived, we walked on the beach and hung out at a hotel bar open to the ocean. Quite nice and soothing, particularly in the shade in the afternoon.
A lot of people were walking on the sea shore and some were riding horses. Since the beach is wide open and flat, there were many commercial horses for hire. A young girl was enjoying the horse-back riding.
At Hua Hin, we found a lot of seafood restaurants We enjoyed seafood dishes several times.
One day, Joyce went scuba diving with a group. Apparently, the visibility was not that good, but I am sure she enjoyed it.
Unlike the Hua Hin Beach, the town of Hua Hin was a bustling town with a lot of merchants, restaurants and bars. While we were driving up and down the main street, Highway No. 4, we found at least two large shopping malls, including Market Village.
We visited Market Village that housed department stores Home Pro, supermarket like Tesco Lotus and many famous franchise restaurants such as Mc Donald's, Sizzler, MK, Yayoi, Santa Fe, Fuji. It also has street food vendors in the basement and we enjoyed several dishes purchased with the market cards.
We enjoyed the street food vendors inside the Market Village, but they were no comparison to the Cicada Market and Tamarind Market. They are outdoor markets and the ambiance and foods were excellent. Particularly, Cicada Market was the best quality outdoor market I have seen. Very clean, well organized and good variety of options.
I found one artist who drew my caricature within 10 minutes. Hmmm... He was so nice to make me look quite young, but I was content.
Obviously, the highlight was eating the street foods. One night we enjoyed the foods at Cicada Market and another night we enjoyed the foods at Tamarind Market that was smaller but a lot more affordable than at the Cicada Market. The Takoyaki was a hit with a small octopus thrown into the Takayaki. The sea foods at Tamarind Market were amazing and abundant.
At night, the Cicada market was well lit with the jelly fish lights. Very cozy and romantic.
We celebrated Christmas while we were in Hua Hin. Joyce gave us her Christmas gift for us with a small tree made of US money. They were cute.
We went to visit Pala U Waterfalls, an hour drive from Hua Hin town. On the way, we thought we were visting an orchard farm, but we ended up visiting a hotel that had "Orchard" in its name due to an orchard that the hotel has in the backyard.
The Pala-U Water Fall was located in Kaeng Krachan National Park. We found several signs warning of elephants crossing. We did not see any but we enjoyed the thrill of potentially spotting them.
We had a few pleasant surprises. One was the encounter with a lot of large fish living in the shallow water of the river. The fish, a family of calf, looked black on their back and was well preserved in all areas of the river.
Another pleasant surprise was the rigid pathway to the water falls. In certain sections, we had to hold onto the ropes to climb or pass through the rocks. Joyce and I were wearing slippers and it was a challenge to hike up and down.
On the way up, we found natural tree branches that were good enough for taking a break.
But, we managed to go up to the highest level 5 and to come down without injuring ourselves. The waterfalls were not that impressive, but the journey itself was memorable.
While Joyce and I hiked up to the Level 5, Kris stopped at the Level 2 and was waiting for us sitting like this at the entrance.
On Sunday, we went to Victory Church that was worshiping at a boutique hotel called Navy Phirom Hotel by the ocean. It was quite nice and we went to have breakfast on Monday. Pleasantly surprised, we enjoyed a nice breakfast at 100 Baht, a lot cheaper than the breakfast at the hotel we stayed at 150 Baht. We ended up going there again on the day we were departing Hua Hin to return to Bangkok.
We also spent a half day at Cha Am Beach, a lot larger and a lot more commercialized beach, just north of Hua Hin Beach. It was far too commercialized for me. We rented three lounge chairs and hung out in the shades. Relaxing.
On the way back to Bangkok, we detoured a bit to visit one of the floating markets. At these floating markets, you ride a boat, motor boat for 300 Baht or manual boat for 150 Baht, to visit the shops located at the piers of the canals or on the floating boats. It was not the first time experience for me, but it was fun to pass through the canals.
Overall, we enjoyed our time together exploring Hua Hin and other places. - Jeffrey
