Hua Hin

Just like Craig’s colleague described in China!(but then on a multi lane highway..).The tree marks a hazard on the road. 

The highlight was definitely visiting with my childhood friends Bimba and Timppa!! They were the main reason we came here, and am so glad they wrote us about their trip, just in time for us to combine our Laos flights with a visit to Hua Hin.
It had been a few years since we saw each other last, probably in Ashford - we can’t quite remember... as I don’t know when I was in Finland last.

Link to mostly Hua Hin


We biked at least some all but the last day. We are up to 2600 miles since leaving home. Definitely a drop in miles compared with earlier in our trip, when biking was a major focus. Our pre trip planning to Hua Hin was pretty non existent, and we exhausted the nearby roads we (or at least I..), were comfortable on quickly. Someone told us about a bike path, and this helped us avoid a 4-lane road. Riding parallel to this road was a bit boring, but we were happy to have the bike path, where we saw several western retirees, who presumably are out for exercise, or doing errands. One day we hired a song thaew, which took us inland some 30 km, towards a reservoir, and riding around there & back home, we saw a slightly different country side than we have seen up north. Am not sure exactly what was different, except here we didn’t feel almost surrounded by big, tree covered hills. The wild pig Craig startled, not knowing HE was wild when passing him, fortunately lumbered in to the bushes when I came by.

The apartment was OK, and Craig says the couch was adequate for lounging around on. Most of our rooms elsewhere have had only a bed. The shower was not as nice as in Luang Prabang, but better than all the others we have had in Asia. Seems there are as many western, and Russian, retirees spending part of the year here, as there are Thai people. There were signs in Thai, English, and Russian in the apartment building.
We did not spend any time on the beach - I think Craig was turned off both by a sign telling you about first aide if you get stung by jelly fish (it rarely happens), and also when Bimba said the water was cold the first day she went in, when it was windy. He now tells me the first aide instructions included CPR! And google says the number of these very deadly creatures has increased in the Gulf of Thailand.

Hua Hin is a touristy seaside resort; the Royal Family built a Palace here in the early 1920’s, and before this, it apparently was a fishing village. Bimba and Timppa have been further south in Thailand several times in the past, and prefer the beaches, and the atmosphere there.p

Am finishing this as we land in Chiang Mai, where we need to do errands, and plan our upcoming travel. We might also do another trek of some kind from here.