This is part of an ongoing travelogue. To start at the beginning, please click here.
So off we go with the actual travelogue. We took off from KLIA2 at about noon and landed in Don Mueang Airport in about 2 hours. After navigating our way to Victory Monument we took a 3 hour ride by van to Hua Hin (you can read about my transportation guide here). The van actually seated 11 passengers including the driver, with the one seat in the last row removed to use as luggage storage. We stopped a few times nearing our destination to drop off passengers (and one time for driver to hand deliver a mail package).
The journey to Hua Hin is a straight drive using highway all the way, and traffic was very good on a drizzling Monday afternoon.
Reaching Hua Hin, my first impression was that it is rather small town but spread out. There are many resorts and hotels as far out as 5 km from the town centre. Once in the town centre, we can see the familiar trait of most Thailand towns and cities – rush hour traffic jam. After clearing the traffic lights on Petchkasem Road which probably took a good 10 minutes, we were dropped off near Royal Pavilion Hotel. Our hotel was less than 2km away, so we decided to lug our luggage and walk.
Finding our hotel was quite easy, it was on the next road facing the beach. Our hotel for the next four nights is the Verona Riviera, or known as just the Verona. Its a very small boutique Italian themed hotel with only 14 rooms.
This is the view of the swimming pool that looks out to the sea. The hotel is superb for the price we paid, and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay here. Its not in the town centre though, but a walk there would take about 20 minutes or THB 100 for a tuk-tuk.
(our apartment has two bedrooms with attached bath)
(our master bathroom. Didn’t use the bathtub)
(fully equipped kitchen came with complimentary drinks and a coffee machine!)
(and a large living room. Even larger than the one at home)
Once we’ve unpacked, we took a tuk-tuk town for dinner.
Our first meal in Hua Hin was at Jek Be-Ak. This is the most popular and famous restaurant in town, and you can see the line to get a table. It’s only open in the evening, during the day time it is a coffee shop. And you need to be early, too. The last order is 8pm sharp, and closes at 8.30pm.
This place seem to be around a long time, even the royal family has visited it before.
I think we stood in line for like 30 minutes, when we finally got a seat. They’ll take your order while in line, and they can understand basic English (menu is in English, Chinese and Thai). The shop is famous for the sukiyaki clay pot (seafood or pork) and the steamed glass noodles with crab. Unfortunately, the latter was sold out when we were there.
(menu for the day time coffeeshop)
(Claypot pork stew. Delicious!)
(deep-fried sausage and sotong)
(fried egg omelette, very popular here, and stir fried veg)
Our initial plan was to walk the night market after dinner, as it was just across the road. But seeing that this was our first night after a long day of travelling, so we decided to walk back to our hotel for an early night.
We took a different route back, taking the road nearest to the beach, so we could check out the beachside hotels and restaurant. There were many restaurants here, and with specialized cuisine from all over the world to cater for tourists.
(this place looked nice with an upstairs seating area)
(one of the few Irish pubs I saw here)
Next – Floating market.