Hua Hin to Phuket

Travel day today. We started this morning in Hua Hin, at sunrise. We had heard sunrises are special in Hua Hin because the monks walk along the beach. Since this was our last day in Hua Hin (ever - we're definitely not coming back), we decided to wake up and run over to the beach. Except when the time came, Isa opted to stay in bed and just look at my pictures later.

Although I did see a monk, it didn't look like much of a tradition. It seemed more like a monk happened to be walking on the beach. Most of the beach was completely deserted.

After that, we ate breakfast, bought some snacks for our flight, packed our bags, and walked up the road to where we had seen a minibus stop yesterday. We booked a trip back to Bangkok for 180B each. That took us to Victory Monument.

Then we felt like locals at this point, since we're so familiar with this area. We took a local bus up to Mo Chit, ate some skewer meat from a street cart, and caught the A1 bus to Don Mueang Airport. It's the same bus we took when we first flew in from Xi'an, so we knew which one to catch without even looking it up.

Then we caught a 3:30 flight from DMK down to Phuket, just about 90 minutes. We were so excited to fly in and see a proper tropical island.

From the airport, we caught a shared minibus into Patong for 180B each - crazy that it cost the same to go 2.5 hours from Hua Hin to Bangkok as it did the 45 minutes from the airport to our hotel. We had heard that things are more expensive down here in the islands, and that appears to be true so far.

After dropping our stuff off at the hotel and resting for a bit, we ventured back out after dark and walked over to Bangla Road just to check it out. I forgot my camera back at the hotel, but we'll be back tomorrow night for sure. It's a crazy couple blocks of nightclubs and ladyboys.

Then we walked on the beach for a bit and found a nice restaurant with tables on the sand. I can't tell you how much we enjoy eating on the beach. Something about yummy food in your belly, sand in between your toes, the sounds and smell of the ocean, the feel of the light breeze. It's the best.

And the food was fantastic for 100B each.

Exploring Hua Hin

So first things first we rented a scooter at the place right next to our hotel. One day, 200 baht (about $6.50 US). Good deal. What we didn't realize is the gas gauge was not broken - it was empty when we got it. :( That will come into play in a minute.

We drove directly out to Wat Huay Mongkol.

This is a giant statue of a famous Thai monk (Luang Phor Thuad) that sits on a hill about 20 minutes inland from Hua Hin. Apparently this monk is well known for his enlightenment and for performing miracles and his mere presence (even as a statue) guarantees your safety. Which may come into play in a minute. :(

The whole thing is free - free parking too. I'm not sure if we would pay to see this, but it's definitely worth seeing for free.

As you walk around the statue, you find other images and statues covered in gold. We found out that you could purchase these little stickers and pay your respects by sticking them on the statue of your choosing.

They're like little gold post-it notes.

At the base of the hill, on both sides, sit exquisitely carved elephants with three trunks.

We left just as seven coach buses arrived together, so it was a good time to take off for sure. We drove for about two or three minutes and then stalled. Weird, right? I got it going again, only to stall a few seconds later again. :( I thought it had died, but when I opened the gas tank, it was dry as a bone.

Out of Gas. Middle of Nowhere.

So here we are, 20 minutes outside Hua Hin, with no idea where to go or what to do. No phone. No ability to communicate. Stuck.

So we said a prayer. Because that's pretty much all we could do.

So I start pushing the moto down the road in the direction of town, and barely a minute later, a kid on a moto stopped to help us. He had zero english ability, but using hand gestures and foot gestures, he got Isa on the back of his moto and me on ours. We're so grateful he was patient with us because we had NO idea what he was trying to accomplish. We knew he wanted to help us, but we couldn't figure out what he could do without a rope or a truck. Then he managed to get behind me just to one side, he put his foot on my back foot rest and he started to move, pushing me along. We started slowly, then quicker and quicker. We drove for about a mile or so, crossing a large intersection that we just prayed wouldn't have any cars coming so we wouldn't have to stop - we didn't, whew! - and he pushed us into a gas station.

If you were ever wondering if God answers prayers, now you know. My goodness were we grateful for that kid. And it looks like Luang Phor Thuad's statue indeed helped guarantee our safety. :)

With a full tank of gas, we took off toward the beach.

Khao Takiab

We parked in the dirt parking lot leading into the beach on the far side of the hill and wandered out onto the sand.

We decided not to hang out here because we wanted to go up monkey mountain (that's the other side of the hill in the picture above - it's actually called Chopstick Mountain, but everyone calls it monkey mountain because, well, you'll see).

You can drive most of the way up the hill and park in the lot just below the temple, right next to this sign.

Which is serious, because if you do decide to feed them, they swarm and it's crazy.

But if you keep your food in your bag, they just hang out with you.

We hiked up the stairs to the temple on top (well, it's actually about half the way up - I couldn't find a way to get to the peak).

But even if it's not the very top, the temple still gives you a pretty good view of the coastline.

We returned to our moto and drove around to the backside of the mountain and found a vacant platform with a few pagodas and statues. It was interesting and photogenic, especially on a nice day like today.

There were a few rogue monkeys down here, one of which tried to run off with my water bottle after he stole it from my backpack. I chased him down and he dropped it and ran off. I need my water when it's this hot!

At the base of the hill, we stopped by a cute little fishing village. We were going to grab some fresh food because a friend of ours said it was delicious, but none of it looked quite right and so we chickened out.

From here, we drove north of Hua Hin toward Cha-Am in search of a better beach. We failed. So we returned to Hua Hin and set up camp near the town center.

Hua Hin Beach

We watched people playing games, horses strutting by, and the sun setting. (Well, kinda. It set behind us, but the sky was still cool.)

That's monkey mountain and the temple in the distance.

For a pre-dinner snack, we stopped and got Rotee, a Thai favorite. It's like a crepe with bananas or nutella and fried crispy. It was yummy.

Then we headed over to the night market. Full day. Good day.

Hua Hin

We're gonna split Hua Hin into two posts. 1. The beach and town. 2. Exploring.

The Beach

So we flew from Chiang Rai to Bangkok on Thursday night and then took a mini bus from Victory Monument down to Hua Hin ($12 USD each) on Friday morning. We got dropped off in the center of Hua Hin and since we weren't sure how far our hotel was from there, we took a watermelon flavored tuk tuk (it was pink and light green) south for 100 baht (totally worth it, that would have been a FAR walk). We checked in and walked across the street to an alleyway that gave us beach access.

The beach was filled with tiny little crabs that lived in the sand in little holes and they kept popping out for a second leaving little balls of sand around their holes. It was mesmerizing watching them create the little balls with their mouth and feet and then tuck it under and behind them and then start making a new one.

And that was the last we saw of the sun. It rained for the next two days, so we decided to skip laying out on the beach because it looked like this:

So we took advantage of the rainy days and went to see Hunger Games, which was AWESOME!! Isa and I have both read the books, so we were super excited to watch it. This is one of the first times I've actually read the book before the movie, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Because I kinda knew what was about to happen, so I was freaking out or excited for most of the movie because of what was coming, and not necessarily for what was actually happening. It was definitely more intense for me. Or maybe it was just a great movie. Whatever. Go see it.

The Town

Other than the movie and eating at random restaurants around our hotel, we walked up the beach to the center of town each day. Yesterday we bought matching pink and blue towels which we weren't really able to use because it was raining, but we needed towels for the islands we're visiting for the next two weeks. Today we wandered up to the train station, which is pretty much the most interesting thing in Hua Hin.

This is the royal waiting room. You can't go in there. 'Cause we will never be royals...

Yup. That's pretty much as good as it gets here. Tomorrow it's supposed to be sunny so we're going to rent a scooter and explore the outskirts.