Hua Hin

Father's Day arrived, and not a minute too soon. This academic quarter has been a good one, but I needed a holiday. One of the teachers in our office owns a condo in Hua Hin, and she's been offering it to us for two years. Finally we decided to take her up on her offer and head to the royal resort town for the long weekend. It was the first time I've left Bangkok since my visit to Samut Prakan, and my first time out of town since Singapore.

Hua Hin is the nicest beach town close to Bangkok, and the Bangkok elite tend to flock there on holidays, and especially on Father's Day (HM the King's birthday) on account of it actually being the home of His Majesty. While it should only take 2.5 - 3 hours by bus from Bangkok to Hua Hin, one of the teachers warned us not to expect to arrive in Hua Hin until after midnight due to the holiday traffic. We decided that if it was going to take us five or more hours to get to Hua Hin, then we might as well be comfortable. We opted to take the train.

His Majesty's royal train at Hua Lampong Station

We took a taxi directly from school to Hua Lampong Station, and splurged on two adjoining first-class cabins. I've only ever travel third-class in Thailand. This was also the longest train ride I've taken here, and it was very comfortable. I would definitely travel this way again, preferable on a longer trip. We got to Hua Hin after 10:00 p m, and disembarked at the historic train station; Hua Hin was one of the first destinations connected to Bangkok via rail during the reign of HM King Chulalongkorn (Rama VI). All of Hua Hin seemed to be lit up in bright lights in honor of HM the King's birthday.

Hua Hin Train Station

The condo was spacious, and the view from the ninth floor was incredible. Although it was a holiday weekend, it seemed we nearly had the entire building to ourselves. One of the curses of being an adult is that I'm no longer able to sleep past about eight in the morning, so I had tea and toast on the huge balcony and watched the morning tide come in.

the early morning view from our balcony

My friends Ryan, Kate, and Wes (Kate's boyfriend who visited her on the holiday and came to the beach with us) were up shortly after, although we unanimously decided to do absolutely nothing on Friday and relax all day. It's finally "winter" time here in Thailand. I can honestly say that I didn't feel hot at all during my trip to Hua Hin; in fact on the night train back (couldn't get a first-class sleeper, but we got second-class non-aircon seats for about 1/5 the price instead) it was actually kind of cold. We spent a little time in the water, but I mostly enjoyed relaxing and reading on our balcony.

Monkey Mountain (famous Hua Hin landmark)

Of course, we all wore yellow on Friday. I even had a yellow "we love the king" t-shirt I had gotten the week before. At lunch on Friday, the owner of the restaurant came over to our table and told us "Thank you! Thank you for wearing yellow today!" with a big smile on her face.

In the evening we walked to the Cicada Market, an upscale night market with lots of food and shop stalls. Of course, everything was yellow.

a sea of yellow

We even enjoyed an appropriately yellow dessert for the occasion: my favorite mango sticky rice.

Happy Birthday!