April 22 Day 66
We woke up and had a not great breakfast by our pool (lots of hot dogs). We headed out to hit the beach with our bags full of everything we'd need. We walked for a fair amount of time before we found a spot we could agree on. At the beginning of the beach there were lots of rocks and people were out in groups scraping mussels off of them. There were loungers with umbrellas but the touts were charging too much. Once we got away from the rocks and the tout prices got lower, we settled down for an afternoon of leisure.
We went for a swim and the water was bathtub warm with lots of waves to splash around in. The white beach went on for a few kilometres with many sandbars covered in tiny, perfectly round holes inhabited by little crabs. A real attraction were the kite surfers who were dominating the skyline by the end of the afternoon. Most of them were obviously experienced as it was very windy. They were doing flips and long hang time jumps all over the place. One guy would continuously float above the water with just his dagger board skimming the water. Between them and our books we were well entertained.
We had a simple lunch at the restaurant behind our loungers (which was surprisingly reasonably priced) and Meg decided that she loved Penang curry. The rest of the time was spent swimming, reading, lounging and watching kite surfers. Some vendors came by but they weren't annoying or overly persistent. It was the sort of relaxing, decadent afternoon we wished that we had in Tahiti.
We came back, showered and got ready for the evening. We asked the tuktuk drivers if any were around at 5:30 am but they said no, but it was only a 20 minute walk to the train station. We timed our walk there which led us through the night market.
Hue Hin closes down two blocks of their main street for a night market. It's crowded and busy with food stalls, real restaurants, massage places, clothing stalls, souvenir vendors and a million other things. It as tricky to walk through because of the crowd and distractions but we made it and found the train station, 15 minutes walk. We had to buy tickets to an earlier train (there were 11 trains to Bangkok but 9 of them were before 6:30 am) as the 6:29 was expensive because they only sold berths, whether you wanted them or not. We got our tickets for the 6:05 and headed back for dinner.
I lobbied for real street food so we had mussel omelette stir fry things and ate at a little table between two street stalls. We were able to watch someone manipulate roti dough while we ate, very entertaining. We then grabbed a delicious dessert where they take half a coconut and scrape the meat loose, put a few scoops of coconut ice cream in it and pour condensed milk over the whole thing yum! Next we went for a street massage. In Chaing Mai they had lazyboys lining the street but we had to settle for plastic stools in Hue Hin. Meg got a young guy to do her feet and I got an older woman to do my back but they had strong hands and it was 30 minutes well spent and our sore muscles felt better.
Back at the room we got packed up and ready for our early morning trip.
We woke up and had a not great breakfast by our pool (lots of hot dogs). We headed out to hit the beach with our bags full of everything we'd need. We walked for a fair amount of time before we found a spot we could agree on. At the beginning of the beach there were lots of rocks and people were out in groups scraping mussels off of them. There were loungers with umbrellas but the touts were charging too much. Once we got away from the rocks and the tout prices got lower, we settled down for an afternoon of leisure.
We went for a swim and the water was bathtub warm with lots of waves to splash around in. The white beach went on for a few kilometres with many sandbars covered in tiny, perfectly round holes inhabited by little crabs. A real attraction were the kite surfers who were dominating the skyline by the end of the afternoon. Most of them were obviously experienced as it was very windy. They were doing flips and long hang time jumps all over the place. One guy would continuously float above the water with just his dagger board skimming the water. Between them and our books we were well entertained.
We had a simple lunch at the restaurant behind our loungers (which was surprisingly reasonably priced) and Meg decided that she loved Penang curry. The rest of the time was spent swimming, reading, lounging and watching kite surfers. Some vendors came by but they weren't annoying or overly persistent. It was the sort of relaxing, decadent afternoon we wished that we had in Tahiti.
We came back, showered and got ready for the evening. We asked the tuktuk drivers if any were around at 5:30 am but they said no, but it was only a 20 minute walk to the train station. We timed our walk there which led us through the night market.
Hue Hin closes down two blocks of their main street for a night market. It's crowded and busy with food stalls, real restaurants, massage places, clothing stalls, souvenir vendors and a million other things. It as tricky to walk through because of the crowd and distractions but we made it and found the train station, 15 minutes walk. We had to buy tickets to an earlier train (there were 11 trains to Bangkok but 9 of them were before 6:30 am) as the 6:29 was expensive because they only sold berths, whether you wanted them or not. We got our tickets for the 6:05 and headed back for dinner.
I lobbied for real street food so we had mussel omelette stir fry things and ate at a little table between two street stalls. We were able to watch someone manipulate roti dough while we ate, very entertaining. We then grabbed a delicious dessert where they take half a coconut and scrape the meat loose, put a few scoops of coconut ice cream in it and pour condensed milk over the whole thing yum! Next we went for a street massage. In Chaing Mai they had lazyboys lining the street but we had to settle for plastic stools in Hue Hin. Meg got a young guy to do her feet and I got an older woman to do my back but they had strong hands and it was 30 minutes well spent and our sore muscles felt better.
Back at the room we got packed up and ready for our early morning trip.
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| The white sand beach at Hue Hin. |
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