at the beach in Hua Hin

I arrived yesterday afternoon at Hua Hin, a popular beach resort town on the Thailand coast, due south of Bangkok about 3-4 hours. I wasn't quite sure what to expect in terms of accomodation prices since I knew it was touristy, and my Thailand guidebook is 8 years old (I just got it used in Bangkok, didn't want to spend 30 bucks on a book only for a month). But it sounded like there would still be budget options and fortunately there are. I got a nice-sized room with a double bed for 6 dollars, and they even have free interent for guests, with a faster connection than Bangkok for some reason. Hua Hin is pretty much the classic tropical beach resort town, with huge hotels on the water such as the Hilton, which is about a 2 minute walk from where I am, just back from the beach a little ways and down a narrow lane. Just out of curiosity I checked the rates for the Hilton, and it's around $200-300 per night for rooms. But of course, in mine I don't have air conditioning, TV, a fridge or attached bathroom (it's down the hall) but don't particularly need any of those amenities either; although I admit that it does make it a bit hard to sleep at night when you're sweating away, despite the fan overhead. But it has cooled down since leaving Bangkok, as Bankok isn't on the ocean but is a little ways inland.

So it was great to get the heck out of the city finally, as well as to get to the beach. Hua Hin is actually really nice. It has a gorgeous, wide, long beach, fronted by hotels the whole way, but with plenty of palm trees to at least partially obscure all the development. I walked from one end of the beach to the other and back this morning, and timing it coming back, it took an hour and fifteen minutes, and I was jogging part of the time. So it's a long beach, which means that despite all the beach revelers around here there are still plenty of quiter spots along it, that aren't overrun with people, beach umbrellas, etc. And the town is really pleasant and mellow, for one thing I think I'm at the waning end of peak season, so it's not as crowded as I'm sure it is at other times. But also it's just a nice, small town with an easygoing atmosphere and the people are really nice. Apparently just twenty or thirty years ago this was a sleepy fishing village on the ocean with not much going on. That's pretty hard to imagine when you're on the beach looking at the long line of high rise hotels, but easier when you're just walking around the town.

So although I didn't really have any expectations, as I knew it was one of the most popular beach destinations in Thailand not far from Bangkok, I'm pleasantly surprised. And I'm seeing basically no other budget travelers around here—probably because they're all understandably avoiding the mass tourism—which is actually a nice change, just to have a little change of scene. Instead it seems to be almost an even mix of Thai families and couples, and older Europeans (many of whom really should not be wearing speedos). So, I stuck around for today, and will most likely take off tomorrow morning for the islands I'm headed for, although it's possible I might end up hanging out for one more day, just depending on whether I'm up for a rather long travel day tomorrow. Otherwise this isn't such a bad place to stay a little longer and do some more walking around, exploring of the town and swimming in the ocean, although I did get bored of laying on the beach in about 20 minutes. Hopefully there's some good snorkeling spots on the islands, which there's supposed to be, and/or I meet some more interesting people to hang out with.