Anymore days like today and this blog will start to get even more repetitive and boring than it already is.
Woke up after almost 10 hours sleep to yet another lovely day. This was despite the best efforts of the birds who were making one heck of a racket at about 3am. Had another long leisurely breakfast of which the only interesting feature was Karen for some reason taking 2 soft boiled eggs rather than the hard ones. Now as everyone knows Karen has to have everything well done (or over cooked), this especially includes eggs. When she cracked both of them open, they were on lesser side of being soft boiled and probably what even I would call raw.
Anyhow after all this immense excitement we secured Karens todays choice of sun-beds for the morning. We both laid reading our Kindles. We were both midway through rather high brow books. Karen was re-reading Bleak House and I was reading the Joey Barton autobiography!
I went off late morning to the Gym and after changing rejoined Karen by the pool. Today we pushed the boat out and both had a Fish Burger.
We then went for a walk along the narrow beach for a way. The shoreline was full of interesting shells but as the sea doesn’t meet the UK Blue Flag standard we were reluctant to touch them.
At 5pm we caught the shuttle bus back into Hua Hin City Centre where we disembarked outside Starbucks and Karen felt it would be rude not to go in for a drink. After this I purchased a genuine fake backpack from a lad selling on the roadside. I was pleased that I managed to barter it down considerably, but Karen did suggest I was being mean. I was quite impressed with him as he was quite open that they were fakes but did say they were good quality ones.
We returned to the Prime restaurant as before but not before cutting through a side street lined with bars. I did not notice but Karen said that a number of them had young ladies all dolled up waiting for punters to ‘entertain’. She wouldn’t let us walk back that way so I could take a look for myself.
Our meal was very good again and Karen this time had a Irish coffee. Apparently not up to Lanzarote standard (where it is mostly just Whisky with just a splash of coffee), it was however close.
On the way back to the shuttle pickup point we came across the famous night market. We had the quickest and briefest of walk round this as Karen was worried about missing the bus.
I still find Thailand interesting. It is a place of contrasts. The people here that we have encountered are all lovely. The service everywhere is fantastic. It is not really a third world country yet in many ways it is. It has enormous potential but apparently been held back by a series of corrupt administrations.
I can see the attractions from people coming here with the value of the pound. We have eaten well at really nice restaurants. There are many much cheaper options but we have not been extravagant. This is probably to do with the fact that we have now been away for almost 5 weeks and so we are not like most holiday makers here who are throwing caution to the wind when it comes to spending money. For the most people this would be their only holiday and if they want something they go for it. For us it is only the 1st trip of the year and we plan to be in different countries for about another 10+ weeks this year. We are not holding back but then again we are not going for it every night for the sake of it. This is our choice and not for everyone. Some people I know spend as much on one holiday as we choose to on many.
I also think that yet again I have been too quick to make a judgement about Hua Hin itself. It is what it is. There are some nicer bars and restaurants. I think it was just not at all what I was expecting. I expected an up market quiet under developed small village. Instead it is a bustling, flipping enormous metropolis that stretches for miles. The beaches are a disappointment but then that didn’t really matter to much to us.
After arriving back at the Hotel we went to the Night Bar and had a couple of Margaritas each during the Happy Hour. The band was back playing chilled lounge music. Before going back to our room we wandered down to the beach. The lights lit up the sea on the beach beautifully. As we stood arm in arm watching, Karen surprised me by saying that actually after all she would quite like to come back here. The grounds and location are simply beautiful and at night even more so. We both love also being somewhere really warm where you can walk around at night still in summer clothes (or as Karen would put it – a stroppy top).
We returned to our room for the postponed call with the team in Norfolk but I had to reschedule again as in my sleepy state the night before I had actually forgotten to invite them to the call!
