Month: August 2014

Our favorite restaurant U-Saw-Mass across the street from the condos:

We have had three holidays in Hua Hin and love the place. Aside from the fun things to do, we discovered wonderful places to stay. Our favorite is in John and Kay’s, Busaba Pool Villas. They have a couple of 2-bedroom condos in a unit called SeaCraze and we have stayed in both. This is located near to restaurants and the beach and is a fun, quieter side of Hua Hin (and the best beaches). The building has a HUGE pool and nice gym.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/VacationRentalReview-g297922-d3941174-SEACRAZE_APT_1_D709_HUA_HIN-Hua_Hin_Prachuap_Khiri_Khan_Province.html

The condos are furnished with the softest mattresses and high quality pillows and bedding. In S.E. Asia this is rare so we appreciated it. John also gives a lot of extras such as providing a cell phone, loads of English TV stations, and even a hard drive loaded with movies and music.

This last visit we rented a car and so stayed in one of their amazing villas.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/VacationRentalReview-g297922-d3412482-BUSABA_POOL_VILLA_11_HUA_HIN-Hua_Hin_Prachuap_Khiri_Khan_Province.html

We had a 3-bedroom house with a great private pool. The villas are in a small, very safe gated community about 10 minutes to main shopping areas. You don’t need a car but it helps as nothing is easy to walk to from here (the security always call a taxi though). The houses are L-shaped around the deck and pool with large glass doors that pull back (also has air con if wanted). There are even two outdoor showers, which is fun. Again all appliances, upgraded media, soft beds, and great furnishings are provided.

John even arranges pick up in Bangkok with private driver and has a grocery list you can send him to pre-arrange food and drink on arrival.

I’m not in advertising nor get anything from this blog post but just wanted to share this place as John and Kay really have worked hard to provide a great place for people to stay. I sure hope we get back soon.

We hired a car (cheap in Thailand and pretty easy to drive here – at least if you are used to driving in Dubai!) and one day headed out of town to the West, into the hills to the local winery.

There is a lovely restaurant, which is quite upscale and of course expensive. But we had a wine tasting of three of their wines plus selection of cheeses, meats, bread and olives grown onsite. The wine was good and the kids liked the local grape soda. It was nice to see how much was grown onsite and used in the menu.

http://www.huahinhills.com/hhhsnw2/

One fun thing is to take an elephant ride around the vineyard. The views are amazing and it’s a very quiet and relaxing time.

Had a great visit to a national park about one hour south of Hua Hin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khao_Sam_Roi_Yot_National_Park

The drive down is easy with good highway and roads but we appreciated our GPS. The park costs 200 Baht per person and you are asked to show the tickets at a few stops. We first took a canal long-boat ride which was through a quiet area of mangroves. Pretty and saw monkeys, lots of birds, crabs and mudskippers.

Then we headed to a beach area and sat at an outside restaurant overlooking the beach. Good food and cheap plus no one at the beach which was great.

Then it was on to take another long-boat out to another secluded beach. From there you can climb up pretty tough steps hewn out of rock to reach caves with a temple inside. This is a tough climb in the heat.

The beaches are lovely and again were empty. It was a great day out.

We have visited Hua Hin a couple of times now and really enjoy it. This is the summer palace of the King and Queen of Thailand about 3.5 hours south east of Bangkok. It’s a good and easy road to get there and usually more Thai people than foreigners. It has great night markets, beaches, temples, elephant sanctuaries, a winery, and enough of a party vide at night to keep the young’uns happy (big young’uns). We like the Ko Takiab side past Monkey Mountain.

It’s been enjoyable going to the same town a couple of times as there is comfort in knowing our way around.

There is a nice little mall with enough variety of restaurants, small shops and a Tesco to entertain and provide enough shopping to keep all happy. The night market has good street food and outdoor restaurants for the evening entertainment. Plus at weekends there is the nighttime Cicada Market that has handicrafts (good ones) and loads of food stalls.

During the day the beach is a good walking place. We tend not to swim as jellyfish seem a problem and the water is rather murky but then mine all prefer swimming in pools anyway. But there are horse rides on the beach and people collecting clams, plus even better there are lounge chairs to rent that are connected to the beach restaurants/bars.

Once ensconced on one of these, the vendors make their way past and you can purchase all kinds of clothing, ice cream and snacks, have a pedicure or manicure, and even get a massage. It’s pretty easy to spend the afternoon having an hour-long massage, a couple of icy cold beers, pedicure and lunch for less than $25. Throw in a good book and it’s my kind of day!