Flight out of Heathrow with Thai airways was delayed by an hour (my thoughts on Thai Airways have been posted on the flight only forum under Thai Airways - I was not impressed). They did manage to make the hour up during the flight and we landed on time in Bangkok. I have never known worse baggage handlers than Bangkok, it took them ONE HOUR to get the cases onto the belt, unbelievable!
Walked outside to the public taxi queue, only took a couple of mins and we got a really nice guy called Jo to drive us to Hua Hin. It's a flat rate of 2800 baht. He stopped after an hour or so for a drink/toilet break (unprompted by us so very nice of him). Trip to Hua Hin took three hours in all, he wasn't sure where the Hilton was so asked someone, we found it in a few mins. The time was about 8pm by this stage.
Initial impression of the Hilton was.....very nice. Very big foyer, several water features. The check in staff get you to sit down whilst they sort everything for you, you get a welcome drink and a cold flannel. Room was sorted in a few mins and we were shown to our room on the 4th floor - a Bay room. Bags followed a few mins later. Very efficient and friendly staff, in fact, I think Thai people are the friendliest people I have ever met, anywhere.
We liked the room, very nice size, balcony facing west with a decent sea view as well. Sofa in the room as well as TV, Fridge and usual bits. Only minor complaint is that the bed is VERY hard
Unpacked quickly and stuck some shorts on then it was off for a beer and something to eat.
Temp. was around high 70's so very warm still. As many people know, the Hilton is bang in the centre of town so it's very handy for all the bars and restaurants. Got back to hotel around 10:30pm and had an early night..........but managed to sleep for only a couple of hours! Not sure why as we were really tired.
Was awake around 5:30am so we read a bit and waited until 7am, when the pool opens and made our way down to choose a couple of sunbeds for the day. I'd read that it's a bit of a nightmare with the sunbeds............we were to find out that this is an understatement!!
At this stage I discovered I had been bitten 8 times by mosquitoes the previous night and boy were they big bites!
We got down to the pool around 07:05am and a good 75% of beds had already been 'taken' around the main pool. We managed to get a couple where I thought would be good for the sun and we went off for brekkie.
Breakfast is thrown in with the room at the Hilton and it is excellent. Buffet style but everything from lots of different breads, pastries, full english bits such as bacon, eggs, sausages, potato's, omelettes etc along with Chinese food, cereals, fruits, cold meats etc. Everything! On the second day we got crafty and started making some cheese/ham/tomato rolls for lunchtime each morning, it was great!!
We put them in the fridge when we finished breakfast and got them later on - perfect!Basically the scene was set for lazing by the pool, you HAD to be downstairs by 06:50am to get a decent bed, even then, there were a good dozen or so beds already taken, I've never known anything like it in all my years of travelling. It was all Germans and Swedes mainly. Beach is also very nice - lots of fish in the shallows, a couple of bigger ones too. Only saw a couple of 'normal' jellyfish, no men of war or box jellyfish. We had many a pleasant walk along the beach for a couple of kilometers - lots of beach bars serving drink and food and lots of sunbeds available there too.
As far as bars go, there were quite a few, many of them were VERY quiet. Then we found Soi Bintabaht, just over the road and to the left of the Hilton - these were the livliest bars in town. The best by far was actually the bar connected to the hotel - the Hua Hin Brewery. There was a very good live band every night and a DJ so it doubled as a bit of a club too. A good mixture of tourists and Thai's.
Restaurant wise, we ate at many different ones but our favourites were -
Let's Sea Restaurant, about a ten minute taxi ride from the Hilton, an open air seafood restaurant opening onto the beach. It does fantastic food and a really nice atmosphere - cost about £20 a head so a bit expensive by Thai standards but well worth it.
There's a US Rib and Steak place a few mins walk from the Hilton, turn left and go to the first main road, turn right and it's about 50 yards down on your right, set back from the road. We had fantatic steaks in there and ended up eating there three times during the holiday. Really good food.
For local food we found a really good place called the Onn Onn Restaurant. Go out of the Hilton and cross the road to go down Soi Bintabaht, the Onn Onn is at the end of the road on the opposite corner - these did the best curries we could find out there. Two starters, two mains and two large beers came to about 9 quid - lovely food and the girls who worked there were really pleasant too.
We managed to get some bargians in the local shops. The night market was ok, as was the grand Night market further down the main road (get a tuk tuk for 100 baht).
One day we got a tuk tuk up to Monkey Mountain, which was fantastic. It's only about 10-15 mins from the hotel and they are real characters. Quite a few really young babies at the moment. You can buy food for them for 50 baht a basket. You have to do it, they are so funny and gentle. From there we went to see some elephants, again, only about 10 mins away. You can actually go on 'safari' on them but we just wanted to see them so we ended up paying 300 baht each for a big basket of bananas and we fed two of the 5 elephants by hand and stroked them - it is such a privelege to be so close to such gentle giants. I really can't recommend this enough, a really good day and the tuk tuk only cost 500 baht to do both and drop us back at the hotel. (There's always a few tuk tuks right outside the hotel on the right hand side).
We had good weather for the first 9 days - mainly sunny with some cloud occasionally, temp. was mid to high 80's.
Our last 4 days were very cloudy and it rained lightly a couple of times, hardly any sun at all, very warm still though.
Mosquitoes are a REAL problem, there are loads of them everywhere you go. We bought some Citronella on the second day and I avoided being bitten again until the second to last night, when they got me another 5 times, despite having Citronella all over me! Huge bites that itch like hell, and they still do. I've got at least one scar, on my knee and it looks like a few more may scar too. I think this is the worst place for mossies that I've been to.
Overall Hua Hin is a lovely laid back place with very friendly people. It's a lot quieter than Pattaya and nowhere near as sleazy. Only the bars down Soi Bintabaht have girls 'hosting' in there and they are not in your face like they are in Pattaya either.
Drink prices vary from 45 baht for a bottle of Chang in some places, to 150 baht for a Chang in the Hua Hin Brewery.
Plenty of ladyboys to spot whilst you enjoy a beer and people watch!
We really liked it and it's currently second in our favourite places in Thailand, just behind Chaweng on Koh Samui, but definitely ahead of Bangkok and Pattaya.
We will almost certainly be going back to Thailand next Feb or March, this time to Phuket or Krabi - I can't wait, it's a truly marvellous place.
We decided to get a limo from the Hilton back to Bangkok airport to save the hassle of finding a taxi. This cost 4800 baht. We got a BMW 5 series and to be honest, it was worth every single penny!
Our flight was delayed by an hour again. It took just over 12 hours to get back to Heathrow - again, I won't go into how bad the flight was, suffice to say I won't be flying with Thai Airways again until they upgrade their fleet.
A great holiday and I am so gutted I go back to work tomorrow!!
TC
