Hua Hin

Hi all,
Jana and I just took our first trip (in Thailand) outside of Bangkok this past weekend. We went to Hua Hin, a beach town about 3 hours south of BKK that Lonely Planet describes as a "beach resort that priveleges luxury over hedonism"--a fairly apt description. There are several upscale hotels and condominium buildings, much of Hua Hin looks very similar to Florida: palm trees, tons of sun, and elaborate condominium buildings. I'll forego more general descriptions to give you all a day-by-day account.
Day 1
We left Bkk about 630 in the morning. We left early in order to move through traffic quickly. This plan worked well until we ran into--of all things--a marathon running through downtown Bkk. Needless to say, we were stuck in traffic at this point for over an hour. Finally, we arrived at the bus station about a little after 8 and got on our bus shortly after. We arrived in Hua Hin about noon. After a quick bite we headed to our guesthouse--450 baht a night, or about 13 $. (In this case we got we paid for, fortunately we didn't spend much time in the room itself.) We quickly evacuated our room and headed to the beach. The beach at Hua Hin is quite nice, the sand is white and fine, though the ocean was a little murky just coming off of their wet season. (The pictures make the water look clearer than it actually was.) We hung out at the beach for several hours and then after the sand, travel, and fatigue started to cause a little turmoil we decided it was time to get cleaned up. We ran home, showered, and then headed to a seafood restaurant a couple of our friends recommended.
I've had some good meals in Thailand (I've had some great meals in Thailand) but I think Jana and I would agree this was the best we've had. We ordered bbq prawns and a whole steamed fish with a side of steamed rice. The prawns we're huge (see the pics)and very delicious and the fish was--according to Jana: "The best fish I've every had." The dishes were served with garlic/chili sauce and sweet/sour sauce that were more savoury than seeing Brad Martin fail. The food was so good we decided to go ahead and order two more entrees. After dinner we headed to "downtown" Hua Hin--a small area full of al fresco bars--hung out here for a little while and went home.
The next morning we headed to Khao Takiab, a large cliff overlooking Hua Hin. This was one of the more diverse and rich experiences we've had in Thailand--combining incredible natural beauty, beautiful shrines, and a million half-wild, half-domesticated monkeys. Besides the food, this was my personal highlight of the trip, very Thai and very rewarding. After this, we headed to our tuk-tuk driver's personal hook-up (all the tuk-tuk drivers are connected to some store that offers them a comission for bringing tourists to their site), an elephant/horse/atv adventure camp. After some haggling with the Thai workers there, we decided to go ahead and ride an elephant. The elephant rider took us through a swamp and around a winding (sometimes steep path). You basically feel like you're falling off the giant at all times so Jana was screaming accordingly. After a while, our guide hopped off and invited me (I think he knew this would be a little much for Jana) to climb down onto the head.
This was about enough excitement for us for the day so we headed home, changed and went to the beach for a few hours. After the beach we cleaned up, went "downtown" and celebrated Jana's birthday (one day early) at a pizza restaurant. Good pizza is surprisingly hard to get in Thailand, and we were both pleasantly surprised by the price and quality of our pizza. After dinner, we stopped by the al fresco bar we went to the previous night, met a British couple that we talked to for a while, and eventually headed back to our guesthouse. The next morning we left Hua Hin at noon.
My overall impression from Hua Hin is of a more laid-back and relaxed Thailand. (It's often said that there are two Thailand's, Bkk and everywhere else.) Though Thais in general are best characterized as more laid-back than their Western counterparts, in Hua Hin this outlook is definitely more pronounced.