11th March 2005 – Bangkok to Hue Hin 3 hours

Hue Hin is a weekend destination for a lot of wealthy Thai’s from Bangkok especially as it is located only 3 hours away. A lot own expensive condo’s overlooking the sea. Hue Hin also attracts a lot of Scandinavians and Germans for some reason, a lot on two week package holidays. As well as western couples and families there are a lot of single men on the hunt for pretty young Thai girls. It is an extremely common site to see older, overweight, unattractive western guys with petite beautiful Thai girls on their arm. I think a lot of the girls come to Hue Hin from north eastern Thailand looking for something better in life. Surely they could do a lot better than some of the men they end up with?
Hue Hin is probably not the sort of place we would have thought of stopping in but there is a long beach clear of obstacles such as rocks, good wind and a kite school which amounts up to an excellent place to learn how to kite surf. It was also a good half way stop to Koh Phan Ghan where we were all planning to head to next.
Our lessons with Kite Board Asia were great fun and we both conquered a lot of fears we had with controlling huge mother kites as well as starting to get good intense exercise.
Hue Hin has a great night market with both wonderful delicious food stalls and clothes stalls. When it comes to buying clothes or getting tuk tuks the Thai’s are certainly not into haggling like the Indians are. It’s a shame really as I was quite getting into having a god haggle everyday. This is even more apparent in somewhere like Hue Hin as people have the money and don’t mind spending it. Not your average backpacker’s destination.