Hua Hin, Chumporn and Ranong- 16th to 20th November

So, a night bus to Bangkok brings us back to the bustling city for all of 4 hours, where we decide to quickly move on and start exploring the South. A nice train is quite a relief, and we get some fish curry for lunch, much needed after the little sleep on the night bus.

Hua Hin Station is beautiful, and the town is a regular holiday destination for Kings of Thailand
for 100 years.

The town itself, however, has sadly these days become somewhat of a destination for what the Thai's call farang khee nok, (bird shit tourist) a term for poorly dressed white people with no manners who may or may not be looking for... company. However, if you ignore the disturbingly regular offers of a massage, the little laneways of the town are quite charming, and once we found somewhere that wasn't serving burgers or schnitzel, there are some lovely restaurants. Sun dried beef and freshly caught mackerel hot and sour soup.

Nice restaurant, terrible hair.

We visited the beach, and had our first dip in the Gulf of Thailand, which was warm and lovely. There were horses riding along the beach too, which was a little surreal. And quite a lot of half naked elderly white people.

The next day, we hopped on a train to Chumporn, which was, as ever, delayed, apparently due to the King arriving in town. Ben chanced the smoking area, which was just an open door on the fast moving train, and frankly was so terrifying, you'd need another cigarette to recover! We arrived very late- even the tuktuk drivers were going home, and dinner, by necessity was some crisps and cereal we had left in our bags, as all the food places were closed! It was only ever a little stopover on our way down (apparently the town's best feature is it's boats out to the islands!). But here's a picture of the hotel, and Jenny in a Tuktuk.

We got a bus from here to Ranong, a port town on the opposite coast, and a popular place for Burmese people to try to sneak into the country. We arrived expecting only a stopover in an bland port town, but found ourselves in the mountains at the side of town, with gorgeous views!

 

We were pretty much the only Westerners there (a lovely contrast with Hua Hin- I think we had become racist about ourselves), but lots of Thai tourists come to enjoy the rejuvenating properties of the natural hot springs. Everyone was really helpful and friendly, and we had one of the nicest and unexpected evenings of our trip.

After our nice dip in the red hot water (some brave/stupid people were dunking there whole bodies in!), we proceeded to drink a whole lot of Chang beer and eat 5 spice pork and shumai.

Yes. THAT drunk...