Hua Hin
Trip Start
Aug 06, 2007
1
16
20
Trip End
Nov 17, 2007
Hua Hin, Thailand
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
We shelled out to stay at an unbelievably nice resort (the Anatara) in Hua Hin, which is 2 hours south of Bangkok for a few nights. This is the nicest resort I have ever stayed at or even seen and a nice change from some of the 2 star hotels we have stayed in to try to keep our costs down. Everything was over the top, beautiful and tranquil. We had Thai massages on the beach in front of our hotel, right next to the water and the crashing waves and they were amazing. The ladies climbed all over us and catered to our ever need. The ladies decided Jeff's feet needed some work, so a bunch of ladies clipped and filed away at his toes and then put on some ointment for the bug bites that he had. They finish off with an A535 type run down that leaves you feeling a bit numb and then they give you some really yummy pineapple and water after your massage. Once, Jeff fell asleep and was snoring during his beach massage and the massage ladies found this hilarious and kept saying "he like massage real good".
The Hua Hin experience with us is a perfect example of the old saying that 'there is such a thing as too much of a good thing'. We were liking it so much in Hua Hin, at the Anatara resort that we tried to extend our stay for an extra 2 days. The hotel said it was not possible as they were all booked. So I decided that was fine, and that we could simply move to another resort in town. I looked on line and found what looked to be a great place. Right on the beach, brand new resort, for only $30 equivalent a night. This sounded too good to be true. Well we indeed found that to be exactly the case. Although technically this resort was still on a stretch of beach considered 'Hua Hin' beach.....what the website did not say was that it was 45 minutes south of actual Hua Hin. We made the mistake of taking a friggen TUK TUK with all our luggage to this second hotel. Of course the tuk tuk driver had no idea where this resort was, neither did we, he did not speak english, we did not speak Thai, we had a bad map, and it took us a long time to find it. Essentially the resort was literally in the middle of no where. There was nothing...not a store, or another hotel or any sort of modern civilization within miles of us. One might think this would be nice...a little romantic get away from it all. I would have been willing to look at it that way if the hotel had had staff, or a restaurant, or other guests in it. However, to our knowledge the hotel was not actually open. The reason I say this is because there basically was one guy working there. The same guy who helped us check in, would be the one to take us to the area where we could 'eat'. I use the word eat loosely. It was the same guy who told us that we would have to walk a few miles to a shack on the road, by passing some scary wild dogs if we wanted to buy some water or coke. He was good in that he did actually walk us to the shack. He also called one of his buddy's to come and drive us into town when we wanted to go. Also...there was no working restaurant it seemed although they had a few items on hand for the few employees that must have been somewhere in the hotel. Pretty much the menu consisted of mayonnaise with a few things like fruit, bread something they called 'meat' or cucumber on the side. We ate mayonnaise for 2 days. It was pretty bad. We still don't really know what to make of the whole experience at this 'ghost town' hotel, but Jeff's theory is that it once was a hotel and they were preparing for a re-opening and maybe they were letting a few guests stay there in the duration. Who knows. At least we were safe though and had a nice view. It is funny now, a few weeks later, although I am still not ready for any mayonnaise any time soon.
