Hua Hin Christmas and New Year

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The two hour boat journey over to Chumpon from Koa Tao was the roughest boat ride we’ve probably ever had. Fortunately we weren’t sick and managed to get onto the coach for our four hour trip up to Hua Hin. Once we arrived in Hua Hin, we dressed up our bags in tinsel and put our xmas hats on, before we got a tuk tuk to Kris’s house. When we arrived Kris was in the garden hosing down the driveway, and just laughed his head off when he saw us. It was so good to see a familiar face.

Over the next couple of days we just chilled around Kris’s house with Ann Kris’s step daughter and Abi his three year old daughter. Oay his wife was in Bangkok working and wasn’t due back until Xmas Eve. We tested some of the local restaurants, all really good and had a nice relaxed few days. Kris’s daughter Abi has to be the cutest, well mannered little girl we have ever met, she constantly says ‘yes please’ ‘no thank you’ and ‘I cannot’. It is unbelievable that at three years old she can speak Thai and English already. One evening we went to see Abi in the big Christmas show her international school put on every year. They really go to town with everything, and it was really nice to see kids from all different nationalities (see pics).

Christmas Eve soon came round and we went out for a meal with some of Kris’s friends. Mark, Andrew and Steve were all from England, and had lived over here for a couple of years with their Thai wives/fiancee‘s etc. After the meal we all went out to the main square of bars in Hua Hin. We reached Kris’s favourite karaoke bar in the early hours and must of lost track of time, as we got in at 6.30am Christmas Day! Oh dear!

Christmas day, we woke around 8.30, having had just two hours kip. It was so nice though to see Abi open all her presents. We had bought her a few presents, and Oay and Anne as well. Kris got his bottle of beloved Pernod! Once the presents were opened, we retired to bed for a few hours before going for Christmas dinner at a lovely Irish bar, owned by a guy called John, who co-incidentally grew up in Denton, around the corner from us. There was 11 of us for Christmas dinner, so it helped not feeling homesick at this time, as there were so many characters. Christmas day night, we just stayed in at Kris’s with the family and Mark came over in the evening for a few beers.

Over the next couple of days we spent days around our pool and ate like kings and queens every night. Kris took us to all the best restaurants in Hua Hin. Papa Johns restaurant was the best steak I could ever remember eating and was only £12, we had an amazing pizza night at Pizza Corner, and they did my beloved Pepperoni! One of our favourites though was next door to the Chaoy Ley restaurant on the pier, where we had the best seafood imaginable (see pics).

The day after boxing day Kris’s dad (Mike), his sister (Lauren) and her boyfriend (Brett) had arrived. We did the usual bars, and hit the karaoke until early hours, and reminisced about the old times and happenings back home. We couldn’t believe it when we were in the middle of singing an oasis song, A friend of ours from back home Ian Lewis walked in and joined us drinking into the early hours of the morning.. Its such a small world!

New Years Eve soon came round and we were really looking forward to it. Kris had booked us into the Hua Hin Brewery restaurant (another amazing restaurant) There was 12 of us altogether, and Dave (Kris’s brother-in-law) had joined us from Bangkok to see in the new year with his family. At the meal it all started for Jen.. stomach pains, waves of sickness and it carried on into the night. We managed to see in the new year, and watch all the fireworks, before Jen couldn’t hold on anymore, and we had to retire earlier than the others to get Jen to her sick bed, not the best start to 2012 for her, at least it can only improve!

The next day was a right off as Jen was still ill, so we didn’t move from the hotel all day. We even ordered a McDonalds delivery! Which was amazing, and the food was still warm(see pic). The day after was more promising, and Jen started to feel better as we boarded our coach to Bangkok. The traffic was horrendous when we got there, but eventually we found our hostel ‘Lub D Siam Square’ which was amazing! Highly recommended, with the best showers ever!

The first night in Bangkok, we went for a meal with Kris’s family, Dave’s family and Loz and Brett to the 82^nd floor of the Baiyoke Tower for an all you can eat international buffet. It was amazing, with absolutely everything you could think of, including crab, prawns, Indian, Italian, Japanese etc all for 680 baht (14 quid). After the meal, Kris took me, Jen, Loz and Brett to the nana square on soi 4 for the bars. We were there less than ten minutes when I went into one of the bars to use the toilets, and saw 15 Thai girls naked dancing on stage -its just the norm here it seems! Unfortunately, Loz wasn’t feeling too good tonight, (hope she didn’t catch Jen’s bug) so we all retired early and told Kris I would have another night out with him in March before we go home.

The next day was a very productive one, booking accommodation, trips, travel, reviewing stuff and doing a much needed laundry load. At night, me and Jen decided to try out the bars in the Sukhumwit ourselves, and got the BTS sky train over there. We stumbled across the infamous Soi Cowboy strip of bars, which is basically bars with curtains behind the doors, strobe lights everywhere, lit up like vegas from the outside, and go go girls everywhere! Jen got confused on her way out of one of the bars and walked straight into a mirror, in front of everyone in the bar! Ha ha ha I couldn’t stop laughing for hours, evil I know. The funniest bit was that she had only had two beers as well so was sober.

We struggled to get up the next day, but had booked accommodation in Kanchanaburi for the next couple of nights, so had to get a move on to catch the train. We were both feeling a bit worse for wear and anxious about the train as we’d heard they’re pretty basic. The six mile journey from Siam Square over to Thonburi Station took just under an hour due to the crazy Bangkok traffic, but it was nice to make the most of the air con as the next few hours were rather sweaty to say the least!

We boarded the 259 train which was due to leave at 13.55 and arrive in Kanchanaburi at 16.20, it cost 100 baht each, £2! And the seats had cushions, so we were chuffed to bits. In actual fact it arrived at gone 6pm and we were crippled after the first hour and drenched with sweat! It was a great experience though and a good way to see the countryside, some of which was stunning, other parts not so much (loads of very poor ’shanty town’ type areas). Eventually we got there and had an early night in preparation for our tour the following day.

We got picked up by our Toi Tours bus at 8am (cant even remember the last time we saw that hour!) for our action packed day of sightseeing. First stop was the Erawan National Park waterfalls. The minibus took around an hour to get there and once we arrived our guide, Dao, told us there were 7 waterfalls but the 6^th and 7^th one were a big trek and you had to keep up a good pace to get back down in time for lunch. Me and Jen started to walk to the 1^st one, and as soon as she got the camera out, we realised we hadn’t charged it, so started worrying that we wouldn’t get all the pics from the trip. After realising there was nothing we could do, we went for a walk to the other 3 waterfalls taking quick pics as much as we could. At the 4^th waterfall it had big stones for you to step across and get to the other side for better pics, but as I took a few steps, my foot slipped and before I knew it I was knee deep in the water. (Jens turn to laugh at me). It was not a good start to a full day trip, walking around for the rest of the day with one totally soaked sock and trainer, but i saw the funny side and it could have been worse.

After lunch, the next stop was the ‘Hellfire Pass‘, which was the railway pass that the prisoners of war built during the 2^nd world war under orders from the Japanese. Thousands of prisoners as well as Thai’s died from building this pass, and we had an audio device taking us around the place. It had a very eerie feeling and was very sad when we heard the conditions they had to put up with.

Next was the Krasae Cave and the Death railway. The Krasae Cave was used to provide shelter for the injured and sick POW’s and Thai’s that were working on the railway bridge. It was too far for the ill to be carried down to the village, so they basically stuck them in a cave, right next to the railway bridge. The smell in the cave was awful, and they had cordoned it off near the end, as it went on further, but wasn’t safe. The Death railway was an awesome experience! We took a 30 minute ride to 4 different stops over the bridge that was built, which had a huge drop right next to it. Freaky!

The last stop was the ‘Bridge over River Kwai’. I had seen the film along time ago, but couldn’t remember it. After hearing the POW’s audio tapes, and reading up on the history, apparently the film did not show a true reflection of the conditions they had to endeavour, and also that there actually was no plot to delay the building of the bridge. The British colonel ‘Toosey’ and the Japanese major in charge at the time, are actually friends today and Toosey even defended The Japanese in the post court law cases. Crazy!. Amazingly, the actual concrete posts holding the bridge up today are the originals.

We finally got dropped off around 5.30pm, knackered, so we got a bite to eat and got ready to go back to Bangkok, to stay on the famous….. ‘KHOA SAN ROAD’.


Until next time..


TTFN folks xxxx

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Comments

[Pauline Bass]

Wow!
I definately know you are living the dream, your blog is amazing and the pictures are soooooo good. Cant wait for the next update. Love ya. Mwaaaaaaaa Mum & dad xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx