Jon's Thailand Blog

The highlight so far was definitely our 4-day trip to the upper southern Gulf of Thailand, which I just returned from last night. Thursday morning the university took us on a “getting to know each other” overnight trip at the 5-star Dusit Resort in Hua Hin, completely paid for. We left Bangkok at 7:30am on a chartered bus that took us 200km south to Hua Hin, a small resort town right on the beach. Getting to campus that early was a bit rough, considering most of us went out the night before to this cool English pub called the Londoner, so I pretty much slept the entire bus ride there. When we got there we were all extremely impressed. Apparently the Dusit Resort in Hua Hin is one of the top resorts in all of Thailand. It was absolutely incredible. The lobby was all marble with an extremely ornate fountain, and everything screamed first class luxury. The landscaping on the grounds was immaculate, complete with exotic flowers and palm trees. The room and Andy and I shared overlooked a small field where people were getting massages under cabanas, and the ocean water. We immediately headed for the beach, which was just steps from the hotel pool. There we enjoyed slightly cool water (like San Diego in the summer) and just relaxed in the sun.

After about an hour we went to lunch at the main resort restaurant, simply known as “The Restaurant”. It was buffet style with some of the best food I have had on this trip, fresh seafood, meat, gourmet salad, and a large dessert and fresh fruit bar. Since the portions here are pretty small by American standards, it was the first time many of us had felt full since we had gotten here. After lunch we hung out by the pool for a little while then went and did some “team-building” activities, which were actually pretty fun. We split into three teams of about 11-12 each and competed in three different tasks (spider web climb, some other rope climb and filling up a bucket with multiple holes). After, the team with the overall time was awarded some sweet Dusit Resort polos. My team came in second, yet I still ended up with one somehow. After the activities it was back to the beach, then over to The Restaurant for dinner, which was equally good, if not better than lunch. That night most of us hung out on the beach. It was definitely a good time. The tide here is pretty crazy; low tide goes out probably a good 300 meters. It’s pretty cool to walk out to, however in the dark you can’t really see what you are stepping on.

The next morning we all got up for breakfast bright and early (9:30, I swear they never let us sleep in here), however it was not a disappointment- just as good as the rest of the meals, including a pretty good omelet bar. After we all checked out, we got back on the bus which took us about 15 minutes away to Maruekatayawan Palace, built by King Rama IV in 1923 in classic raised Thai Architecture style. It offered amazing views of the sea, as well as a sense that one was living “above the world”, raised up as Thai royalty is.

After the tour of the Palace, the bus dropped about 12 of us back at the hotel, while the remaining Thammasat remained on the bus back to Bangkok. Instead, we caught the hotel shuttle, which drove us in to the center of the actual town of Hua Hin. From here we walked to our hostel, which was essentially on a dock right on the water. Although this sounds pretty sweet at first, let me tell you I think we went from the best accommodations in Thailand to the worst. Lonely Plant’s description of a “dark and gloomy” hostel was spot on. Yet, the fact that Brian and I shared a room paying only 200 (about 3 dollars) made it worth it. You could easily feel every spring in our mattress, and our only sheets were the provided towels. However the best part of the hostel was how you flushed the toilet. We searched for a long time for any sort of lever or chain with which to flush the toilet, until we realized what the big bucket of water in the bathroom was for. To flush the toilet, you were to pour the water into the toilet bowl, which of course made the water splash everywhere. It was an experience to say the least.

We then spent the remaining afternoon on the beach, had a quick swim and hung out for a little before heading into town to find food. Brian and I went searching for street food with the rest of the group got some Italian and Indian food. Our food, for 25 baht each, was pretty delicious, although I couldn’t tell you what it was. Some sort of seafood and egg with noodles, I think. My stomach as grown quite accustomed to strange, and often spicy food. After dinner we went back to the hostel to relax and some others went to the beach to chill out. Unfortunately Charity got sick from something she ate, and went back to her room early. However, Charity happened to be sharing a room with Abby, Marney and Meris, and at the end of the night none of them wanted to go back to their room for fear of Charity getting sick again. Therefore, when Brian and I got back from the beach at around 4 am, we found all three of the girls sleeping in our bed. We found a way to fit five “decently” comfortably, and got some semblance of sleep.

The next day we all got up at a decent hour (more because of how hot it was in the bed and not because we planned on it) and headed to the beach before our noon checkout. Then a few of us went to find an internet café and some food.

Our next stop was another small beach town about 100km south called Prachuap Khiri Khan. Some of our group decided to take a taxi bus down, which apparently had karaoke, the rest of us rented motor scooters for the journey. I had never ridden one before, and it was amazing. I had a sweet Honda Wave 100 which topped out at about 100km an hour, or 60MPH. After cruising around the town to get the hang of it, and get somewhat used to driving on the wrong side of the road, we all set off south toward Prachuap Khiri Khan. It was a blast scooting along the Thailand countryside. It didn’t get better than Bruno, Mr. Italian, cruising along with a towel around his neck singing in Italian at the top of his lungs. It’s probably a miracle none of us got hurt, considering we were going flat out most of the way. I did however manage to roll my bike into a ditch when we were getting going after a quick stop, with no calls of “are you alright”, and only “get a camera! Get a camera!” It was really funny. Then a little while later a dog ran out right in front of me chasing a car, then when it saw me ran straight directly in front of me, leaving no where for me to go but right into it’s back hip. After I hit it I looked back and it was standing in the bushes looking at me, so I’m just going to assume it’s completely fine. We finally arrived at the next hostel that evening and found the others had pretty much started the party without us. After what was one of the best showers of my life, we sat down at the restaurant next to our hostel, which was a set of nice bungalows, and ordered dinner. The rest of the group had already made friends with the owners of the restaurant, Act and No, who were both incredibly nice, genuine people. That night they ordered tuk-tuks for us and took us out to a little hole in the wall bar. It was a nice relaxing atmosphere with a live band, and served 3-dollar pitchers. We all thought the price was pretty sweet, even though we realized that we were only paying $6 for our hostel.

The next morning we got up very early (which would have been impossible without Meris’s wakeup call) and went to Wat Thammikaram, a temple on a steep hill, which was full of monkeys. There were monkeys everywhere. When we drove up on our scooters, they all came out of the trees and caves and directly to us, expecting us to have food. We bought some peanuts from this little kid, Bon, and began to feed the monkeys. It was pretty wild. You could hand a peanut to them and they would reach out and grab it out of your hand. They would tug on your shorts and even reach in your pocket to get fed as well. It was a bit almost overwhelming at first; Dylan got over it and just dumped his bag on the ground and watched about 5 or 6 monkeys fight over the remaining nuts. The monkeys were climbing all over the scooters, and even trying to steal the keys and helmets, which learned we had to keep with us. This scene continued all the way up the 396 steps to the top. There were monkeys on the railings, on the steps and in the trees, it was really a crazy scene, and all wanted to be fed. The view from the top was pretty cool, seeing the surrounding islands, town and rice patties in the distance. The temple itself could have been fairly beautiful, aside from all the monkey feces and urine everywhere. After we all got back to the hostel we decided it was definitely time for another shower.