Hua Hin is one of our favourite places to visit in Thailand. It’s fairly laid back, not too busy, has a lot of good restaurants, and many interesting things to see and do. We’ve probably been to Hua Hin dozens of times now.
We just got back from another trip where we explored the area south of Hua Hin, and met up with Wobbly Cat, a Canadian friend of ours.
The tourist high season is on the wane, and our drive there was a quick two-hour trip! The traffic was quite light, with only a few crazy drivers encountered.
The first night we met up at our favourite markets in Hua Hin, the Cicada Market and Tamarind Market. The two markets are side by side. Our goal was to eat, and not shop.
The food at both markets is excellent! We find Tamarind is a bit less expensive and, while smaller in footprint, seems to have more food options. You can pay cash or scan there. Tamarind is open Thursday through Sunday in the evening.
Cicada Market is another good option for dining, and has a really good market, full of the works of talented artists, and loads of interesting crafts. This isn’t the usual tourist market full of kitschy trinkets, souvenirs, elephant pants, and such. Those markets can be found elsewhere in Hua Hin though.
They also have two stages at opposite ends of the market, and have live performers. Cicada is open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening. To purchase food, you go to a kiosk to buy food coupons, and if you haven’t used them all, you can refund them, but it has to be done the same night.
My meal that night was from Tamarind, and I had 100 grams of pork belly for 100 Baht ($4.20 Cdn, $3.05 US) and Som Tum (papaya salad) which cost 50 Baht ($2.10 Cdn, $1.52 US). After we left the market, we stopped at Koody Cow, across from our hotel (Hop Inn), and we both had a Yuzu Lemon Soda. I can’t remember the price, but they are really good!
Exploring South of Hua Hin
The plan had been to go to Ying’s Café for breakfast but, due to unforeseen circumstances, they were closed. We have a good list of favourite breakfast spots in Hua Hin, so we went to Oasis Café.
I had my usual English breakfast. Our friend Wobbly Cat joined us a little later, and we headed south from our breakfast stop.
The first stop of this day trip was Wat Khao Noi Pak Nam วัดเก่าเขาน้อย (ปากน้ำปราณ). We were surprised to find that the wat was very busy and we weren’t sure why. We figured that it may have been an ordination day, or celebration of someone becoming a monk.
It was a happy occasion, and the music was unlike any I’d heard at a Thai Buddhist temple before. The drum, trombone, and trumpet music would have been equally at home in New Orleans!
I’m glad we started the day here and managed to catch the celebration. It was a bit of a spectacle, and a lot of fun! Some of my favourite days in Thailand have been when I catch these sorts of celebrations by accident.
The main temple building is quite nice and, as is often the case, the complex is on top of a small mountain, giving you nice views of the surrounding countryside and the sea. It’s definitely worth checking this wat out, even without the celebrations.
We piled back into the car and moved on to the beach!
I’m not 100% sure, but the stone in front of the Buddha at the main temple may be what is known as a sema stone, or boundary stone. I saw something very similar to this at Khao Phra Angkhan in Buriram.
Enjoying Beach Life
We spent part of our first full day on this trip walking in the ocean at Khao Kalok beach (one of our favourites there).
It was low tide, so we were able to walk quite a way out, and further along the cliffs than we had before.
The ocean has scoured out several caves at the furthest point we reached.
It’s interesting to see the composition and structure of the limestone, and agglomerate rock that forms the cliffs.
The beach at Khao Kalok has some of the softest sand I’ve ever felt, but it was hot! At least the breeze coming off the ocean was pretty cool. The ocean water was quite warm!
Another feature of Khao Kalok beach is the natural stone arch. It is a bit obscured by trees, but is quite visible if you’re close to the water. You can even climb up the small mountain.
I’ve climbed up to the top of the mountain before, and the views are quite nice from the top. We decided not to go up today. It is a bit of a tricky hike up and down. You have to be careful, and not in a hurry. It was just too hot to climb today. We’ll just have to come back and do it again when it’s cooler.
Because this beach is a bit off the beaten path, it’s mostly locals that come here. There are some tourists, but it probably takes 30 minutes to get here, so that keeps the bulk of them away. There are some hotels nearby, dotted along the seashore. They’re not huge, which is nice.
After wandering along the seashore, we rinsed the sand off at the nearby bathroom, and headed down the road to the second, nearby temple of Wat Khao Kalok. There wasn’t a lot to see, but it looks like they’ve got another interesting addition to the temple currently under construction.
After that short stop, we travelled a few more kilometres down the road to have a small lunch, and refreshments at Baan Pal Coffee. I had the Pad Kaprao Moo with Egg (45 Baht $1.90 Cdn $1.38 US), and Crystal had what was essentially Pad Kaprao with spaghetti, and a passion fruit smoothie. The food was really good, and just enough to tide us over for a while.
The cafe was just across from the beach. On Apple Maps I found that this area, south of Khao Kalok, was referred to as Pranburi Beach, but on Google Maps, that was further north, so who knows?
Dining in Hua Hin
We arrived back at our hotel mid-afternoon. It was a good opportunity to shower, and remove the salt, sweat, and sand!
We relaxed and napped until it was time to head out for supper.
Since we’ve visited Hua Hin so many times, we have a pretty good list of places we like to eat. We are never there long enough to visit them all, unfortunately!
We could probably go a few weeks without eating lunch or supper at the same restaurant. It’s nice to have such good choices!
Crystal and I were both feeling like having pasta, so we chose Pizza Garden on Soi 94. Of all the restaurants I’ve eaten at in Thailand, I think they easily have the best lasagna, and that is what we had tonight. It did not disappoint!
Our friend Wobbly Cat had a pizza. We were even treated to a Chinese lion dance group wandering down Soi 94.
After visiting for a while longer, we headed back to the hotel for an early night. After being in the hot sun all day, it was going to be an early night. We were happy it was nice and sunny, lots of blue sky, and that the air quality was really nice.
Early Morning
I’ve rarely had issues at my favourite hotel chain, and this one was a doozie. At 4 a.m. I woke up and could smell something but couldn’t figure out what it was. I was half-asleep, and it took me a few minutes to figure out that it was smoke from marijuana. At 4 a.m.!
For those who don’t know, marijuana is legal in Thailand now. I don’t have a problem with it, and don’t care if people use it. It’s not for me, but that’s okay. I do get pissed off when people smoke it where they shouldn’t be, like in their hotel room.
In addition to not allowing durian in your hotel room, virtually every hotel has a no cannabis rule, for obvious reasons.
Once I’d woken up, it seemed to get even stronger. I have no idea why we were smelling it like we were, but it may have come from the room below us. I went to the front desk where the clerk apologized (it wasn’t her fault!) and she quickly got us another room on the first floor.
After packing and moving our belongings, we managed to get back to sleep.
Breakfast in Hua Hin
We slept in a bit, fortunately. Once we got up, we quickly got packed and headed out for breakfast. We ended up going to House of Croissants because we knew it had the best air conditioning. It was already a toasty day in Hua Hin! We had a good breakfast. Mine was an English breakfast, of course, and Crystal had eggs benedict. Crystal really likes the sourdough bread there, and picked up two loaves to take home. It is good!
We stopped at Gallery Drip Coffee for one more coffee before hitting the road. Wobbly Cat met us there. It was going to be a day without many stops. We were tired from the interruption to our sleep. Also, leaving to go back to Bangkok isn’t always a bad idea. We were lucky enough to avoid any heavy traffic, though there was a fair amount of construction in Bangkok.
It was a short, quick trip to Hua Hin, but a good one. We didn’t have much time to do anything else!
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