Beautifull Hua Hin Part 1

The next day we all met in the foyer at 9:00 to take a 4 hour drive in a minivan to Hua Hin. Hua Hin is a beautiful expat town on the coast somewhere a bit south of Bangkok. There is one main street going through the town and from there you can reach everything – making it impossible to get lost in Hua Hin.

The majority of the Thai population there can speak a very basic English (ie. they can count and say hello and goodbye). They are very friendly and very helpful. In general they won’t overcharge you for anything and you can basically bargain all the prices down.

The weather is less humid and stuffy than Bangkok. But make no mistake you still sweat like a pig and the aircon is your closest and best friend. During rainy season (August – October) you will generally have a sun-shiny day until about 16:00 and then there will be a massive downpour of rain for about 10 – 30 minutes.

You will find beautiful clean beaches with whit(ish) sand and clear (not blue) water.

So we arrived in Hua Hin where we got two options of places to stay.

The one place is close to the mall and a massive night market surrounded with lots of clubs. It is a bit far from the XploreAsia School (about 5km) which means you will have to rent a scooter or make use of the public transport every day to get to school and back. These apartments are perfect those that want to stay on their own and do not want to share a room. It costs 6000 baht a month and you have to put 6000 baht down as deposit. (The deposit you get back at the end of the month after they have deducted water and electricity usage.) Moving into this apartment will take a 12 000 baht (approximately R3000) gap out of your budget.

The other place is also next to a night market and opposite a newly built Tesco Lotus. It is very close to the XploreAsia School (about 1km) which means that you can easily walk to school and back every day. These apartments also have air-conditioning, satellite TV and hot showers. Steven and I decided to take one of these apartments as it allows for two people to share; it has big comfortable rooms and is very close to everything you will need. These rooms cost 5500 baht per month plus 6000 baht deposit (again you will get this back at the end of the month after water and electricity usage are deducted.) The smaller rooms are 5000 baht plus 6000 baht deposit. Water usage will cost you about 300 baht for the month and electricity (if you use a lot of aircon like we did) will be about 1300 baht. So you will get back 6000 baht minus approximately 1600 baht = 4400 baht at the end of the month. This makes this place VERY cheap and very convenient. (Costing in total about R2590 for the month)

 Here are some pictures of The Centennial:

There is a very cool night market right next to The Centennial which will help you to live on a very comfortable Thai-budget. (We will blog a bit later on budgeting in Thailand.)

This market operates from about 16:00 to 21:00.