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Hua Hin - Who's Gonna Ride Your White Elephant January, 2008

We are now at our last beach stop before heading into Bangkok - three hours north by bus. We've flipped from theAndamen side (western) to the Gulf of Thailand (eastern). Surprisingly, the ocean is quite cooler and windy, something I didn't quite expect. We are about five miles outside the town of Hua Hin (pronounced 'wah heen'), the earliest resort town on Thailand's southern peninsula.  The place we're staying is very nice, again providing us with a VIP suite right on the ocean. However, it is not that close to the charming town, which is popular with the older prosperous German and Scandinavian crowd, a demographic group I do not particularly belong to. However, the night market in Hua Hin was outstanding, and you could get two pounds of prawns for $10. Throw in a couple of large Singh beers, and you are easily under $20.  To arrive at this location required a 10-hour overnight bus, interesting only by the inventiveness of the passengers as they sampled various positions to best get some sleep. Marge is always able to sleep on these trips - I'm not so successful. Therefore, I will end up doing some reading and listening to my ipod, which works out well.                                                                      Attached to this blog are some final beach shots  - in particular Marge - as she bravely took a ride on RaRa the elephant (hence the title of the blog). I have a personal rule not to mount anything larger than a human - a dog yes, a horse no, an elephant definitely not. The pictures are pretty funny, so enjoy.  The place we stayed outside Krabi at Klong Muong was really nice - great beaches, RaRa the elephant, walking distance to a little village, opportunities for interesting day trips - we think overall, this is the best location to base ourselves when we return.  Khao Lak was also very nice but sobering, the miles of beaches really dramatic - but underlying all of this beauty is the troubling fact that this was ground zero for the tsunami. However, great place to go and just walk on beaches all day long!  So on to Bangkok for about a week, with Marge cheering her team to victory in the Super Bowl early Monday morning. After that, we are headed off to Laos before our Thailand thirty-day visas expire. Then we will return into Northern Thailand the beginning of March for another thirty days, before crossing through Cambodia (Angkor Wat) into Vietnam for the month of April.   Most countries give you a thirty-day tourist visa 'on arrival'. If you want to stay longer, you need to apply for a visa in advance at the country's embassy, located in any of the large cities. Alternatively, in the case of Thailand, you leave the country, immediately return, and get another thirty days. For Vietnam, you need to apply in advance for 30 days. Before we left on our trip, we had applied for sixty (60) day visas for Indonesia. When we were in Kuala Lumpur, we arranged for multiple entry Chinese visas. Our Russian visas, probably the trickiest to obtain, need to be acquired by a specialist while we are in Hong Kong. Visas do get expensive, and range from $100-300 per person, so you need to manage where and for how long how you need them. Unlike Europe, they pay careful attention to your passport and visas when crossing the borders.  Marge has laid out a schedule for China during May, June and July before we board the Trans-Mongolian train for our trip across Russia July and August. Drop us a line if you care to join up on any segment, it would be fun. Trust that we're safe and healthy and appreciate and cherish the opportunity to share our travels with all of our friends. PS: No worries you can laugh at me - the elephant pictures are very funny -made me laugh today & I needed it since the Patriots lost - it took me 3 times to get on her - it’s not easy - she has been one of the highlights of our trip for me and it was so neat interacting with her - she would come out twice a day and know that I would bring her cucumbers which she then proceeded to take out of my shorts pocket! I asked Bill if I could get an elephant for a pet when we get home - I could keep it at my brother's property, but he said no. Marge

If You Go: Getting There: We arrived in Hua Hin on an overnight bus from Khao Lak, an eleven hour journey that cost $21/person. Sleeping Sheraton Amphur, Hua Hin - Very nice property, although too far from town. The beaches are not as nice as on the Andamen side. Here, it's rough, the water is stirred up, and it's more like an ocean. There is a shuttle from the hotel that drops you downtown. Dining: Great market food in Hua Hin. More Information: One of the first resort areas to be developed on the Thailand peninsula, I would not return. The beaches further south are much nicer.

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