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Holiday in Thailand
What is the best place to go on holiday in Thailand? Where do you get hassled
the least? Where can you find the best food, nicest scenery, prettiest girls?
This month’s article is partly about tourism in Thailand and partly about
changes Thailand has gone through in the last few years. Those among you who are
looking for extensive travel information about the whole Kingdom will be
disappointed. I limited myself to giving a brief recount of my recent stay in a
popular Thai beach town, namely Hua Hin.
I’ve been to Hua Hin a number of times, I think five times in total, and I have
to admit I quite like the place. It’s easy to get to and not too far from
Bangkok. Nice A/C vans leaving from Victory Monument take you there in under
three hours for the modest fare of 180 baht. Alternatively, buses leave from the
Southern bus terminal, cost just a bit less and take an hour or so longer.
Apart from the first time when I ended up staying in a guesthouse, I always stay
at the same middle class, Thai hotel with swimming pool where a nice, clean fan
room with satellite TV, fridge, and hot water can still be had for 535 baht a
night (about 15 US dollars). It’s located in the centre of town, and is only a
ten minutes’ walk from the beach. It caters mainly to Thais, but more and more
foreigners seem to be staying there lately. Not surprising given the modest room
rate.
What is there to see or do in Hua Hin? Not a lot really. I usually limit my
activities to walking or relaxing on the beach, having some seafood snacks and
fresh coconuts, swimming in the hotel swimming pool and walking around town,
both day and night. There are a few scenic spots where you can take nice
pictures, such as Khao Takiab, i.e. a hill with Buddha statue some five
kilometres to the south. You can get there by songthaew (shared taxi), motorbike
taxi, tuk-tuk or just by walking along the beach. Other photo opportunities
include the historic, renovated railway station and the luxurious Sofitel
Central Hotel, formerly known as the Railway Hotel. I suppose there is golfing
and fishing too, but I’m not really into that.
Apart from this, there is of course some shopping to be done. The daily night
market in the centre of town attracts lots of people for handicraft shopping and
wining and dining. The area around the Hilton Hotel is also popular, esp. with
the people staying there. There is now also Market Village, a recently opened
airy mall cum supermarket about two kilometres south of town, which seems to be
popular with tourists staying in the nearby luxury hotels. It’s very similar to
Bangkok shopping malls and not really spectacular, but I suppose it’s worth a
visit if you run out of ideas about what to do. You are on holiday after all,
which probably means lazing about all day and spending money.
Let’s not forget to mention the ubiquitous tailor shops. Nowadays, you can’t
walk half a block without running into an Indian tailor trying to sell you his
cheap combination of suit/2 trousers/2 shirts/2 ties and some other free crap
for less than 100 dollars. If you go into the shop and start looking at nice
fabrics though, you’ll soon find out that the suit you really want will cost
about three times as much. Still a fairly good deal for people in need of cheap
suits I suppose.
The Northern hill tribe people have found Hua Hin. Whereas on previous visits I
hadn’t really noticed them, this time they were there en masse. The daily night
market and the area around the Hilton hotel seemed to be their favourite
targets. You couldn’t sit for more than five minutes at your table before some
hill tribe woman showed up and tried to sell you one of those wooden frogs or
other handicrafts. Be prepared to do some bargaining but don’t go overboard. The
things they sell are not extremely expensive and they only try to scrape
together a living after all. Fortunately these people are quite friendly and
take rejections in good spirits.
Holidays in Hua Hin have become a bit more expensive over the years. The room
rate at this particular hotel that I favour has just about doubled compared to
first time I stayed there, which was four years ago. Luckily, it’s still rather
cheap compared to other hotels or travel destinations. The food prices are still
reasonable, although I have the impression that some of the seafood restaurant
along the beach charge rather hefty prices for fresh fish, squid and shellfish.
If you go to a place that charges by the weight of what you eat, you’d better
keep an eye on those scales when choosing your dinner. It’s weird, but the
cheapest tourist restaurants in Thailand for freshly grilled fish aren’t
anywhere near the sea, but in soi Rambutri, the back street near Khao San Road,
the ever-popular backpacker hangout in central Bangkok, where a big grilled red
snapper can still be had for a mere 100 baht.
Hua Hin has always been popular with Thai tourists and has attracted many
international travellers as well. I had the impression that quite a few of the
western tourists I saw where there on some package deal which probably included
Bangkok and Hua Hin. Is it worthwhile coming to Thailand and just visit Bangkok
and Hua Hin on a package tour, as some people from the West seem to do? I don’t
think so. Mind you, this is just my personal opinion, but I think that if people
travel half the globe just to see a vibrant, but crowded and polluted city like
Bangkok and a nice, but ordinary beach town like Hua Hin, they could just as
well go to a Greek or Spanish island or to an exotic Caribbean destination.
Thailand has a lot more to offer and people willing to travel a bit could end up
seeing a lot more interesting places, such as Chiang Mai or Krabi, some of my
personal favourites. Unless of course they don’t want to move their butts for a
whole two weeks and just eat, drink, lie in the sun and get a nice lobster
colour or skin cancer.
What else, except prices, has changed in Thailand over the last couple of years?
The weather maybe. There seem to be more flash floods than ever and the rainy
season has started unusually early this year. By the way, forget what the travel
guides say about the best time to visit Thailand. There simply isn’t a bad time.
It’s quite hot year round and when it rains, it’s usually just for a couple of
hours.
For the rest, the troubles with the insurgents in the deep South are still a
long way from being resolved. It seems to be getting worse actually, with a hit
man killing a teacher in front of his classroom last month and a disturbing
number of random killings of officials, vendors, teachers, policemen etc.
Tourists shouldn’t really be put off by this violence, as it is limited to the
deep South, an area far away from the tourist destinations and with hardly
anything worthwhile to visit anyway.
Politics are quite different from a couple of years ago. Four years ago, the
Thai Rak Thai party and Prime Minister Thaksin were still basking in the glow of
their election victory and ruled the country with an iron, Thaksinomical fist.
Now the country has been in political turmoil for more than six months, with
upcoming elections in October. The difference seems to be that a big majority of
the population is getting completely fed up with politics and even the King is
desperate for the country to get out of the political quagmire it is in.
In a nutshell, I don’t think there is just one best place to go on holiday in
Thailand. There are many different interesting locations in this wonderful
country. The most beautiful scenery can probably found in the North, with its
relaxing mountain views, or in the South, on and around some of the smaller
islands around Krabi. The best food is easy. Thai food is cheap and delicious
just about everywhere you go. You’ll probably get hassled most in the busy
tourist venues such as Phuket and Samui. The prettiest girls? I wouldn’t have a
clue.
The author of this article can be contacted at
philiproeland@hotmail.co.uk
1/8/2006
PS: The hotel I stayed in was the Subhamitra Hotel on Amnuay Sin Road, very near
Petchkasem Road and a large temple complex.
A map can be found on
http://www.thaitambon.com/Maps/HuaHinMap1.htm .
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