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Hua Hin


Krapow

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4 hours ago, Horizondave said:

I think as it is in Prachuap Khiri Khan it is classed as southern Thailand. Cha Am on the other hand is in Petchaburi and may just count as Central.

Hua HIn by the way is a wonderful place, lived there 5 years.

Yes, going to see if I think I could live there.

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51 minutes ago, Baldylocks said:

9 day booked there for November, looking forward to seeing somewhere new to me. - booked accommodation via airbnb for the first time too. Im loving this retirement 

Used airbnb in Thailand and elsewhere, never a problem. 

Booked VT6 via airbnb for this coming Jan as well.

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On 9/4/2018 at 12:40 AM, Horizondave said:

I think as it is in Prachuap Khiri Khan it is classed as southern Thailand. Cha Am on the other hand is in Petchaburi and may just count as Central.

Hua HIn by the way is a wonderful place, lived there 5 years.

Didn't realize it was that long boss.

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43 minutes ago, KhunDon said:

The City of Hua Hin that I moved too in 1999 bears no resemblance to the Hua Hin of 2018. 

Thousands of new houses, shopping malls, hotels and guest houses and of course, much more traffic, which the roads can’t handle, despite having a bypass. 

I remember the party and balloons, when Tesco opened a small shop in a petrol station on the main road through the city.

Very few European restaurants then. A couple of Italian ones a couple of French ones and two or three Swiss ones, that was it.

My wife supplied a few of them with sweet tarts and pies, at between 1000 -1200 a time, good business back then.

Did have a Mc Donald’s though, but getting a good, English breakfast or steak, was almost impossible!

One Englishman had a place called Buffalo Bills, which did steaks and a couple of English run pubs did English breakfasts, now almost every street pub sells them, along with Sunday roast dinners.

If you wanted to find European foods in the shops, you were out of luck, unless you went to the restaurants above or the large hotel restaurants.

There was a 3 story “supermarket” on main st, which sold mainly makeup, toiletries, girls clothes and not much else, I remember spotting a box of those individually wrapped small packs of butter in a freezer once, I bought the lot!

The place was actually very small, with toilets that a rat wouldn’t go in.

My wife made all the cakes for our coffee shop, but we had to go to BKK once a week to buy flour, chocolate, cake butter (which was white?) and Marscoponi cheese, for cheese cakes. Now, you can get almost anything there now., there is even a cheese factory owned by a couple of Dutch guys.

The areas with bars was mostly centred around the Bintabaht area and you could walk it all in around an hour. 

The council seem to want to move the bars out to other Soi’s now and gentrify that area. So whole streets on the outskirts consists of small bars that are mostly owned by farangs. They tend to open for a few months, then it goes back on the market again, although there are a few good bars that last the test of time. 

Luckly, when I took money out to Thailand, the £ was worth 76 Baht, land was cheap and you could build a 3 bed, two bath bungalow, for under 2 million Baht. The inlaws bought a few properties there back then, when they were cheap. A new, four story shop house could be had for 2.75 million Baht  in 2003, not sure what they go for now.

Now, land prices and building costs have gone through the roof and there are hundreds of second hand condos and houses on the market at stupidly high prices, which never seem to sell. Yet they still keep building them.

Having said all that, I’m glad of my time there and would do it all again in a heartbeat. 🤗

Sorry, just the ramblings of an old man with time on his hands, I’ll get me coat.

 

So, you prefer it then, or now?

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9 minutes ago, Krapow said:

So, you prefer it then, or now?

If I had to choose Krapow, I would choose the years 1999, to around 2005/6 as that’s when it got really busy. 

Stupid really, I know, because we had a business there, but we never were out to make a fortune and we ran it like a club. We didn’t advertise it, we didn’t even have a sign up, we figured if you could find us, you were welcome to come in. We had time to do what we wanted, we even closed the place one day a week and paid our staff to have the time off, no business did that back then.

In late 2001, we were in Pathum Thani at the inlaws and someone rang to say our business was in The Bangkok Post, I didn’t believe it, so got a copy and there was a full page spread on the place, pictures and all.

It turned out that the editor of the Post had heard of us and visited the place, eaten some of the wife’s cheesecake, liked it and the setting, so sent for a photographer and wrote the article without our knowledge. 

The day after the article, the phone was ringing off the hook with people asking where we were.

That was the end of our quiet life, as the Bangkok HiSo crowd started coming and we got so busy 7 days a week, we didn’t have time to ourselves. Not exactly what we had planned for an easy life. So after a few hectic years, we had another house built, so we gave the business to the wife’s family and spent our time traveling. 

Back then, the pace of life was a lot slower, most visitors were from Europe, US, Australia, now it’s more Chinese, Korean and Thai, with the rest  made up of farangs.

Of course, things never stand still and the building and traffic problems are the same with any growing city and that’s to be expected. It’s just not what suites the wife and I. In fact, on her visit to Thailand in July and August, they only went to Hua Hin for one day to visit the family and the rest of the time was spent in the North. 

I’m not saying Hua Hin was better back then, people must make up their own minds on that. I just preferred it back then. 👌

 

 

 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, KhunDon said:

If I had to choose Krapow, I would choose the years 1999, to around 2005/6 as that’s when it got really busy. 

Stupid really, I know, because we had a business there, but we never were out to make a fortune and we ran it like a club. We didn’t advertise it, we didn’t even have a sign up, we figured if you could find us, you were welcome to come in. We had time to do what we wanted, we even closed the place one day a week and paid our staff to have the time off, no business did that back then.

In late 2001, we were in Pathum Thani at the inlaws and someone rang to say our business was in The Bangkok Post, I didn’t believe it, so got a copy and there was a full page spread on the place, pictures and all.

It turned out that the editor of the Post had heard of us and visited the place, eaten some of the wife’s cheesecake, liked it and the setting, so sent for a photographer and wrote the article without our knowledge. 

The day after the article, the phone was ringing off the hook with people asking where we were.

That was the end of our quiet life, as the Bangkok HiSo crowd started coming and we got so busy 7 days a week, we didn’t have time to ourselves. Not exactly what we had planned for an easy life. So after a few hectic years, we had another house built, so we gave the business to the wife’s family and spent our time traveling. 

Back then, the pace of life was a lot slower, most visitors were from Europe, US, Australia, now it’s more Chinese, Korean and Thai, with the rest  made up of farangs.

Of course, things never stand still and the building and traffic problems are the same with any growing city and that’s to be expected. It’s just not what suites the wife and I. In fact, on her visit to Thailand in July and August, they only went to Hua Hin for one day to visit the family and the rest of the time was spent in the North. 

I’m not saying Hua Hin was better back then, people must make up their own minds on that. I just preferred it back then. 👌

 

 

 

 

 

Loving your contributions, thanks 👍

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KhunDon,

H.H. was one of our favorite retreats when out of BKK for a long weekend in the 90's

Honeymooned in the Sofitel, and later usually stayed there when visiting. Superb, historical place.

Yes, I guess it has changed A LOT, and not necessarily the way us old buggers would have liked it to.

Mind you, the old hand pensioners here say the same about Bali......

 

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Going to Hua Hin since 2002 for a week each year. Was it 2003. when mini Tesco Lotus opened? I even think it should have stopped there.

Now it is a madness, useless due to traffic jams. A friend, living there permanently told me November - March another 40,000 Scandinavians, Russians descend on the place and choke it off totally.

Just wait another 5 years when extension of the airport and new terminal building are complete. It is planned for 3.5 mil passengers a year. ( Koh Samui airport is 2.1 mil with planes landing every 15-20 minutes.)

From previous years stay, Dusit Thani, Sheraton, but not any more. Traffic to get to the city. If I stay in a hotel again, then Marriott, across shopping mall, no driving needed.

This year we stayed in an apartment past Khao Takiab, where Huan Hin - Pattaya ferry pier is. Will go again that area, even that same place. From there, reaching BluPort shopping mall is not too bad and not too far, no need to go into or through the city ever again.

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Announcement of the ferry, 2016. Many people were sceptical, I also thought it was set to fail as previous attempts had

2018pattayaferry00.jpg

But here we are, July 2018. 

2018pattayaferry01.jpg

Hua Hin - Pattaya ferry. Khao Takiab pier, that is where water is deep enough (a canal goes into the legendary fishing village).

2018pattayaferry02.jpg

No cars, passengers only katamaran

2018pattayaferry03.jpg

It was Tuesday. July 31, just ordinary weekday and it was almost full. Outside waiting room has 136 seats, inside aircon room another 70.

2018pattayaferry04.jpg

2018pattayaferry05.jpg

Beautiful stewardesses too

2018pattayaferry06.jpg

2018pattayaferry07.jpg

It departed on the dot, 16:00, in 2 hours, hello Pattaya

2018pattayaferry08.jpg

Edited by Colonel Kurtz
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4 hours ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

Going to Hua Hin since 2002 for a week each year. Was it 2003. when mini Tesco Lotus opened? I even think it should have stopped there.

Now it is a madness, useless due to traffic jams. A friend, living there permanently told me November - March another 40,000 Scandinavians, Russians descend on the place and choke it off totally.

Just wait another 5 years when extension of the airport and new terminal building are complete. It is planned for 3.5 mil passengers a year. ( Koh Samui airport is 2.1 mil with planes landing every 15-20 minutes.)

From previous years stay, Dusit Thani, Sheraton, but not any more. Traffic to get to the city. If I stay in a hotel again, then Marriott, across shopping mall, no driving needed.

This year we stayed in an apartment past Khao Takiab, where Huan Hin - Pattaya ferry pier is. Will go again that area, even that same place. From there, reaching BluPort shopping mall is not too bad and not too far, no need to go into or through the city ever again.

Colonel Kurtz.  Yes, the high season brings in not just the 40K you mentioned, but also tens of thousands each week from Asian countries, not to mention the Bankonians who come for Friday-Monday and who have houses/condos in HH.

We regularly used the HH to Don Muang flight that took off around 7pm and landed around 7.40pm. We could be at the inlaws house by 8.15 and spend the evening with them in Pathum Thani, then return on the morning flight. But the airport was always considered to be too close to the palace, so there was only two flight per day, then it died a death. Not sure, but extending the airport may allow larger planes from Asian countries to fly direct to HH, rather that land at Swampy and avoid the 3+hour drive. 

There was a time when we could drive from our house on Naebkehardt Road by the palace, to Khao Tao in around 5 mins, I wouldn’t even attempt it now, especially on, or near the weekend! 

Watched the news on the Ferry over the years, but never used it, good idea as long as the sea state is calm. I have heard, that if you have booked and they start the journey but then turn back because of rough seas, then you don’t get a refund, don’t know if it’s true or not. 

 

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1 minute ago, KhunDon said:

Colonel Kurtz.  Yes, the high season brings in not just the 40K you mentioned, but also tens of thousands each week from Asian countries, not to mention the Bankonians who come for Friday-Monday and who have houses/condos in HH.

We regularly used the HH to Don Muang flight that took off around 7pm and landed around 7.40pm. We could be at the inlaws house by 8.15 and spend the evening with them in Pathum Thani, then return on the morning flight. But the airport was always considered to be too close to the palace, so there was only two flight per day, then it died a death. Not sure, but extending the airport may allow larger planes from Asian countries to fly direct to HH, rather that land at Swampy and avoid the 3+hour drive. 

There was a time when we could drive from our house on Naebkehardt Road by the palace, to Khao Tao in around 5 mins, I wouldn’t even attempt it now, especially on, or near the weekend! 

Watched the news on the Ferry over the years, but never used it, good idea as long as the sea state is calm. I have heard, that if you have booked and they start the journey but then turn back because of rough seas, then you don’t get a refund, don’t know if it’s true or not. 

 

Currently flights from HH to Kuala Lumpur. Plans to extend the airport have been announced.

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August 2017, stopped by and had a look into the Hua Hin airport.

Staff (beautiful ladies) thought I was after a scenic flight. Gave me this newspapers, free, they said (although it had a price on the cover).

2018hhinairport10.jpg

I had doubts it would ever work. But it has, since May 18th 2018. Four flights a week.

Also, I had doubts that Hua Hin - Pattaya ferry would ever have enough customers. Witnessed, it does, posted somewhere ,above this post.

 

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I would recommend Hua Hin to anybody, the coastline from Cha Am down south past Khao Takiab south of Hua Hin contains many great hotels. Life doesn't all revolve around the Hilton although for single guys I doubt they would need anywhere else.  So much to do around the city.

I did a Hua Hin blog on another forum, maybe I will get Phil to lift it.  A lot of good info and links, some may be out of date but pertinent details for those traveling in the area.

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On 9/3/2018 at 5:40 PM, Horizondave said:

I think as it is in Prachuap Khiri Khan it is classed as southern Thailand. Cha Am on the other hand is in Petchaburi and may just count as Central.

Hua HIn by the way is a wonderful place, lived there 5 years.

I'd love to see it.

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3 hours ago, Horizondave said:

Have you made the top floor bar yet Mike, well worth the time to see the view at sunset and happy hour drink prices are very reasonable.

Not yet. They were shooting off fireworks a couple of weeks ago I assume it meant they had full occupancy.

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