Hua Hin

After a long-delayed, but comfortable 4-hour bus ride we arrived in Hua Hin, a beachy resort town south of Bangkok. There's a strong military presence there because this is where the ailing King now resides. Even so, it's a very laid back place.

Our first adventure was taking a tuk-tuk to Koh Takiap beach. Next to the beach was Monkey Mountain, a place where you can feed peanuts and bananas to the always hungry monkeys. As the photos show, if you don't feed them fast enough they'll jump on your head. It was quite entertaining and ended up being the only place we saw monkeys for the rest of the trip. Next, we went further south to the quiet and beautiful Suan Son beach. We swam in the warm ocean but didn't stay in long because there were many jellyfish floating around.

On our second day, we took a snorkeling trip about 2 hours south off Koh Lan island. Like the monkeys, the fish are also crazy about bananas. They ate them right out of our hands. It was amazing seeing the variety of tropical fish and coral reefs. This was the highlight of our time in the south.

Back in Hua Hin, we saw a night of Thai boxing. After entering the ring, each boxer performed an elaborate traditional dance. During the actual match, both boxers moved rhythmically to traditional Thai music as they fought. It's much more graceful than the boxing we know.

At nights, all the tourists come out and the place turns into a zoo. We were taken back at how rude some of them were to the locals, who we found to be extremely nice and tolerant. Four days in Hua Hin were enough. We were ready to go north to Chiang Mai.