Summer is here!

View from the room. ALL rooms have sea veiw.

When the weather turns colder, people living in BKK head for the hills (Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son etc). As it gets hotter, we head for the many beaches that are available. The nearest beach is actually Pattaya which is an hour's drive away. However, I don't like it as the beach is nothing to speak of as it is covered with beach chairs and vendors hawking their wares. Also, there are many pubs and discos that are pretty sleazy and not child appropriate.

Hua Hin is a little further (about 2 hour drive) but because the Thai Royal family has a residence there, there is an absence of go-go bars and strip joints. They still have stretches of beaches that are fairly secluded far away from the crowd.

Last week, as it was the school holidays, my friend and I decided to take the children to Hua Hin for a couple of days. We had heard that Marriot had opened a new hotel on Cha-Am beach (about 20 minutes from Hua Hin) that had a great rate for Thai residents (2,500 baht nett including breakfast). Being Singaporean, we couldn't pass up on a good deal, could we?

We had a blast. The hotel was very comfortable and NEW. There was a huge swimming pool with a slide which the children loved. Best of all, the beach was fairly quiet (it could be that it was a weekday) and safe enough that we could let the children go off by themselves to dig for crabs while we lounged nearby. They spent hours just digging and digging and digging. It was good to see them enjoy this very simple pleasure. And me? I was enjoying reading my book whilst stuffing my face with eclairs and chips :)

There was a huge Kid's Club which was one of the biggest I have seen. They have loads of things for children from toddler to teens to enjoy. There were Playstations, snooker tables, foosball tables, a mini movie theater and even cribs for naps! I escaped from the heat for a while and curled up in a chair to read. Niiiceee.

A holiday is not complete without good food. We went to our favourite coffee shop for dinner and it did not let us down. Only thing about this place is that there is only 1 cook. So when it gets a bit crowded, you have to wait up to an hour to get your meal.

The kitchen where all the goodies came from.



'Or Suan' or oysters with egg. Very generous portion of oysters with gooey egg.

I'm not much of a vegetable eater but I love this. Kanna with 'plah khem' (salted fish). There is a smoky flavour to the dish.

'Hua chor' . Never had it this way but it was very good as there was a lot of crab meat.

When it was time to leave, I wondered why I don't go to Hua Hin more often. It has changed over the years. There is even a (gasp) mall and cinema there now. It gets crowded on weekends because half of BKK heads there. But there are still pockets of beaches where you can lie back with a good book and forget about whatever is going on out in the world.