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- a modern temple in Hua Hin
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- Evason Resort & Spa room
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- Hua Hin oceanview
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- Hua Hin beach view
**NOTE (you can click on the above photos to blow them up to full size)**
Hua Hin is a nice beach community about 200km south of Bangkok. Travel to Hua Hin is very convenient and is a major tourist destination, though the Hua Hin community is much quieter than the beach communities of Pattaya or Phukett, which are further South. Hua Hin is not a “party town” but rather a quiet beach area with some very nice high-end resorts located there. I believe the royal family also has a home in this area as well. What the community lacks in night life, it makes up for in solitude. If you are looking for a place to relax, this is it. That is not to say that the public beaches here don’t get crowded, they do! But if you are staying at a resort, most of them have their own private beach area which eliminates the crowds and gives you some solitude.
Getting to Hua Hin from Bangkok is easy – you can travel there by plane, bus, or car. If travelling by car, you can take Highway 35 out of Bangkok until you connect to Highway 4, then take Highway 4 south.
Though the beaches and community is very clean, don’t expect white sands and green water. The Hua Hin area is reminiscent of southern California beaches in my opinion (see photos).
When I visited here back in February of 2008, I stayed at the Evason Resort & Spa, a 5-star resort, which is the nicest place I’ve stayed at in my travels to Thailand thus far. However, despite the beautiful room, complete with a canopy bed, the bed itself was just 2 twin beds pushed together and the beds were much too firm for my taste. I don’t know if this was due to us getting a “promotional rate” or if this is their standard room. The room is about $200 a night during their peak seasons, which is generally November – February I believe, but if you book and pay in advance you can get the room for about half that – I paid less than $100 a night. They have specials as well, so you can probably get the room for less than $200 a night if you plan ahead. Their website link is listed in the links section on my blogroll.
The food from room service was excellent though expensive for Thailand and the staff service was also excellent. I didn’t try out the spa, but we did visit the pool one morning for breakfast. They have a large breakfast buffet that is served poolside, which is included with the room rate for some packages. There were a number of items available for the breakfast, but most of the dishes were rather average tasting, and served rather cold, which was puzzling to me because room service food was so good. The ginger chicken was off the chart!!
When you arrive at the resort, they come to pick you up at your car in their parking lot, and drive you to the check-in area in a “Jurassic Park-like” resort jeep – pretty cool!! And then after you check-in, the jeep drives you over to your room. Some of the rooms are bungalows, set apart from the other rooms (these are more expensive), and some of the rooms are in little groups of 4 or so. The hotel sits across the street from the beach, so there aren’t any true “ocean-view” rooms on the beach, but this is true for all the hotels in Hua Hin to my knowledge – they aren’t allowed to build directly on the beach. But the beach is an easy walk from the hotel, just right across the street. It is a very relaxing place to stay, but more than a few days and you would be bored I think. There really isn’t anything to do around there, other than the pool and the beach and a few places to see if you venture into Hua Hin – the resort actually sits outside the main area of the town, but there are signs directing you to the resort once you reach Hua Hin. However, the only signs I saw for the resort were rather small and you had to really be looking see them – puzzling for such a nice resort! But perhaps there are restrictions for how large advertisement signs can be in this area. At least this was the case back in 2008, perhaps the signage is better now!
If you are looking for solitude and relaxation with clean, average-looking beaches then Hua Hin would be a good destination for you. If you are looking for nightlife and discotechs, then you probably will want to pass on Hua Hin.
*entry updated July, 2010
