Hua Hin Spring 2024
By Helen
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| Kuala Lumpur March 2024 | Calgary Summer 2024 |
Our flight to BKK from KL left quite early, so we had to be up at 4 am which is never pleasant. We had checked in online but the KL airport was a bit of a nuthouse. The Air Asia self check-in machines weren’t very user friendly, people weren’t getting their luggage tags and there were larger groups all trying to check-in… staff did their best and in the end we got through. We even had time for coffee! We went and hung out at the gate where the weirdest thing happened. A larger Chinese tour group showed up and started taking pictures with me… no idea if it was because I smiled at one lady, looked funny or they thought I was someone else. This went on for about 15 minutes of people sitting with me, putting arms around me and holding my hand and we still have no idea why. Paul was about to help me out and put a stop to it when we started boarding.
The flight was smooth and we were back in Thailand. Immigration was the usual with long line ups, but overall moved fairly quickly. We grabbed the duffle and headed out into the chaos that is the BKK arrival area. Ness and Ian have a friend who had a regular driver contact so helped arranged Mac to meet us and he drove us to the condo in Hua Hin. Mac was really nice and we had a comfortable ride even though it was a long 3 hour drive. Ness had the keys sent to the condo, told us where to pick them up and we were able to get in with no problems. By this time we were pretty shattered, so we walked over to a local restaurant for a quick Pad Thai before calling it a day.
The funny thing about keeping a phone for 8 years is that once you get a new one it really points out how much speeds and capabilities have improved. Since we had picked up one for me, Paul had been testing mine and decided it would work for him. We were also questioning how long his Pixel 1 would last based on what happened to mine, it’s still going incase you are curious. We headed over to the Samsung store and picked up Paul’s new S24 Ultra. I had suggested he could have mine, which was black, and I’d get the new one, which could be violet… for some reason, he wasn’t interested and got the titanium color. He spent the next few days enjoying setting up the phone and being impressed with how fast it was. We went to a couple of the malls for groceries and a wander around, found some good restaurants and went to the beach. We quickly realized we’d need to take time to acclimatize since it was +40 not including the humidity. Paul spent a couple of days looking at some repairs that Ness asked for help with. He managed to get one repair completed and determined what would be needed to fix the second one.
About a week into the stay Ness and Ian arrived for the weekend… curtains, sai ua and pork crackling in hand. It was great to see them and we really enjoyed our time together. We went for dinner with their friends Charles and Joey before hitting Red’s for some dancing, pool and bevvies. The next day Ian picked us up, ran some errands, picked up Ness and we headed on an adventure to a local beach. We had lunch at a nice place right by the beach and drove down to a temple where Ness was able to use his drone. Paul wasn’t feeling great so we dropped him off and the 3 of us headed to the night market for dinner and browsing. Next day Paul was better so we went north this time, stopping for lunch before going to sit on the beach loungers. Afterwards we headed to Ness and Ian’s hotel for the rooftop pool before meeting Charles and Joey for dinner. We weren’t able to get a table for 6 at dinner, so we bowed out so Ness and Ian could visit with Charles and Joey since they don’t see them often. We had a quick meal, found a pub to watch the Liverpool game. Ness and Ian came and met us and we headed up to the rooftop bar of their hotel. It was a nice evening out. Paul and Ness made walking on the glass floor look easy… I made it seem like I was going to die while Ian was smart and didn’t even attempt it. We had to say our goodbyes as they left the next morning.
After that we settled a bit. We both ended up being sick, me with a nasty cold for a week. Just as I was feeling better, Paul ended up with COVID and was sick for over a week. We didn’t head out to celebrate Songkran since we didn’t want to spread any germs so we weren’t able to explore as much as we wanted to. It was actually okay because we had a nice apartment with everything we needed easily accessible. It was also in the +40’s, humid and somewhat smokey out so we weren’t going to be going far anyway.
Once we were over our illness we were able to start experiencing HuaHin. We used Grab to get food ordered and water delivered, so convenient. We pretty much split between 3 or 4 places and rediscovered a love of Pad Kra Pao. Paul found a small restaurant with amazing cashew chicken and great red curry. We found a good Indian restaurant and another place with amazing hung ley curry and somtam. There was a local market two blocks away with fruit and veggies so we were able to indulge in our passion fruit obsession. We figured out the best times to go to the corner restaurant, it got really busy at times. Paul’s SIM card finally stopped working so once he was better we made it over the AIS store for a new one. He was able to keep his original Thai number so no issues with the Thai banking app. I managed to have an issue with the apartment laundry but the staff were really nice and helped. I also managed to embarrass myself at the local laundromat… it’s only a 5 minute walk but in that heat so every time I showed up the lady turned up the fans saying “hot, hot”. I only spilled laundry detergent on my hand this time, instead of all over my feet which I consider a win.
Paul surprised me with bidding on an upgrade to business class for our EVA Air flight from BKK-TPE. We had already used our Aeroplan rewards to book TPE-YVR-YYC. He made a successful bid and we planned to take advantage of the lounges! We spent the time looking for apartments in Calgary and started contacting landlords. Eventually we found an apartment we liked, had a video chat, sent the deposit and signed the lease. Ian and Ness helped us sort out the ride back to BKK, a friend of Mac this time. We packed up, arranged a quick stop at the local post office to mail the keys back to Ness and we were on our way to BKK.
We had decided to spend a night at the Novotel BKK Airport. It allowed us not to worry about the potential for traffic issues or problems on the longer drive. It was also connected by tunnel to the airport so we could easily access the shops and restaurants. We walked over to the airport for lunch, found some decent food, managed to get some Thai sauces at the 7-11 and headed back. We had a lot of time so we were able to pack and get everything sorted for our flights the next afternoon. We had a nice sushi meal at the hotel that night and had a restful night. Our booking included the breakfast buffet the next morning… chewy bacon and broken coffee machine so tell you how that went. We had a few more hours before heading over to the check in for our flights back to Canada.
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| Kuala Lumpur March 2024 | Calgary Summer 2024 |