Last weekend, we headed to Hua Hin which is known as the Royal Beach Resort. Our trip there gave us a little taste of public transportation in Thailand. From our dorm, we took a cab to the bus station where we got our tickets (160 baht for the "3 hour" ride). Three hours after we got on the bus, we were still on the bus, sitting in traffic and surrounded by other buses, pickup trucks with half a dozen people in the back, cars, motorcycles driven by parents as their children sat behind (or in front if they were particularly small). The highway was supposed to be three lanes but there were 5 lanes of traffic.. evidently lane lines are just optional in Thailand. We only passed 1 accident (a truck carrying yellow curry which spilled all over the road) which was surprising considering the drivers in Thailand are, for the most part, crazy. The good news was that the bus was air conditioned. As we neared Hua Hin, we pulled into a gas station and sat for about 45 minutes before my friends and I realized we were waiting in a VERY long line for gas and that we were only about 15 minutes away from our destination... oh the joys of not speaking Thai.. so we got out and hailed a cab. We finally arrived at our hostel (Jing's Guesthouse) around 5 and a half hours after we left Bangkok on our "three hour" bus ride but for $5, who can complain? We began exploring the beach town and, after some heavenly Thai massages, we met up with the rest of our group for dinner. At dinner, we saw the first of several blatant examples of sex tourism (or at least what we guessed was sex tourism). One table away from ours, at the casual, open air restaurant sat a white man in his late 60s with a young Asian woman in her 20s. They were eating in silence and mostly staring off into space. It was quite awkward to watch and we were even more surprised that they were so in the open about it. We tried to think of potential explanations but as we watched them more, it was pretty clear what sort of arrangement it was. After dinner, we headed back to our hostel and went to bed with plans to wake up at 5:30 to see the sunrise on the beach.
The next morning, bright and early, Sarah, Carla, Erin, Felicia, and I headed to the beach to watch the sunrise. We got there right on time, cameras in hand, expecting to see a beautiful sunrise...we hadn't taken into account that this is the rainy season in Thailand and so it is often cloudy and overcast. In spite of the clouds, the beach was beautiful and peaceful so early in the morning.
Later that day, we decided to go ride elephants which we had been wanting to do since we got to Thailand. The woman who ran the hostel, just like nearly every Thai person we've met so far, was incredibly helpful and sent us in the right direction. The elephant ride was about an hour long and VERY hot but also very entertaining. About half way through, the guides got off the elephants and took our cameras. We each took turns sitting on the neck instead of in the chair on top of the elephant while the guides acted like paparazzi... ours may have actually taken more pictures of us on the elephant than I have the entire trip. At one point, Felicia dropped her sunglasses and the elephant picked them up with its trunk and handed them to the guide... very impressive. After riding elephants, we relaxed on the beach for a few hours. There were very few people laying out in the sun (only Europeans and Americans). The Asian people on the beach were nearly all under umbrellas and avoiding the sun at all costs... further confirming what we've observed - an intense desire to be as white as possible (we've already noticed that every kind of Thai lotion has a "whiting" aspect to it).
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Umbrella city on the beach.
No chance of sunburn in there.. |
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| "Extra whitening" |
Later in the afternoon, we decided to walk into one of the many Buddhist temples that were stuck directly in the middle of the town, among all the bars, restaurants, shops, and hotels. This weekend was the beginning of the rainy season during which monks must sleep every night in the temples and never disrobe. There is a ceremony called Wan Khao Phansa and people bring many candles and robes for the monks because they will need them for all the time spent studying in the temple during the next three months. The ceremony was over but we saw the huge candles and all the left over food. Later that night, back at the hostel, we witnessed some more of the sex industry. Two older white men in their 50s and two Asian girls in their 20s were sitting in silence at a table. The women spent nearly the entire time playing on their phones and any exchanges were made in English, which was clearly neither the men nor women's first language. In the adjacent room, another white man and young Asian girl were "playing" pool.. they also were not speaking and were not following any sort of pool rules that I had ever heard of.. unless going three times in a row for no reason is part of some new game...
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| Elephant rides |
On our last day, we headed to the beach early to enjoy some sun before we got picked up by a bus sent by our program. Our trip back was so much more relaxing than our trip to Hua Hin all thanks to Pi Da organizing a bus to pick us up. Pi Da is a wonderful, friendly, and helpful woman who works for MUIC and is basically our savior everyday. If we ever have any questions or need an activity to do, she has recommendations and helps us get it organized. We literally would be lost without her. The other day, she was worried about us not getting enough to eat and said, "I just want you to be happy and never hungry in my country!" She is amazing.
On our ride back, I spent a lot of time looking out the window... aside from the crazy driving, I saw dozens upon dozens of Buddhist temples, outdoor food stands, signs for the king (We love the King), stray cats and dogs, and of course 7-11s. I would say that these things are the most common sites in Thailand- at least 1 of them every 10 yards on the major roads. Finally back home, most of us had to finish a presentation for class on Monday (so we obviously uploaded all our facebook pictures first...). Our trip to Hua Hin was a nice escape from Bangkok/Salaya and it was definitely interesting to see the Thai tourist scene.
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