Our original plan had been to go to Koh Chang island for a beach which comes highly recommended, one reason being that it is possible to go elephant trekking.
We elected to travel to Hua Hin on time and distance grounds - it basically takes all day door to door to get from accommodation in Bangkok to accommodation in Koh Chang - compared to roughly 3.5 hours to Hua Hin.
Fortunately there is an elephant sanctuary in Hua Hin - so the kids were very keen to take up the opportunity of an elephant ride - so that was the first plan of the day. That said, if Joseph had his way we would stay dawn to dusk in the hotel pool, so he got a quick 30 minute swim in before we departed for the elephant sanctuary at 11am.
We all enjoyed the 1 hour elephant trek, the elephants are clearly highly trained - so all three children got a chance to sit on the elephants neck for 20 minutes in the case of E & K as opposed to in the seat. The only issue was the scenery in the sanctuary - although it involved wading through a river, climbing a bit of a hill, and going through a Thai village (where the park workers live - a bit of an eye opener for the kids in terms of how basic it is), the scenery is, I am sure nothing like it would have been in Koh Chang. Furthermore after riding the elephants there was an opportunity to attend an "elephant show" - basically elephants doing tricks - which we politely declined to do. So enjoyable, elephants clearly well looked after and well treated - but mixed feelings about the circus aspects that run parallel.
From the elephant trek, we went to Hua Hin market village - basically a shopping centre, for the purpose of using their food court - something for everyone. Jim went for a random curry - to say it was hot was an understatement! The highlight was smoothies - real fruit at about 75pence - we looked enviously at similar ones in Australia - costing closer to £3! We are very very aware that similarly many Thai people will look similarly enviously at us. Indeed Jim had a regular impulse to go into an Australian restaurant and say "how can you afford it!" to the diners - I am sure that many Thai people would say the same to us. As ever there are plenty of Thais around with no shortage of cash, but the difference between the haves and have nots is vast. That said we have seen very few examples of abject poverty compared to trips in Africa and India.
From there, Joseph's wishes prevailed and we returned to the hotel for a long swim / read in beside the pool before going to the same cafe for a great meal, a quick wander through the night market and a home to bed. Joseph after all his swimming was out like a light!
We could get used to this life!
PHOTOS TO FOLLOW - INTERNET CONNECTION IN HUA HIN TOO SLOW TO UPLOAD!
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