4 Days In Hua Hin

As Bangkok is our home base, it’s easy to take short trips away to other destinations in Thailand. This month we opted for a four-day and three-night stay in the seaside resort of Hua Hin. It takes just over four hours to get to Hua Hin by train, which is how we usually travel. Click here to book a room at My Place @ Hua Hin.

Day 1

Our journey started at Hua Lamphong train station at 13:00. See Bangkok to Hua Hin by train for a full post on this part of the trip.

We arrived in Hua Hin just after 17:30, feeling quite tired after the journey. While there was a nice breeze, the trains were still fairly hot, especially when it stopped. Luckily, we had booked a central hotel, so it was only a few minutes’ walks from the station. So no need to get a tuk tuk or taxi.

After arriving at the hotel, we had a quick shower and headed out for dinner. See My Place @ Hua Hin Review for a full description of this hotel. Click here to book a room at My Place @ Hua Hin.

We mostly eat Thai food but decided to visit a local Italian restaurant for a change. This was located halfway between the train station and the hotel. See Delizie Facebook for details.

The food here was pretty good, so it’s a great choice if you want some Italian food in Hua Hin, It cost us just over 800 baht ($23) for Hawaiian Pizza, Ratatouille, two plates of Garlic Bread, two small Heineken beers and one soft drink.

This street also has a German and French restaurant, so is a good area to get European food.

After dinner, we headed to the famous Hua Hin Night Market. This is open every day from around 17:00. Monday is the quietest day of the week in Hua Hin, but the night market was still pretty busy.

One of the main attractions of the night market is the seafood restaurants. Walk up from the main road and you’ll see these towards the top of the market. You’ll see lots of seafood being cooked on the large open grills. If you like seafood, you’ll be spoilt for choice here.

The night market has lots of interesting items for sale, including the colorful bowls shown above. These are made locally from coconut shells. Many stalls at the market sell the same things, and we saw these for sale at 3-4 stalls.

These ornamental soaps are carved by hand. Quite a few stalls sold these, but only at one of them did we see them being made. The owner carves these by hand and then they are painted. So while it’s real soap, it can’t be used for bathing. It’s for decoration only.

We love cats, so this stall caught our attention. We wanted to buy them all.

We finished off the evening with a coconut ice cream.

Day 2

We started the day with breakfast at our hotel. We ordered scrambled egg and toast, but they seem to have misunderstood and brought us pork as well, which neither of us eats. They apologized and said it was ok because their dog would love it.

Today we decided to take a songthaew to Khao Takiab, which is a small coastal village around 7 km south of Hua Hin. A songthaew is a kind of converted pick-up truck that has seats in the back and is similar to a shared taxi. Songthaews are very popular in Thailand. This one cost just 10 baht ($0.30).

Once you get off the songthaew at the last stop it’s just a 1-2 minute walk to the beach, where you’ll see this large hill with a big Buddha statue. There is a temple at the top of the hill, and the last time we were here there were hundreds of monkeys. We only saw one today, as the colony has moved to the next island due to lack of food at this location.

Above is a photo of a monkey from our last visit.

From the top of the hill, there is a nice view looking back across the sea towards Hua Hin. There are lots of hotels along the coast between Hua Hin and Khao Takiab, so it’s a great place to stay if you want to be close to the beach.

There are a few restaurants and cafes in this area, so it’s a nice place to spend some time relaxing.

On the way back to Hua Hin we stopped at Bluport, which is a new shopping mall that opened late last year. I’m not a great fan of shopping malls, but this is definitely one of the better ones I’ve been to. The whole ground floor is dedicated to restaurants, cafes, a large food court, and a Gourmet Market supermarket.

Our first stop was at Starbucks, as we needed to rest a little after being out in the sun. One reason shopping malls are so popular in Thailand is because of the aircon, and you really do appreciate it after being out in the heat for a few hours.

Food courts are very popular in Thailand, and they’re mostly very basic, but the one in Bluport is like a higher-end restaurant, but with prices only a little higher than a normal food court.

All of the above food cost just 165 baht (under $5). As well as the food court, there are also maybe another 30 or so restaurants to choose from. There is food from America, Japan, Korea, Italy and other countries. You really are spoilt for choice here.

After food, we headed back to Hua Hin, and what better way to end the day than with some aerobics. Most towns in Thailand have outdoor aerobic sessions at 6 pm every day. This one is in a park near the railway station.

Above you can see a short clip from the aerobic session. Everyone looked like they were really enjoying themselves.

Day 3

For our final full day in Hua Hin, we decided to take it easy and spend the day in the city. First of all, we headed to the train station to buy our return tickets to Bangkok for tomorrow.

Just opposite the train station, you’ll see these two train carriages. The first time we saw them we assumed they were just for display, but it turns out that this a library and work area for children.

Next we headed down to the seafront. Much of it is a mess, especially around the old pier area, where there is now some construction work going on. I think that in a few years this part will be completely renewed.

Near the pier, we spotted this cute and small Chinese temple. We see these from time to time around Thailand. A large proportion of Thai people are descended from Chinese immigrants who came to Thailand many years ago.

After wandering around for a while it started raining, so we stopped for some coffee and tea at The Coffee Club, which is an Australian coffee chain. They have a few branches in Bangkok as well, one of which we reviewed in our post on Bangkok Cafes.

Much of this area is packed with restaurants and bars and is the main tourist area of the city. Whatever cuisine you like, you’ll probably find it here. We saw Indian, Greek, American and Thai restaurants. Last time we were here we ate at two of the Indian restaurants in the area, and both were very good.

The city is very quiet during the daytime, but you’ll still see plenty of tuk tuks waiting for customers. The daytime is usually too hot to walk around for too long, but the last few days have been overcast, and cooler than usual.

We visited the night market again in the evening and stopped for some Khao Tom Pla (Soft-Boiled Rice With Fish) on the way.

Day 4

This was our final day, when we had to check out of the hotel by noon, but our train back to Bangkok wasn’t until 16:01. So after breakfast at the hotel we headed out for a coffee, then headed back to make the most of the aircon.

Together Bakery & Cafe is a popular cafe on the same street where the night market is located. It’s open from early morning until late at night. It’s famous for it’s coconut desserts.

After we checked out of the hotel we decided to head to Bluport mall for the afternoon, as it has a good selection of restaurants and cafes, and we wanted to keep cool ahead of our train journey. If you want to stay in this area, the InterContinental Hua Hin Resort is right across the road from Bluport and connect via a covered pedestrian bridge. The beach is just the other side of the hotel in the image above.

There is a very nice Starbucks at the front of Bluport, with seating inside and outside.

At Hua Hin train station there a good cafe where you can wait for the train. It’s quite an interesting cafe that also has a wide selection of gifts, and you can also post your postcards from there. It’s open from 09:00 to 18:00 every day.

Our train left on time at 16:01 and arrived in Bangkok at 19:50, so was only 5 minutes late. See Hua Hin to Bangkok by train for more info on this journey.

Where To Stay In Hua Hin

For our few days in Hua Hin, we opted to stay at the excellent My Place @ Hua Hin but you could also check out villas Hua Hin as a great option as well. You can read our full review of the hotel at My Place @ Hua Hin Hotel Review.