Yesterday afternoon we decided to have an afternoon nap as we hadn't had mush sleep since we left England. So we set my alarm for an hours time and nodded off straight away... Neither of us heard the alarm... When I woke up it was 7:30pm! Whoops! We could have easily gone back to sleep but we decided we needed to get up so our body clocks would adjust. As we got up there was a knock on our room door; a member of hotel staff presented us with a jar of cookies and an invitation to the Queen's 83rd birthday celebrations (tonight). So lush!
We got ourselves dressed and ready and went down to have dinner by the pool. The passion fruit mojitos were a winner and the setting was beautiful.
This morning we went down to breakfast, we didn't have a Thai breakfast (although Simon managed to have liver and onions with his scrambled eggs!!) although we probably will at some point this trip.
We then decided that we would walk to Plearn Wan, a little shopping village about 20mins from our hotel. We left our hotel at 11am and by the time we reached the end of our road (Soi 19) we were already drenched in sweat! A tuk tuk driver obviously noticed our plight and pulled over to give us a lift. I'm not sure how, but he knew we were foreign and instantly started talking English to us!! I thought we had been blending in really well!! Plearn Wan was cute; lots of eateries and boutique shops.
We then decided that we would walk to Hua Hin town centre as it was a straight walk and looked very close on the map. OH MY GOD WE WERE STUPIDLY NAIVE!! Or the map was wrong!!
We walked passed a temperature gauge on our way and it said it was 32.2c (don't worry mum, we are wearing factor 50 and we kept reapplying frequently!).
The heat aside, it was a really interesting walk, getting to see real life happen before us. There were loads of beautifully kept shrines to Buddha outside even the most rundown of businesses, ladies sat in the boots of cars chopping fresh pineapples to sell, mopeds being ridden by four people at a time, a toddler on their lap (no helmets) as they sped along, people cooking food on open fire pits in their back gardens. There are massive photo boards of the Queen everywhere. It's so lovely that they love their royal family so much.
We walked through Chat Chai market and unfortunately, of all the bits we could have walked through, we ended up walking through the fish bit. The smell was horrendous and had it have taken us any longer to walk through, I may have been sick! I'm not sure how polite it is to gag in Thailand, so I was working REALLY hard to hold it all together.
We then walked to Hua Hin train station. Slightly away from the hustle and bustle of the main road with a mountainous back drop. It was lush. We stayed there for a while, making the most of the shade and watching the local ladies with their shopping from the market. My favourite bit of the day.
When we left the station it was even hotter, though bbc weather said it was cooler... Definitely not the case!
Luckily, we didn't have long to wait before our bus back to the hotel.
As we waited for our bus we saw our first real life monk!! My first instinct was to say hello in Thai (sawadee ka) and smile as is normal with almost everyone here. Then I remembered that as I'm a woman, I'm not allowed to interact with them which made me feel sad.
As we got into our minibus, the driver told us that this is 'the normal hot for Hua Hin' EEEEEEK! When we told him that we were silly and had walked, I'm not sure if his surprise was the impressed kind or the kind that agreed with us being silly!!
After cold showers, we jumped in the jacuzzi in the rain!! It hasn't got old!
We got dressed for dinner (feels like I'm in Downton Abbey saying that!) and went to join in with the birthday celebrations.
It was really lovely to see. They have a shrine to their Queen outside our hotel and tonight they had set up a tele next to it. The King was giving a speech to start with.
We were given a candle in a beautiful flower shaped holder and a song sheet. The hotel staff all grouped together and joined in with the singing on the TV. They sang the national anthem and then a song for the queen. It was lush.
More from us tomorrow. Lots of love to you all. xx