Days 37- 41: Hua Hin Holiday! Part 2

Days 37-41 in Hua Hin

Cheeky monkey threw some fruit at me!

Day 37: Thursday 30^th July

At breakfast we found Chloe and Phoebe who had arrived late last night. After cramming in as much free toast as possible, we headed to the beach. Soon after we got there, ETAs Valeria and Rachel came strolling along as well! They somehow found us on the beach. I slapped on a load of 50 SPF sun cream onto my burn from two days ago, and moments later, the heavens opened. We were already soaked so I just thought we might as well get into the sea whilst the storm continued. Valeria joined me in the warm sea whilst the others attempted to shelter out in the cold, or in Phoebe and Gwen’s case, go for a horse ride in the blinding rain. The rest of the girls joined us after a while and we had some “deep” sea chats – see what I did there? Heheh. The rain stopped for a bit so we took the opportunity to leave the beach. Of course, we got caught in yet more rain and unfortunately we had to dive into a pizza restaurant. Bummer!

Scallops

After pizza we went to the night market, of course. We sat in a restaurant for somewhere to go out of the rain and I ended up eating scallops and some vino, oops! It is the Buddhist holiday today so no shops are selling alcohol, and only some restaurants will serve it if you sit inside. We sat inside. All the clubs were shut so we went back to the hostel and sat on the roof terrace (still raining) and drank Chloe’s Thai white whiskey, which tasted of a mix of tequila, sambucca, vodka and paint stripper. She swears its “delicious!” – still, thanks Chloe!

View from my bunk

Day 38: Friday 31^st July

Beauty

Today we were unsure what to do. There are 12 of us altogether, so planning things can take a while. Luckily, everyone’s really easy going and is happy to do similar things, so we managed to all stay together for the whole trip. We ended up visiting a national park called Khao Sam Roi Yot, where the biggest attraction is the Phraya Nakhon Cave. None of us knew what we were letting ourselves in for, as we had only seen the off picture of the temple that stands in the centre of the cave. Unbeknown to us, we would have to walk 2km up and down two rocky mountains to be rewarded with the welcome sight of the cave. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was sweating from the get-go. And that part was easy! It was a lot flatter and easier than the second mountain, which we didn’t know we would have to climb, until it was all up in our shocked (or excited, in Jay’s case) faces.

 Jay was way too excited to see the mountain

"Its the climmmmbbbb" - Miley Cyrus

You would never believe this is at the top of a mountain!

The whole way, we were overlooking a beautiful landscape of the ocean and greenery, which was lovely! But unfortunately, when your life hangs in the balance of your flip flop on a slippery rock, you don’t want to look at the ocean. So there we all were, struggling up a mountain. Some finding it easier than others, and some of us dying because it’s been a while since doing any exercise! It started to rain as we approached the top, so the fear of sliding all the way down the killer rocks was at the forefront of my mind. Shouldn’t have worn flip flops!! By now it was all very wet and muddy, and moving out of the way for the old ladies who were (mind-blowingly) climbing back down the mountain was proving difficult between the trees. It was a long old climb, and once we made it to the top – and climbed down into the cave, I was ready to keel over in a shaky, sweaty heap. The rain was coming through the sky-light holes in the roof of cave and it was all very euphoric. We were all so proud of ourselves for achieving the goal of getting to the top!

.... This was planned

We spent ages attempting to do the classic 'self timer jumping shot' and we actually did get one of all of us (minus Gwen) off the floor! But I think this one is pretty funny because I said "right, now lets just do a classic 'standing up doing the peace gesture' shot. Just before the shot took, Jay and I just looked at each other and knew from the look that we were going to jump! Its actually not very funny is it?.... You kinda had to be there.

Pondering about life or something..

The descent was worse than expected. Or was it better? I don't know. Considering I was thinking someone was surely going to slip and fall the whole way down, and nobody did, it was good! But at the same time, it had been raining and all the steps were so muddy and wet and my flip flops were struggling. I contemplated going all "jungle book" and taking them off but I had seen some questionable creepy crawlies on the way up. Somehow, we made it down alive and nobody really hurt themselves! I had to keep reminding myself that 80 year old women were climbing up and down this thing as if they were on an escalator in ASDA, and the 5 year old girl that was striding up and down hadn't died yet so there was still hope for me. I had the jelliest legs known to man once I'd hit the bottom. Rather than stretching all the darn lactic acid out of my poor muscles (or lack of), we went for some grub by the shore. We then faced the task of climbing back up and down the first mountain, which was less of a task than the second mountain to reach the cave, but I was still having none of it. We managed to hitch a lift in a cute little boat for 50 baht each to take us round to the other side to join the others. I regret nothing!

That night we all went to the market (shock) and then headed for the clubs. We guessed they might be shut because of the Buddhist holiday, and we were right. Luckily though, we passed one bar that was open, called Ibiza. They welcomed us in and told us they were pretty much having a lock-in, but its ok because some dude inside is a police man... We made friends with two South African and New Zealanders and played some games, including my new favourite game called ‘fives’ which you can only find at Exeter uni, apparently. Tomorrow the clubs open again so we plan to finally have a proper night out then.

Day 39: Saturday 1^st August

Today was a slow starter! It reached 13:30 and we were still in the hostel café twiddling our thumbs wondering what to do. Our decision was affected by the monsoon rain, which wasn’t helping the situation! We decided finally that we should do something indoors; so we went to a complex that had some shops, arcades and BOWLING! There were some bets going on between different people, and my bet with Jay was a strong one. The loser would have to down a bottle of something later that night, and I knew it couldn’t be me! Its been a few days now and there are still disagreements about the winner. Even though it was definitely me, because Jay cheated and unfairly got an extra go.

After a trusty McDonald’s, we headed to the beach because the rain had finally stopped! I was dying to use my new bat and ball so I was very happy to finally get there. Soon though, it got dark and the inevitable happened: the ball disappeared. We did some aerobics on the beach, led by Phoebe who had created the dance for her students. I also taught everyone a song from the Italian summer camp last year. After a long time of lounging around on the beach, we headed back to the hostel so we could go out for some draannnks. We played drinking games in the hostel before heading out to a Celtic sports bar. The competition continued between Jay and I, who I told I would beat at pool. Of course, I wasn’t lying. It was double or nothing so it was my pleasure to see him dribble two bottles of Smirnoff down himself.  2am soon came around and all the clubs closed. We headed back to the beach, where we found Jimmy, a Thai guy who we had met last night. He looked like Bruno Mars and after we told him this he kept singing and playing Bruno Mars songs on his phone. All 13 of us sat together on the beach in a huge circle, which was cool. All we needed was a fire and a guitar and we’d be well away! I went for a swim with Phoebe and got all my clothes soaking so the sand was truly all over me when we sat back down! We left the beach at about 3:30 and headed for Burger King. We sat outside there for ages and eventually went back to the hostel and chatted some more! Eventually I got to sleep at about 6:30.

Day 40: Sunday 2nd August

So tired and a bit hungover. Everyone left today apart from gwen and Jess and me. We luckily had managed to get the Monday off work so we could miss the bank holiday Sunday traffic and also recover. We spent the day at the beach, relaxing and mostly napping! For the first time, it didn't rain the whole time we were there! And then as we were leaving at about 5pm, it started to rain and we saw the most beautiful rainbow I've ever seen! It was perfect and you could see both ends of it. It genuinely made me so happy and really brightened my day. We went to the market to find some food and ended up in the restaurant we went to a few days before (where I ate scallops) and had a gurt steak for about a fiver. Perfetto! Finally tried some delicious coconut ice cream and did more shopping in the market. Home time. Early night, packing, ovaltine, sleeeeeep.

Day 41: Monday 3rd August



Waking up at 7am came as a shock! Went to check out but it was too early for the receptionist to be there so we didn't get our £6 deposits back unfortunately. We had to leg it to find a tuktuk to take us to the bus station. We had about 10 minutes until we had to be there, and the journey to the station should take 10 minutes. We were cutting it seriously fine, so when I spotted a tuktuk in a line of traffic going the right way, we jumped in and she managed to get us there with moments to spare! The bus journey was about 3.5 hours long and I managed to sleep for most of the way. The seats were so big and comfy, they reminded me of those seats that are made specially for large people. The bus took us to Suvarnabhuni airport which is the main airport in Bangkok, and the one you see in the TV programme Bangkok Airport. We had to get a free 1 hour shuttle bus to the other airport to catch our flight. When we were at the airport waiting for our flight, we did the usual shopping, eating, sitting, and realising we've forgotten something things. Gwen had the scary realisation that she had left her phone in the hostel! There was obviously no way we could have gone and gotten it, but after a quick phone call (off of Jess' phone) we knew the phone was in the safe hands of the hostel. Thank god!




The flight was meant to take 55 minutes but I swear it was much shorter! I fell asleep and the flight attendant had to wake me up though, so who knows. Khon Kaen airport is SO small, which meant my bag was on the collection belt within about a minute and we hopped straight into a taxi! I was home within the next 10 minutes, which I was very happy about :)




I know you're all dying to see the 'good' photo of us jumping, so here it is. Oh, I know.. I spoil you! Thank you sooooo much to everyone I spent my holiday with: Jess, Gwen, Phoebe, Chloe, Rachel, Valeria, Kris, John, Jay, Gabby, Jess, Jodie, Hannah, Samten, Cream, Jiang, and of course, the grumpy american guy from the hostel.

Great bunch of people

Sorry it was long. But it was great!

Peace,

Olivia x