Huahine Island in French Polynesia. Excursions to Cha Am
▣ Hua Hin (Hua Hin) is a great place to relax in Thailand.
The resort of Hua Hin is one of the oldest cities in Thailand. This is the administrative center of one of the country's municipal districts of the same name. On the map of Thailand you can see that the city is located in the north of the Malay Peninsula, on the western shore of the Gulf of Thailand, covers an area of 86 km², and its surroundings - 839 km². It is separated from Bangkok by a distance of about 220 km.
The name of the city "Hua Hin" translated from Thai means "Stone Head". This was due to the stones sticking out above the water near the coast of the city, which from a distance resembled stone sculptures of heads.
The population of the municipal district is almost 85 thousand. About 50 thousand people live in the city of Hua Hin. The traditional population of Hua Hin are fishermen, whose rhythm of life can be observed from the resort's fishing pier.
Hotels
For tourists, there are more than 400 hotels, hotels, and guesthouses in Hua Hin. Among the more popular hotels, it is worth highlighting:
- Hilton Hua Hin Resort & Spa, located in the center of Hua Hin, is a comfortable hotel with a wonderful view of the Gulf of Thailand. It has everything for a great holiday: a first-class spa, a beachfront pool, 5 bars and restaurants. Modern rooms feature sofas, cable TV and full-size refrigerators. Tennis courts and a fitness center are also available to guests. Room price per night from 3000 baht.
- Devasom Hua Hin Resort. It is located on a quiet private beach. There are only a few spacious rooms and private villas available for guests, with prices ranging from 6,000 to 15,000 baht per night.
- Hyatt Regency Hua Hin is a paradise for families. The rooms are small, with an excellent combination of price and quality. Room rates from 3500 baht.
- Centara Grand Beach Resort & Villas Hua Hin. Also located in the city center. Vacationers here have 4 outdoor swimming pools, a spa and 4 restaurants. Sports lovers can play tennis on the tennis courts or work out in the fitness center. Room price from 5000 baht per night.
The cheapest option for tourists is to stay at the Rooms@102 hotel. Its rooms have air conditioning, hot water and WI-FI. Room price from 300 baht per night. Among the inexpensive hotels is the Chom-Haad Guesthouse with cozy double rooms with air conditioning, prices from 600 baht per night.
There are many guesthouses located near the hotels, offering rooms for two for 700 baht.
Hua Hin Hotels on the map
The list of hotels could be continued, but take a look at the city’s website map, at the map of its hotels, to get acquainted with the location, prices, description of the services provided and book a room.
Hotel restaurants serve national, European, Chinese and Japanese cuisine. Typical prices in restaurants are 500 baht for two. In local cafes you can have lunch for 50-100 baht. In cafes located on the beaches from 100 baht. And if you want something cheaper, the city’s markets simply amaze with their huge selection of ready-made dishes. And they are cheaper than buying the products separately. There is also an abundance of fresh drinks that will be prepared for you.
Beaches of Hua Hin
The city of Hua Hin essentially has only one city beach with a length of up to 10 km. The beach is relatively crowded, but there is always a place to sunbathe on the white sand or sit with a sun lounger under an umbrella. Beach vendors constantly ply along the shore, so you can save money on lunch in expensive restaurants.
There are others, but they are located outside the city limits. One of them, located at the foot of Khao Tao Hill, is very popular with tourists. You can easily see a large Buddha statue on it.
But it is worth noting as a disadvantage that the sea on the city beach is shallow; many jellyfish wash ashore after a storm.
And a clean sea, but it’s still worth recognizing the fact that nowhere in Thailand on the mainland you will find that crystal clear water and snow-white beaches that you can often see in advertising brochures about Thailand. For all this, it is undoubtedly worth going to the islands. The most popular destinations for such trips from Hua Hin are the islands of Koh Tao, Koh Phangan and Koh Samui, located 300 km south of the city (distance by sea). But not everyone is ready to spend half a day on the road and then enjoy another 2-3 hours on a ferry ride to these islands. To our surprise, most guests of our city, as well as local residents permanently residing in Hua Hin, do not even suspect that just a couple of hours drive from Hua Hin there is such an amazing place as the island of Koh Talu.
First of all, Koh Talu is a private island. It has owners, but access to the island is open to everyone. The island is very tiny, its length does not exceed 2.5 km, and its widest part is just over 800 meters. On the eastern side of the island there are the only two beaches in Big Bay and Pearl Bay. The distance to the mainland is only 6 km.
On the island there is a small hotel, Koh Talu Island Resort, where you can stay overnight, several staff houses, a restaurant and other office premises.
How to get to Koh Talu from Hua Hin?
First you need to get to the place where the speed boats depart to the island. There are two ways to do this. The easiest way is to contact one of the travel agencies in Hua Hin and ask them to organize a trip to Koh Talu for you. Every day, 1-2 minibuses with tourists leave from Hua Hin, which takes them to the pier near the city of Bangsaphan. Buses usually leave Hua Hin at 5-6 am.
If you are traveling on your own, we recommend that you first contact the staff at the Koh Talu Island Resort and ask them what time the boat leaves for the island. This can be done by calling 032442636 and 0816396950. The destination is 190 km away, without rushing with stops you can easily get there in 2.5-3 hours.
GPS coordinates of the pier from where boats depart to the island of Koh Talu - 11.125323, 99.484853
Since the island is private, you won’t be able to get to it as a “savage”. In other words, you will have to at least use the transfer to the island, which is organized by Ko Talu Island Resort. A round-trip boat ticket will cost you 1,500 baht per adult, 1,050 baht per child aged 3 to 10 years, no fee for children under 3 years old. These are the prices for a half-day trip to the island. This price includes roundtrip transfer to the island, breakfast on the pier, snorkeling off the island, and lunch. Usually at 10 am the boat leaves for the island and after 15-20 minutes you are already on Kot Talu. At 14:30 the boat departs back to the mainland. The crossing hours are determined by the ebb and flow of the tides, so they may sometimes change depending on the season. If you want to stay longer on the island, then you should consider staying at the Koh Talu Island Resort. You can find prices for accommodation on the hotel website or on the booking sites Booking and Agoda.
What to do on the island?
The main thing on the island is, first of all, the beach itself and the cleanest clear water off the coast. On the way to the island, you will be offered to board a small barge located near its northern part, from which you can dive and snorkel. You will be provided with vests, masks with snorkels and fins. But let’s be honest, if you have already dived in the waters near Koh Samui or Phuket, then you won’t see anything special in the waters of Koh Talu. This snorkeling event takes almost 1.5 hours, which we recommend is better spent on the beach of this wonderful island.
Along the entire length of the beach, under the palm trees, there are sun loungers and kayaks. You can use all this without restrictions until your departure. You can go into the jungle and climb to the highest point, from where you will have stunning views of the Gulf of Thailand. If you are staying on Koh Talu for a few days, the hotel staff can organize fishing trips for you, such as squid fishing, followed by a barbecue and much more.
At 12 noon it is lunch time on Koh Talu. The food in Koh Talu is simply amazing. This is one of the best buffets you will find in Thailand. Several dozen dishes, fruits, drinks - everything is included in the cost of your trip.
Having come to your senses after such a lunch, all you have to do is lie down on the beach and go to the pier in time for the boat to leave for the mainland. There are showers next to the pier where you can freshen up and change clothes. But we recommend that you take your time with changing clothes. The fact is that often due to low tides on the way back, boats cannot approach the piers on the mainland and all passengers are dropped off directly into the water in shallow water. The depth there is shallow, but we still recommend not changing into clean, dry shorts or pants, since most likely everything will get wet when landing on the shore.
As a rule, by dark you will already get back to Hua Hin and we promise you that you will want to repeat this trip again and as soon as possible.
Koh Talu Island - photos
Our reader Sergey Malinin talks about Hua Hin, one of his favorite cities in Thailand. Europeans love this resort very much, but Russian tourists pay much less attention to it than to Pattaya or Phuket. And in vain!
Hua Hin is a city on the Gulf of Thailand three hours' drive south of Bangkok. Like many cities in Thailand located on the sea coast, Hua Hin is a tourist center with thousands of tourists. But it is noticeably different from other beach resorts in the country: Thais consider it almost the most bohemian vacation spot in the kingdom.
About Hua Hin and the Thais' love for everything European
I came to Hua Hin from Koh Samui (more information about this island and its beaches is on my website Turpotok.com). And the first thing I noticed the difference between the resorts was Unusual traffic order for Thailand: traffic lights are installed at intersections, traffic flows in an orderly manner, without chaotic lane changes, and on some streets there are even traffic controllers. This is atypical for a country where people drive not according to traffic rules, but according to unwritten laws. And it’s quite surprising that there are practically no muck shops on the city streets(mobile carts on which street food is prepared and sold). Usually the roadsides in Thailand are filled with these carts, but in Hua Hin they are very rare.
Hua Hin is the most civilized resort in Thailand. This catches your eye as soon as you enter this city.
The second thing that distinguishes Hua Hin from most cities is the atmosphere: the famous Thai disobedience and indifference are less common here, in tourist areas there is much less unbridledness. In Hua Hin, morals are somehow stricter and in general the atmosphere is more cultural, I would say.
Third, there is a noticeable imitation of European style in the city, especially in the design of facades and decoration of shopping centers. This is also quite unusual for Thailand. As a rule, urban architecture in the kingdom is monotonous and nondescript, and the buildings look neglected.
But this is Thailand after all. Therefore, along with order on the roads here, bikers without helmets and advertising of strong alcohol coexist.
All these features have a logical explanation: Hua Hin is the summer residence of the King of Thailand. Hence the order in the city, and attempts to decorate it in accordance with the privileged status. The king once chose this city because of the climate: the heat is easier to bear in Hua Hin. Following the king, his close associates and nobles began to come here to rest. The city turned into a resort for wealthy gentlemen. This aristocracy is still felt today.
Imitation of the European style arose in Thailand even earlier: about 150 years ago, the then king studied in Europe, from where he came with the appropriate manners and tastes. At first, he forcibly implanted a new culture in his native country, and subsequently everything European began to be perceived as a certain standard of style and beauty. Something similar was observed in Russia during the time of Pushkin, when “French” was synonymous with “beautiful”. It is difficult for me to judge whether modern Thais have the same reverence for European style as their ancestors, but they do not hide their curiosity and sympathy: many times I have seen them enthusiastically take pictures with a Christmas tree or, for example, against the background of buildings in Greek style.
Hua Hin has become so “European” that a small “branch” of the famous one was built in the vicinity of the city.
In the second half of the last century, reviews of Hua Hin as the most “Europeanized” resort in Thailand reached Europe. Tourists from the Old World flocked here in droves: some for vacation, some for the winter, and for many Hua Hin became a new home. Residents of Northern Europe especially loved this city, and the Hua Hin suburb of Cha Am is considered a branch of Scandinavia. It is not surprising that renting and selling housing (both condos and private houses) in Hua Hin and Cha Am is considered a very profitable job, which everyone here is trying to do.
Summary: my reviews about Hua Hin and general impressions of the city
Hua Hin is truly an unusual resort by Thai standards: unusually civilized and culturally developed. The beaches there, of course, cannot be compared with those on the island, but on the other hand, they are much better than. But the city has something to compensate for the insufficiently picturesque coastline: there are enough natural and man-made attractions for two weeks of eventful and varied recreation. So I would recommend the city to those who do not like to lie on the beach all day, but prefer educational excursions, trips to picturesque places, nature walks, hikes to waterfalls and caves.
I will tell you in more detail about the beaches and attractions of Hua Hin
The city received the name Hua Hin for the rocks scattered along the coast - from a distance they look like stone heads, “hua hin”.
Hua Hin is the residence of Thai kings and the site of official government meetings. It was not by chance that the Thai king built his summer palace here: he really liked the local landscapes and the atmosphere of tranquility. The palace is named “Far from the Bustle” and is open for tours. The royal family comes here to relax, and monarchs certainly know about a good vacation. The resort is also a favorite vacation spot for locals: Thais come here on holidays or weekends to enjoy a relaxing time on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand.
Tours in Hua Hin
Prices for tours for 2 people for 7 nights with departure from Moscow are given.
The city pays great attention to the safety of local residents and vacationers. The infrastructure of the resort is well developed; there are shopping centers, shops, markets, and hospitals.
When choosing a resort, you should pay attention that there is no nightlife in Hua Hin. If you're looking for some wild fun after the sun goes down, look no further. Otherwise, we can safely say that everyone, without exception, will enjoy their holiday in Hua Hin.
Beaches
The beaches of Hua Hin attract tourists from all over the world. The sand here is snow-white and soft, and the sea is much cleaner than in Pattaya. Although the coastlines cannot be called a bounty, a holiday here will nevertheless appeal to both couples in love and families with children or single tourists. In Hua Hin you can always find that secluded place where you can enjoy peace and quiet. Some beaches may become your favorite places for meditation.
While vacationing in Hua Hin, you can relax on any of several beaches in the city: City Beach, Thakiab Beach, Tao Beach, Suan Son Beach, Sai Noi Beach (Sai Noi Beach) or outside the resort. The beaches of Hua Hin can be called shallow, which makes the resort an ideal place for families with children.
Huahine is one of the islands in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean, part of the Livarda Islands group. It consists of Greater Hua Hin (Nui) and Little Hua Hin (Iti). These islands are not several hundred yards apart and are connected by a small bridge. They are protected from strong ocean waves by a necklace of coral reefs
We continue to tell you about the most beautiful islands in the world
To the north-west of Hua Hin Iti is the brackish lake Lac Maeva - this is all that remains of the ancient atoll lagoon that was located here. The island also has an airport of the same name. it is located on the northern shore of Hua Hin Nui 
The main settlement, Hua Hin, is located in the shade of almond trees and acacias, receiving inter-island tourist ferries from Papeete, bringing tourists here, as well as enterprising local merchants with their goods. The market here is located right on the pier, where locals mingle with arriving tourists and everything is bustling with life.
The inhabitants of the island are considered almost the most hospitable in the entire Pacific Ocean. Hua Hin is a tranquil paradise where you can fully experience the history and traditions of old Polynesia 
It is believed that this is where the ancient Polynesian culture originated. During excavations, many valuable historical finds were found here. These fascinating exhibits are kept right here on the island. In the village of Maeva, ancient sacrificial temples were restored, as well as stone fish traps, which are still used by local residents 
The island has an abundance of vanilla, banana groves and taro fields. The shores of Hua Hin are surrounded by coconut palms, separated from the sea by a narrow strip of clean white sand. There are a total of 8 settlements here, the residents of each of which are ready to welcome tourists with kindness and cordiality. 
One of the most interesting sights of the island, a stream with long two-meter eels, over which an observation bridge was built. These eels are considered sacred by local residents. You can not only look at these wonderful creatures, but also buy a can of food and feed them 
Huahine is a happy, peaceful place where the traditional Polynesian lifestyle is combined with amazing scenery that surpasses its competitors Bora Bora and Moorea. You can get here by plane from Tahiti, the flight will take about 30 minutes 
There are a total of 5,411 residents who live in colorful, modest houses 