January 7th Bangkok - Hua Hin

Today did not go as planned to say the least.  I phoned the railway help line to confirm times and if it was ok for bikes and made a plan to leave early tomorrow morning as the hotel would drop us at the station for a price.  All good until a different receptionist said they could only drop us off at a closer station so I had to ring the railway again.  This time I was told that there are only 1 train I can take non folding bikes on to the main station which runs at 7pm and the 1 to Hua Hin which runs at 1pm.  So we had to pack up and leave the hotel and planned to find a hotel close to Bangkok station.

After a lot of faffing around we left at 3.30pm deciding to cycle to the station or Bangkok if needed as the hotel were incredibly unhelpful.  We had only gone 4km when Maria spotted a big taxi and arranged for him to take us to Bangkok.  En route we negotiated a price to take us to Hua Hin which is 200km south of Bangkok.  It worked out cheaper than the train and a hotel for the night so we went for it, on the way down we rang a backpacker style hotel and got a basic hotel room for 500bht for the night.  By 7pm we were all settled, result.

We went for a wander to the night market and bought dinner from thee stands then walked past a Thai Boxing place just starting a night of fighting so we headed in there for a couple of hours consisting of 5 different fights including 1 bout of kids!  The fights were ok until thee kids come on and they were the best, really smacking the hell out of each other and the final bout of adults were the same ending in a knockout!

January 8th Hua Hin

So far we have covered about 4km on the bikes yet we are having another day off here to look around.  I had to track down a brake cable as I had no back brake yesterday, I also put some new pads in.  I used the expensive $40 ones from NZ and kept the 3.50gbp ones from Bangkok!  It has sorted the brakes out but the old pads looked like they still had life in them.

We looked around the beach or lack of it as the tide was right up and the only sand was covered with a million deck chairs so you couldn't even walk along.  Then around the shops etc etc.  It is a rel tourist town and not as interesting as the suburbs we were staying in before.  Maria had a fish massage, yep fish!  You stick your feet in a fish tank and they nibble away the hard skin, not sure what the RSPCA would say about Maria's feet as fish food though.  After dinner again from the stands Maria has gone for a facial.  As I am beautiful enough I have come back to blog.  Tomorrow we start riding!

Everybody has a scooter!

Poor fish