Sunrise in Hua Hin Thailand
Hua Hin is a small town South of Bangkok on the “handle” part of what is the “axe” of Thailand. It is a popular weekend getaway for people in the big city because it’s only a 2–3 hour drive. We were annoyed to find that weekend prices for hotels were sometimes double but we had flexible dates and went on a Sunday instead.
We took a bus from the South Bus Terminal which is in the West of Bangkok and got a van from there for 360 Baht. We passed the royal retreat where the King was staying and got dropped off in the centre of town. It was a short walk to the Royal Express Hotel that we’d booked through hotels.com. We’d picked that hotel because they had a roof top pool but it was closed and I suspect will stay that way for a long time.
The first thing we did was go to the beach which had a lot of sun umbrellas and tourists around. I saw this one white girl sitting at the waters edge facing away from the water and making a mound of sand. I wondered if this was the first time she’d been to a beach even though she looked to be in middle school. There were horses to rent that were pooing in the sand and people drinking alcohol so we wandered our way down the beach where there wasn’t a crowd and a couple of kilometers later found another exit out of the beach.
Yuki had a great idea to get up early and see the sunrise from the beach so we went to the mall and bought lots of candles and snacks before dinner at a night market where a vendor selling drinks thought I was 18. There’s three night markets in town and we also checked out another before retiring early to bed to get ready to get up at 4am the next morning.
I had a great dream that night and was still ready to go when the alarm went off. It was quiet on the streets as we snuck by the sleeping security guard and made our way to the beach. A few tuktuk drivers were lounging around in their rides and at the beach entrance two boys passed us going into the beach with more alcohol. There were several groups of people drinking and relaxing at the beach and lots of lights from the resorts so we made our way down the beach again and walked further than the exit we’d taken the night before. In a quiet spot in front of a dark house, we lay down our towels for the picnic. This gave us the darkness we needed to set out the candles without being blown out by back lighting.
Being the civil engineers that we are, we levelled the sand slightly and then Yuki had a great idea to set them out in a heart shape in front of the towels and I did so just before twilight began.
The photos I got of Yuki at twilight were spectacular and I hope you agree.
When the sky began to light up with pink, I switched from my low-light 50mm to the wider 18–55mm and both of us continued to shoot photos. Some fishing boats were just starting out for the day and provided a great sihlouette to shoot against.
The tourist night market we’d gone to the night before didn’t have any sunrise photos from the beach which surprised me but they did have pictures of monks walking down the beach of which several passed us.
The sunrise itself was pretty as the pink light seemed to guild the lower clouds with gold. It rose quickly through the maze of clouds and jumped into the sky.
Not long afterwards, out photoshoot was over so I collected the remains of our candles in a heap and made a mound of melted wax. We ate the remainder of our snacks and when a bunch of cute dogs came over Yuki fed them so they stayed guard.
We ended up napping for a few hours under our unbrella while the beach heated up the sand. When I awoke, it was still only 9am or so and I was pleasantly refreshed. We rented a jet-ski for 1200 Baht and had half an hour to race down the coast to see a temple on the cliff side of Chopstick Hill, a house on an island, and some deserted beaches. If we had been there longer, we probably would have tried renting it for a day and going off to one of the empty beaches. The Jet-ski was a wickedly fun drive and we had a blast bouncing off the waves like a roller coaster.
Afterwards, we decided to head to the mall for all you can eat hot-pot and sushi. On the way, I got some great photos of the fishing boats on the beach. That night, after we spent the afternoon enjoying more nap time, we went out again to use the remaining candles at the beach. This time we brought mango and sticky rice, our favourite Thai dessert, and set the candles out in a circle. It was windier this time so we had to put the candles in little volcanoes to protect them but it still worked out nicely.
There are a lot of fishing boats along the coast that, judging by their light fixtures, I presume are used for night fishing. Hua Hin Thailand
As it was August 19th, this day marked a year since we set off together on the two-week camping trip in the rockies which makes Hua Hin about as close to an anniversary as we can get. What a great time.
Steps in the sand crab balls. Hua Hin Thailand.
