Hua Hin
This is my final blog from Southeast Asia and due to the
amount of time it has taken, it is being written from Barcelona, our new home.
We approached the final days of Southeast Asia in the knowledge that we were
moving onto Barcelona. As a result it didn’t feel like the end of a long
holiday, more like the start of a progressive journey.
Hua Hin, on the eastern shore of central Thailand, is seen
as retirement paradise for many westerners who visit and it’s clear to see why;
it has a very western European feel, with Eastern mix, with the standard fast
food places and malls, as well as great night markets and street foods dotted
around the area. The first place that we stayed in Hua Hin was a much westernised
mini-resort in the middle of nowhere, which made the initial taxi ride very
interesting as the driver had no idea where it was, but eventually we found the
place! It is run by an English chap who has a vast western menu, including the
best (and only) Sunday dinner we’d had in months (but not as good as mine of
course!). Unfortunately they also had the worst steak I’ve ever eaten in my
life, but thankfully this was resolved a few days later when we got to the
centre of Hua Hin. The resort itself was a nice getaway and it allowed us to
start preparing ourselves for Barcelona by learning little bits of Spanish as
we lay on the grass by the pool.
After a few days in the middle of nowhere, we moved into the
city centre of Hua Hin. Again thanks to a taxi driver with no idea where he was
going, we ended up walking for 30 mins (with our backpacks on) to try and find
our new hostel, which was hidden away from the main streets. The hostel was
only a little bit nicer than the one at the start of the film The Beach but it did the trick for the
few days that we spent there.
Also, steak!! The best steak I’ve had since the last time I cooked
it! Cooked on a BBQ, what more could you ask for? We asked for it twice over
the space of 3 nights.
We visited a great waterpark in Hua Hin called ‘Black
Mountain’ which was totally empty but for us and another 20 or so people, which
meant absolutely no queuing for slides. It also had the greatest wave pool ever
known to man, which was where I spent most of my time once I’d had enough of
sliding around.
Bangkok
We returned to Bangkok for the last time but this time
stayed in a different B&B, about 30 seconds from the place where we’d
stayed the last 2 times. In preparation for our move to Barcelona, we began
purchasing a few things for our home and spent one morning at Chatuchak market.
The market was filled with all sorts of different items and even if we’d spent
several days there, we wouldn’t have gotten close to seeing everything, it’s
that large in scale. Despite its size it gets absolutely rammed towards the afternoon
and becomes very hard to move around, so we quickly got out of there before
becoming a part of a human stampede. Over the next few days we spent a lot of
time around the markets on Khao Sahn Road, dodging the suit sellers and the
newly arrived fortune tellers, who seemed desperate to tell me my fortune! But really,
apart from lottery numbers, I’d rather find out my future in my own time.
From Bangkok to Barcelona we travelled with Finnair, which
included a stopover in Helsinki (in SNOW!!). Our flight left Bangkok at 9am and
we arrived 11 hours later in Finland. After a few hours in Helsinki airport,
next to the most annoying child in the world, we set off on a 3.5 hour trip to
Barcelona with our body clocks completely messed up arriving at 8pm (which was
actually 3am for us), thus completing around 20 hours of travelling.
As a side note, if anyone ever travels to Finland, please
purchase us some Fazer chocolate with salted popcorn. It is the best chocolate
in the world but isn’t available online yet!
Epilogue
It’s a funny thing travelling. There’s such an exhilaration
about seeing new sights, sampling new tastes and experiencing different
cultures and languages. We’ve been up close with Elephants and Hippos, trekked
through jungles, slept in five-star hotels and huts by the beach, eaten food
that is mind-blowingly delicious and seen such beautiful landscapes, whilst watching
the sun both rise and set. These were the things that I craved, an adventure to
be proud of. The thing we found with Asia was that, despite its merits and the
fantastic things we were able to do there, it never felt like somewhere we
could call home. And after all of the travelling, that was the point, to find
somewhere that we could call a home.
Now we’ve settled in Barcelona and begun a new journey into
the unknown, living in and discovering a new city and learning a new language but
it feels different.
Barcelona already feels like home.
