Hua Hin

I've had a nice few days on the Thai coast. We are lucky enough  to be staying on a lovely stretch of the beach, although we've not had a huge amount of time to enjoy it as Jessica has been keeping us busy with her tours of the area. Two of Jessica's friends, Shu- Fang and her daughter Mei Mei, are travelling with us and in typical Taiwanese style, want to see everything. On Friday, Lily and I met up with the others at midday. We went to look around the town and some of the nice hotels such as the Hyatt, and in the evening went to a great weekly night market for dinner and shopping.

As we are staying around 15km away from the town, it is necessary to take a tuk- tuk back to the apartment in the evening. We have discovered that it is impossible to negotiate a fair price for the journey, and it is inevitable that we will have to pay 300 Baht (around £7) for such a journey. This makes Jessica very mad. The reason for this is probably that there are a lot of retired Europeans living in Hua Hin who will pay whatever price is quoted to them for a tuk- tuk journey. As there are no real public transport options, especially in the evenings, they hold a monopoly over tourist transport.

Yesterday we hired a driver for the day and went to see a waterfall, a vineyard and an elephant village, where Shu- Fang and Mei rode an elephant and Jessica, Lily and I petted a cute baby one. It was a tiring day but good fun.

Today we have a day to relax. Shu- Fang and Mei left for Bangkok in the morning, where we will meet them tomorrow. Jessica is going for a spa treatment at the Hyatt and Lily and I will stay and relax. The three of us will take the 6am train to Bangkok tomorrow morning, and in the afternoon we all fly to Yangon.