Monkey Business

Hua Hin

We spent our last days in Hua Hin doing nothing (which seems to be the theme of the tail end of our trip). We went to Sports Villa and had a great time. We sat in the sun and when we got too hot we went for a dip in the cool, refreshing pool. We got a bit too much sun that day so we spent our last day in Hua Hin wandering around the city and trying to stay out of the sun. We hit the night market one last time and said bye bye to Hua Hin.

Phetchaburi

We wanted to take the 11:30 a.m. train on Sunday to make our way to Phetchaburi. It was late an hour and what was supposed to take one hour ended up being closer to 1-1/2. We have become used to this since arriving in Thailand (nothing is ever on time) so we just shrugged it off.

Once arriving in town we walked to our first choice of guesthouse, which doesn't mean much because Phetchaburi doesn't have a lot of options. We settled for one in town and decided to stay two nights. The place wasn't the greatest but we decided to suck it up!! :)

We spent most of that night trying to find a phone (with no luck) and continued our search the next morning. Let's just say our search ended with us using some random guy's cellphone and a phone card (long story so I'll tell you later). It appears our phone call was not in vain because we now have plans for Sunday!! Woo Hoo.

Our only planned destination in Phetchaburi was Khao Wang - a series of buildings spread out over three mountain tops. The walk there proved to be a bit scary (well for me at least). We were chased by dogs (dogs here love to bark at farang), braved monkeys and highway traffic. After arriving at the bottom of Khao Wang safe and sound we decided to take the cablecar up to the top of the first hill because we had heard many stories of the crazy monkeys who call this hill their home. I'm glad we did because we saw many signs warning us about the "wild nature" of these monkeys. The palace on the first hill, which is now a museum, was built by King Rama IV. The museum wasn't the greatest, but the views from the tops of the mountains were really something. See for yourself by checking out the photo album :) We wandered around and between the hills for about three hours (until the heat got the best of us) checking out the wide array of buildings and temples the King had built while he lived there. We took the cablecar back down and made our way back to the guesthouse.

That night we met a gentleman from Vancouver named Paul (go figure). He was a great guy and we ended up having dinner with him as well. He was on his first vacation in three years and Phetchaburi was one of his last stops before heading home on the 15th.

Side Note: Paul told us that when he was on Khao Wang he saw a woman from Korea who was attacked by one of the CRAZY monkeys. I guess the cable car was a good choice!

Back to Bangkok (for the last time)

This morning we took our last bus ride of this trip and found our way back to Bangkok. We got a room for the next three days at Shanti Lodge (the first place we stayed when we got here). We're planning on going to Khaosan Road to do some last minute shopping before we board a plane on Thursday night. Hopefully we'll write one more blog before we leave. Until then...

ta ta for now