Hua Hin

I loved Hua Hin and I've just been looking through my photos from day 2 Hua Hin and tweaking some of them using Picasa. I read on another blog which I cant remember just of the top of my head about Picasa and how it was easy to use to straighten image and crop and upload. This is true, it is very straight forward but poxy and you cant do much with it according to Chicky Babe who favours Photo shop!
Anyway there is an option to make a slide show with the photos from your Picasa album and upload it to blogger. So I thought I'd give it a go. You guys might get sick of Thailand photos soon. Just be thankful I'm sorting through them and there is only so much time in the day to upload photos I took about 1500!!!! (Many of them not so good!!!)

Right I'll try to do the slide show thing.

Hmmmmm..... that didn't work. (I tried to past the code in the upload picture section) I'll try this...Paste it directly on where I type my post.



YAY! it worked. That was easy.

Hua Hin had a lovely seaside feel with a strong arty community. The Cicada Art Market was definitely my kind of place. I also discovered here a fantastic fabric shop with the most beautiful soft cotton fabrics- I paid $70 Australian for 3 lengths of fabric (8 meters in all).
The beach here is all rocky and with the stripy buoy on the horizon I felt like I was in a Picasso painting. The horses and brollies had me imagining I would see him and his wife strolling about enjoying the sunshine. It was not exactly like the painting but there was something in the quality of the light and the rocky beach and atmosphere that had it fixated in my head.
The Sofitel Hotel was like stepping into another time. I could imagine I was sitting on the veranda sipping tea waiting for Freddy and George to come in from playing tennis on the lawn. It really appealed to the romantic in me. I just checked out their website. The cost of their cheapest room was equivalent to three nights at the Baan Paloy where we stayed, which was lovely in it's own way and for $50 Australian per night with breakfast for both of us I can't complain!!

Thinking of thailand

We had Thai food for tea tonight. One of the mum's in our school community is from Thailand- from Krabi actually, (our first port of call.) Anyway she's hired the school canteen on a Thursday when it is not open and she prepares and sells authentic, delicious Thai food at amazingly cheap prices.
It got me thinking about Thailand and what a lovely time we had there, such a contrast to the images on the news at the moment. The following photos were taken at the Grand Palace on our last day in Bangkok. It's not far from where one of the trouble spots.

(Posted today as this saved as a draft and wouldn't publish last night. I think there must be pixies in my lap top causing some irksome little glitches lately.)

The story of the broken bath.

Technology is a wonderful thing it allows us to keep in contact where ever we are. I've already had a text and a call from Bantam Boy. Just to let me know where they are and that they are safe. I don't expect one every day but I did ask that he just keep me posted as to where they are- just in case. I am paying for his phone on a post pay system so that he never runs out of credit while he's on his holiday and he will have the phone to call if he needs to.

Having said that while I was away I recieved messages like... "Mum you didn't put money in my account I can't buy an onion!" (Thankfully Tim came to the rescue with some cash money until I could resolve the bank issue using internet banking) Another was "I've locked myself out- I don't have a key." Various problem solving was done via text messaging and phone calls. Let me tell you that international roaming is not cheap. It cost me $250 to be kept informed on the day to day problems of my cherubs and Tim didn't realise that even if he rang me that I ended up paying for the call because it had to be redirected. Never mind, it was nice to be missed.

However it was while I was in Hua Hin that I got the most intriuging message.

I loved Hua Hin and would have loved to stayed there longer. It is a place I would return to. It is a seaside town that caters to Thai tourists as well as those from overseas. The people were very friendly and the pace of life here was just right.

This is the beach at Hua Hin. I loved the rocks and they had horse ride available if you wanted to have one. My favourite thing was the beach brollies and lounge beds. I set myself up to guard the bags and read my book while Deb went for a run/walk or swim.

We had dinner two nights at these restaurants on piers over the ocean. The first night we tried one that was a little quiet compared to those around it. We had a whole steamed fish in ginger. It was beautiful. The other night we tried one of the most popular ones where people lined up to get in but in all honesty I think our first choice was better. Although I have to admit I don't think we had a bad meal anywhere- Except for Surat Thani where there was nothing we could find as nothing was geared toward tourists, it really was a commertial centre so not wanting to risk the street food with a long train trip ahead of us we had a packet of chips and gin and tonic for tea!! We found it very funny- it may have been the gin!

Another favourite thing in Hua Hin was the historic Soffatel hotel. Built in the 1920's or 30's when the royal family decided that Hua Hin was a nice place for summer holidays. We walked up from the beach and had afternoon tea both days we were there. I'd love to splurge and just spend a week here. It was delightful.

The night markets were similar to those we saw in Phuket offering much the same things as we saw in phuket and then in Bangkok. They had all the colourful food stalls with stuff like this that I had no idea what it was. (Does anyone know what it is?)

While enjoying this place I recieved a text from Chicky Babe which read.

"Please never ever ever go away again!"

"Why? Just because you miss me and love me?"

No because Bantam Boy had a party and they broke the bath. They WHAT!!!???!!! My lovely claw foot bath that took me years to save up to afford to install- I bought it from a clearance sale then it sat in the car port for 4 years until I could get it put in only a few months ago.

How broke???

Apparently there was a party. Which was supposed to be a gathering in a local park. Then they badgered Bantam Boy. Lets go to your place- your mum's not there. Ok but no one is allowed to go inside we all stay outside. Yeah right. In they went and much to Bantam Boy's dismay and alarm the next morning they discovered that the bath had been broken off at the pvc plumbing at the plug hole section and it was resting on it's side. No one owned up to having done it.

Fortunately Tim the toolman was able to fix it fairly easily. But that is the last party for a while! Oh yes there was also a very long pine log in the front yard too! Where that came from we have no idea.

I was going to put these Thailand pictures at the end of this post and end on a positive note, recalling my lovely trip and thinking about being able to plan more lovely holidays as the kids become less and less dependant on me. But my lap top is refusing to let me move them or even delete them! So they are stuck here!


This is the pool where the 4pm happy hour started our daily Pina Colada tradition. ( I promised myself I'd buy the ingredients to make them here but haven't yet, although I did buy some Bombay Sapphire Gin yesterday. Purely medicinal to guard against malaria, nothing to do with lifting my morose mood yesterday. Gin was our night time night cap drink. I can't believe I actually lost weight while on holiday! All that drinking and eating and lying by the pool! I'll have to do more of that here. I actually think it was the relaxation that helped me lose 3kg in 12 days! And the walking I suppose.



This pretty flower was at the poolside of our hotel -Boomerang Village in Kata. It was so nice there and it cost us $50 a night for both of us (we did have to share a king size bed, fortunately we got on so well!!) and that included a full buffet breakfast with real coffee not that stuff stewing in pots on a warmer! The fellow who owns the place is Italian so I guess that good coffee was an important thing to him too.

Kata Beach

This is where my post actually started. (It's all topsy turvy sorry!)

Bantam Boy has started his driving around australia holiday with his mate, who happens to be the son of the friend I went to Thailand with. I'll call him Robin -as he's Bantam Boy's side kick. I don't know how long they will be away for. As long as their money lasts for. If the can pick up casual work here and there they will stay away longer but they could be back in 8 weeks. Or less if Bantam Boy continues to sleep in all day and insist on two daily 10 minute showers! Robin has been doing a bit of busking here and there- singing for his supper, those drama lessons are paying off!! We were wondering what Bantam Boy could do. Unfortunately he hasn't mastered any instruments. Robin suggested he could take a grubby coat and take advantage of his morning mood to be a 'bum' (Robin's words not mine) and beg. Fortunately I came up with a more positive idea. He is quite good at drawing so I bought him some small sheets of water colour paper and he's going to make sketches of where they are and sell them. So if you see a young man selling "post cards" he could be my boy and he could be hungry!

I couldn't believe how upset I was when he left the other morning. I sobbed and cried and continued to be teary all day- much to the disbelief of some of my colleagues. I think that if he had just moved out of home and could pop in for tea or to get his clothes washed as Lou suggested in her comment on my last post I'd be OK. I've actually been surprised at how well I've been coping with this transition to adult hood. Including girlfriend sleepovers. But he's left and I don't know when I'll see him again and it's a bit like going cold turkey with an addiction. Up to the morning he left I was 'mothering' him helping him get organised to go...then he was gone! For how ever long! But I tell you the force of my sorrow surprised me. I know he will be back to annoy me with his late nights and sleeping in, but right now I miss him. The house is very quiet tonight because Chicky Babe is staying with a girlfriend for most of this week while her friend's family is in Bali. So I am practicing being an Empty Nester!

I know it's cliche.

It happens far too quickly!

Going, going, gone.

He's gone and I wept.

letting go, letting them grow...

Bantam Boy has his licence. He's borrowing the car from me tomorrow so he can drive himself to work and then drive about to see his friends. I told him it will cost him lunch for me delivered to school when he finishes his shift at about 11;30. I think that's fair enough.
He also has a girlfriend now too.
And I'm crying at the telstra add where the young man rings his mum from the train telling her he's coming to visit her!