A Day in Beach Garden Cha Am

I badly needed a break in June, as one would after a grueling first half of the year.  And since I have a workshop in Thailand at that time, and my Ecuadorian friend is coming over for my workshop, we made arrangement for a pre-workshop vacation.

We wanted to see the beach.  Phuket was out of the question because June is a stormy month and storms usually affect Phuket, as warned by our Thailand office security officer. We had to settle for places closer to Bangkok so we went for Hua Hin/Cha am-for some beach getaway and Ayutthaya , for some cultural exploration.  

Having did our research before travelling, we know our way-well, kind of. The mini bus station is located in Victory Monument, which can be reached via the BTS (train). Coming from Asok station, the terminal is at the left side exit of the Victory Monument station (Exit 2), right beside Century Cinema Mall. There are different booths for each destination- most are written in Thai. Luckily , the Hua Hin/Cha-am booth is in English.  

The booths at the mini bus terminal

We paid for our fare, got our ticket for 180 Baht each, and got confused :-D.  We were asked to wait for the minibus on one side-but it did take some time and the lady does not speak English. 

my "confused" friend

When the minibus finally came, we were expecting to board first since we were the first in the queue..which did not happen. So we ended up getting the most undesirable seat at the back-beside the luggages. It was however a fun 2.5 hours ride, with us talking all the way- which could probably have annoyed the other passengers. :)

We finally reached Hua Hin- and looked for a place to eat before boarding a taxi to Beach Garden Cha-am.  

Street food!

We reached the Beach Garden resort- and since we were booked for the cheapest room, we got the garden view, not the beach view..which kinda sucks because we went there for the beach. And so..we rushed to the beach, not wanting to miss the fun. And it was a clean, very nice beach...better than the beach at Amari Hua Hin hotel, where I was in March.

So nice that we stayed on until its dark...and had our Amarula drink, which came all the way from Africa. We had fun catching up, enjoying the wind and the sea, and trying to catch some pictures of lightning just for the heck of it.

And then it was dinner time at beach garden's restaurant.  We called it a day after dinner. We realized how badly we needed to rest.

Early morning was for catching the sunrise..we were surprised to see a bunch of young kids racing to the beach to do the same thing.  

Had quick breakfast, some time at the beach, a dip in the pool and then were off again to Bangkok to get ready for our Ayutthaya adventure the next day.