Thailand (Hua Hin)
At-A-Glance
Our first trip out as The Five Magic Beans – two families, four adults, five kids! It was heart warming to see our Beans grow on one another every day, singing tunes of Captain Planet in the van, and sharing chips and candy on the long rides in-between. We spent 4D3N around Hua Hin and didn’t have the opportunity to cover all the highlights due to a day of bad weather. At the end of it, our ears (and the windshield) made it out somehow, and our hearts were fuller than ever as our kids snored in exhaustion every night.
Main Highlights
1000 Sook Food and Farm: Located at Cha Am, it’s a good stop on the way to Hua Hin (one hour away). Here, it’s a farm that offers an up-close interaction with sheep, ponies, rabbits, chickens – a small fee to buy feed to get the cute animals to scurry up to you for a perfect shot. There is also a country style restaurant that offers both Thai and Western cuisine (which offers you free entry to the farm when you dine there)
Swiss Sheep Farm: IG destination with a photo-friendly opportunity at every corner, this is a kid-friendly farm with sheep, rabbits, horses and other animals! Nearby is the Camel Republic and Santorini Park so one could do all three parks in a day trip
Bats View Point: Every evening, millions of bats fly out of a cave and into the skies – it’s a sight scripted from Stranger Things, almost like the dancing Northern Lights but choreographed by the flight of the bats. We caught them off a 2-storey pavilion set up by a local at his own residence (small fee of 30 baht for each adult applies)
Hua Hin: We came into the city for its night markets and massage as we stayed further south in the Pran Buri vicinity – one of our highlights was Memory House Café which offered great food and a colourful ambience for wonderful photo opportunities!
Pran Buri Forest Park: A small mangrove park with a short boardwalk – we ran into it just as the sun was in the horizon and managed to squeeze out of it as the sun fully sets. We could have caught a gentle boat ride down the mangrove if we were earlier, but it was an adventure all the same
Pa La-U Waterfall: This was a easy trail leading up several waterfalls and fish-filled pools. The first five levels was easy – with some rock climbing and rope hanging – but beyond that it was too dangerous to embark with five little Beans – with river crossing and unmarked trails all the way to the last level (sixteen in total!)
Bueng Bua Wood Boardwalk: It was a rainy day, but this added to the lonely, misty vibe as our wooden boats took us down a lotus-filled lake. Birds chirped around us as water insects skipped alongside us, it was a sight of wonders!
Phraya Nakhon Cave: Same rainy day and we couldn’t go on this adventure (the guards closed off the trail due to mud and danger of landslides) – but pictures looked wonderful on a sunny day when the sunlight shines through the cave onto the shrine!