Travel Day — Chiang Mai to Hua Hin

Our driver in Chiang Mai picked us up at 7:30 a.m. for the drive to the airport. We flew from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok, where we rented a minivan (Toyota Innova).  We got ourselves in with all our luggage, which was no small feat.  We took off with Matt at the wheel and Melissa beside him to read the signs and help with navigation.  I took the very back.  I had told Matt I would sit as far back as possible because of my tendency towards “helpful” backseat driving.  It was my goal to keep my mouth shut while Matt navigated heavy traffic and driving on the left.

We got out of Bangkok with expert driving and stopped along the way for lunch.  We stopped in a restaurant that served Thai food, all day breakfast, burgers, pizza and fries…something for everyone.  We got a couple pizzas, truffle fries, and a Thai noodle dish.  Here is Melissa’s review of the pizza:  “It isn’t the best pizza I’ve ever had and it isn’t the worst.”  That was before she tried the second pizza.  It might have been the worst pizza.  When in Thailand, eat Thai food or go to Jing Jai Market and get the Japanese Okonomiyaki.

When we came back outside to get in the van, Chinda tried to fight me for the back seat.  It was a full on wrestling match.  Matt filmed it, of course, and posted it to Instagram.  Chinda thought the video was funny but the image of me climbing into the back seat with my big rear end on full display did not strike my funny bone.

We arrived at our AirBnB pool villa in Hua Hin in the late afternoon.  It is a lovely place.  We got situated, Matt and Melissa located the crib and then we headed out to the Cicada Night Market to enjoy the evening.  It was a pleasant market with a Korean group singing with hand gestures at one end of the market and a jazz group setting up at the other end.  We walked through but nothing really tantalized our cravings, except for the watermelon smoothie.  So we headed next door to another night market called Tamarind.  The food was excellent and there was a Thai man playing the guitar and singing cover songs of Elton John and John Denver in perfect English. He had a beautiful voice.  It added to the ambiance as we ate shrimp curry donuts, Thai tacos, fried chicken wings and honey roasted pork.  Not a lot of vegetables in our dinner tonight…actually no vegetables.