I have been a bit poor about any updates in here recently. We have been getting medical check-ups, MRI’s (Tam), and root canals (me) and some dental work, and eye exams, as well as having several visitors and kiteboarding with them a bunch.
Sorry!
But, for an update:
We left the Philippines.
It is a beautiful place, with the clearest, bluest water around (it even rivals the Caribbean) and perfect little islands everywhere (7,641 to be exact). It is a gorgeous place, and it is warm, and the people are good people – friendly and helpful. We had traveled previously in the Philippines, back in 2015, but we were exploring different places this time.
I did not feel like I connected with the place on this visit, which makes me a bit sad because I really do like it (or have in the past). It leads me to question if it is the place, myself, or is it all just situational and geographical?
We traveled with a great group of friends and saw a bunch of beautiful places with them, so we really enjoyed that part of the Philippines trip. After they all left we stayed for two weeks at a place called Kitesurf Mindoro on Bislig Beach on the island of Mindoro. We enjoyed being on Bislig Beach, but it was already settling in that it wasn’t the kind of place that we may choose to stay for the long-term.
We ended up staying on Boracay for the last month of our time in the Philippines, and, if I had to guess, it may have been this that drove the final nail into the experience. We rented a place for four hundred bucks a night, so we decided we could catch up on our budget a bit, but, while cheap, Boracay was a bit trying (and the food was ridiculously expensive, so there goes the budget anyway). As I whined about in a previous post, Boracay was crowded, and will remain in my book as the least friendly kite community I have spent time at. So, maybe yes? Situational? I really don’t want to blame the Philippines for this.
The whole thing about Boracay is just that it is a kind of a tourist hell.
So, we packed up our disillusionment and our hundred pounds of kite gear and split. And we ended up back in Thailand. Its funny to me how much like home this place feels when we get here. After nine months of a good deal of fairly hard, fairly primitive, and very adventurous travel in Sri Lanka (and two months of far too much moving around in the Philippines) we came back to some creature comforts and a feeling of home.
It feels quite nice.
We chose to return to Hua Hin because we needed to do a bunch of medical check-ups, dental work, and get some new old-people glasses. It is a convenient spot for all that, and we can kiteboard here, explore some cool caves and temples, and find a reasonably affordable place to live on the beach. It fills all the needs completely here for the two months we are here.
And it is easy. That part feels quite nice at this point.
So, we rented a condo on the beach for two months. If you look at a post I made a little over a year ago you can read about our ghetto little condo from that visit. This one is not really the same. It is a bit of an extravagance for us. We wanted to have a two-bedroom because we had a couple of guests visiting in April, so we found one for a decent price: Eight hundred dollars a month including all utilities and WiFi for a quiet two-bedroom two-bathroom place on the beach , away from the madness of central Hua Hin. It is a little fancier than what we would usually go for, but it fits the bill and it is off-season pricing.
It feels quite cozy and private, in spite of the fact that we are in a condo building, as we are surrounded by lovely and fragrant frangipani trees. It smells absolutely fantastic in the mornings.
And, I am not sure if this is creepy or really pleasant, but I think we are the only people staying at this condo most of the time. There is full-time cleaning and security staff here, but no other guests or tenants in any of the buildings. It is the off-season after all.
Kind of post-apocalyptic peacefulness in a pretty bustling town.
And it has a pool (two of em’ actually)!
This is the rooftop pool on the front building from where we can watch the sun set to the west, and see the rooftop gardens and the beach to the east. We enjoy this one in the evenings for a chat.
And then the infinity pool…
On the beach…
Here is Tam enjoying the infinity pool on the beach side of our place. Again, it is so strange, but there is no-one around here.
We have used this pool quite a bit more than I had expected. I am an ocean person, but sometimes a dip in the pool is just perfect. We had a Canadian friend (Matt) visiting for eleven days, and it was a nice place to hang out at times. Then we had our friends Milo and Nina visit from Los Angeles, and we kiteboarded and wing foiled out front every day, all day, for seven days. It was a really nice spot to lay in the pool and watch each other during our breaks.
It was also a fantastic place to sit and enjoy great conversation and relax under the full moon the other night.
We have gotten pretty spoiled being here. We have about a month to go, so we will, most likely, achieve full-on princess status before we leave. I will say that after those nine months in Sri Lanka Tam and I have been looking forward to something like this a bit. Somewhere comfortable. Somewhere a little less primitive.
Somewhere easy.
Wind, Water, Waves, Wander 