Vacation in Hawaii? Kauai Vacation Rentals has hotels, condos, and more.
Vacation plan with help for a Hawaii directory: Hawaii Vacation on any island.
Find accommodations for your holiday in Cabo San Lucas Vacation in Mexico.
Travelers: Kauai Condos offers vacation rentals at Kuhio Shores.
Vacation with views: try Hanalei Bay Resort on your Hawaiian vacation.
March 20, 2004
A friendly hotel in Hua Hin
I noticed that all of my google ads are currently about hotels in Hua Hin, so i thought I'd plug the little, friendly place where I stayed, Patchara House. We paid 900 baht/night during the high season in February. The room was nice and clean, but there was no view. Everything in Hua Hin is within walking distance; the beach was about 5 minutes away.
The owners are very friendly, and there was one person who spoke some English. We had no trouble getting extra towels (after we got ours dirty at the beach) or leaving our bags until 4:00 (checkout was 12:00 if I remember correctly) so that we could take a late train back to Bangcock. They even offered to let us shower in the bathroom downstairs after we'd checked out. I'm afraid that I no longer have their phone number, but we got it from Lonely Planet Thailand.
If you were wondering about Hua Hin, it is very touristy. We saw more white people than Asian people and more Italian food than Thai food. The beach is crowded with people trying to sell stuff (massages, donkey rides, fruit, thai boxing tickets, etc.) so it was sometimes hard to relax. However, the beach was beautiful and the water was great.
March 16, 2004
Travel destination - Kuala Lumpur
Not too long ago I wrote a bit about Thailand. After Thailand I went to Kuala Lumpur. This is a great city. First of all everyone speaks English. In Thailand, the taxi drivers usually couldn't read a card in English (or understand what you were saying) making it tough to get around. No problem in Kuala Lumpur.
Plus Kuala Lumpur seemed just as cheap as Bangcock and cheaper than Hua Hin. You don't get those wild temples, but you get really neat architecture including mosques and Islamic/colonial buildings. The train station is amazing (the old one, not the new one). We ate mostly Indian and Chinese food. I drank lots of Milo.
Taxis are extremely cheap, and drivers speak English. Sometimes they don't want to use the meter, but we had pretty good luck asking "Do you use the meter?" Most drivers didn't want to say "no". Then we always tipped them for being honest. If a driver wouldn't use the meter, we just asked another. There are lots of taxis.
My wife and I are already planning our next trip to Kuala Lumpur. The Petronas Towers are neat and free. KL tower is 15 ringgit or about $4. The Bird park was 25 ringgit or about $6, but the surrounding Lake Garden is free. All those things are worth doing.
Next time we're going to see more mosques (we only saw the National Mosque) and museums. We'll also try harder to find Malay food (but I think we had some our first night).
March 1, 2004
Itinerary for a second visit to Korea
My wife and I recently finished showing my parents around Korea. My parents arrived Feb. 20 and left March 1. Our schedule was something like this:
2/20 - My parents arrived in the evening. We took them to our place and made them dinnner. Then we taught them how to play Go-Stop, a Korean card game.
2/21 - We went to Coex mall and Coex aquarium.
2/22 - We visited a vet in Pucheon who works for an animal rescue association, played with the stray dogs being taken care of, and went to Hyundai department store for some shopping.
2/23 - We flew to Cheju island, got settled into our room (the very mediocre Han Hwa resort), and had a pretty bad, overpriced meal in the hotel restaurant.
2/24 - We went to Sogwipo to visit Cheonjiyeon Waterfall, Wedolgae (a cliff with some intersting rock formations), the botanical gardens, and the Teddy Beear Museum, and then downtown for dinner and shopping.
2/25 - We went to Daepo Seashore (very cool uneven lava tubes), Jeju folk village, Michun cave (very disappointing), Sangumburi Crater, and Cheju city for dinner and shopping.
2/26 - We went to Oodo, an island with a black sand beach and a coral beach. Then we returned to Cheju to go to the very different shell museum. Then we flew to Chinju and had dinner.
2/27 and 2/28 - My parents have already done most of the tourist attractions in Chinju so we spent some time shopping in our favorite glasses store and playing Go-Stop.
2/29 - Back in Seoul we went to Duksoo Palace, Namdaemun market, and Seoul Tower (where we had a great view but some terrible food in one of the revolving restaurants).
3/1 - We dropped my parents off at the airport, came home, and took a nap.