Back to March-April 2000, Jib (Please don't be wondering why I often mention her in my stories. As she's my best friend, most of my time is spent with her automatically) and I were trainees at The Tourism Authority of Thailand, Cha Am Office.

We had a very good time there and had experienced lots of new things. Other trainees were good and the staffs there were also kind, so that's enough to make Jib and I fall in love with these two places! Plus, since they are not far from Bangkok, we tend to (want to) go there when we feel bored and want to escape some hectic lives. Oh yes, another good thing is the cost of living there is reasonable, so we have never ended up getting broke! :)

(Note: This pic was taken at Jao Sam Ran Beach in April 2000)

So it's not only Jib and me now, but Ar (another best friend of mine) has the same mania for Hua Hin too!

In fact when it comes to traveling somewhere, three of us usually make it together like triplet! ;)

We actually have a friend in Cha Am named Peter. He's a retired English man whom we have known since Jib and I worked in Cha Am. He just got married with a 30s years old Thai divorced woman whom we never feel like she's really in love with our old friend. After the marriage, he took her to England, and yes, just as we predicted, when they came back, she asked if he could give her a million baht to run some business. She has rarely been to Cha Am but has stayed in Bangkok since they came back from England and every time he called her up, she would say she was busy working for her brother (which we hoped he was really a brother!). How come this becomes a gossip page? Oh well... just I can't help feeling sad for my friend. It might not be over the top when I say that if a much younger woman marries a 60 and up years old man, she just means to marry his money :( (esp. in this case she can't even communicate with my friend in English and my friend can't speak Thai--and every time they have any problem, it will always be my job to help translate things for them! ) I don't want to be too negative, but in the case like this, where is the love?

(Note: This pic was taken at Hua Hin some months ago. I look taller here ;) --the middle of 2003)

It is funny that 80% of tourists at Cha Am is Thai people and the rest are foreigners while 80% of tourists in Hua Hin is foreigners and only 20% is Thai. These two places are just 25 kilometres away from each other and so I can never find a good reason why Thais don't go to Hua Hin and why foreigners don't go to Cha Am.

Anyway, we arrived Cha Am around noon and our friend Peter picked us up to his 4th house. It was quite far from the beach and we couldn't walk, so we decided to stay there for just one night and went to Hua Hin the next day. We had fun walking on the soft sand, watching people. It was very sunny, so we decided to swim in the late afternoon so we would not get too darker. (Why afraid of getting tanned when going to the beach you might be curious... well, it's a Thai thing which cannot be explained into words ;) Ok, ok, there's one word to describe it--crazy! :p)

(Note: Jib: orange shirt, Ar: yellow shirt, and me--the middle of 2003)

This is also funny. If you go to the beach in Thailand, you will be laughing your head off seeing Thais wear shorts and T shirt as a swimming suit! I'm serious! So for those who expect to see sexy bikinis, you have to change your destination :) I don't know why we Thais will wear bathing suit only at a swimming pool, but not at the beach. Can anybody tell who creates this concept? (Oh well, how embarrassing to have to post a picture here to verify that Thai people don't really wear swimming suit at the beach...)

Anyway, we spent our time on the beach and got the 8pm bus back to Bangkok. Nightmare! We arrived Bangkok's Southern Terminal around 1 am and there was no more bus around there (and we were like an hour away from downtown). Great! So we took taxi to Pratunam (the Water Gate). And Ar instantly had the urge to go home in Korat which was 3 hrs away...I wouldn't say a word if it didn't happen at 2 am something! I admit that I'm a weirdo some time, but not in this case! (and we were worried about her safety too). So we waited till she got on the bus and now Jib and I looked at each other. It was not a smart thing to get on taxi alone now, esp. we had no energy left but had to carry all these bags and souvenirs.

"Let's go to my place!" we said this at the same time.

"Well, I didn't feel like staying overnight at your place, as your cousin is also there and I feel uncomfortable to wake her up this late at night. Why don't we just go to my place as I live alone?" I was trying to convince Jib.

"But my place is nearer...," Jib reasoned, "Ok, let's get taxi to your place," she eventually agreed after seeing my 'no-more-fight-please-I'm-tired' face. This is another thing that makes me love her more: she always understands me.