Michael Batson

I’ve been past Hua Hin on the bus and on the train a few times, always at night. Usually there’d be a brief stop to drop people off or pick them up; so my impressions were generally fatigued, blurry and in darkness. I’ve flown over the beach resort as well, an entirely different perspective and one with a subsonic, high altitude detachment. The sweep of the coast on both sides of the Thai isthmus; the Gulf of Thailand on one side, the Andaman Sea on the other always looks impressive. Here at Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, Thailand is officially at its narrowest, just 11kms wide, though the tapering strip of coast near Koh Kong along the border with Cambodia probably is narrower and, as it’s largely illegal Thai territory, a land grab, at least according to the Cambodians, goes unacknowledged. Hua Hin is 2 hours by road south of Bangkok. It occupies a strip of beach along Thailand’s 1660km long coast of the eponymous gulf and has palm trees and sand, as you’d expect. Weekends and public holidays it’s busier. It’s reached on Route 4 (Phet Kasem Road) which splits from the main Highway 37 at a spaghetti junction towards the coast and follows the rail line south. Hua Hin is a resort for Thais fleeing the capital; its smog, congestion and heat of the world’s official “hottest capital”. Hua Hin is a royal town. Kings Rama VI and VII built summer palaces there. The late king, Rama IX, occupied his official residence, the Phra Ratchawang Klai Kangwon (“Far from Worries