Living In Hua Hin V.2.0: Capybara, Dodgy Animal Farms & Family Meetups

The long way back to Thailand

We could’ve flown direct from Moscow to Bangkok in just nine hours.

There was just one slight issue.

That flight was with Russia’s national airline, Aeroflot. And currently, no Western bank cards work when paying a Russian company.

So, we had no choice but to find an alternative.

That alternative came in the form of a 14-hour, one-stop overnight flight with Hainan Airlines via Haikou, China.

Bleary-eyed, we arrived once again in Bangkok, this time welcomed by the wonderfully sticky embrace of the wet season.

Back in our second home – Hua Hin – familiar faces, food & culture

It feels like yesterday that we arrived here at the start of this trip. Oh, how time has flown.

Not quite done with exhausting journeys, we caught the three-hour train down to Hua Hin the following morning and settled into an Airbnb just a mile from where we’d spent two months at the tail end of last year.

It felt great to be back.

Familiar surroundings. Familiar culture. And that familiar smell of Thai street food.

I felt the stress of Europe slide straight off my shoulders. Time slowed down. I relaxed.

That’s what Thailand does.

I just love the place.

So here we are, several weeks into the final two months of the trip.

Between the heavy downpours, we’ve jumped straight back into the huge worldschooling scene, which seems to have grown massively since we were here eight months ago.

Several familiar faces made it easy to slip right back into the mix.

It’s incredible how many families have simply taken the plunge and moved here. The message we hear time and time again is the same: they’re fed up with the direction much of the Western world seems to be heading.

So, we’ve been along to the usual weekly meetups: art cafés, games afternoons and beach gatherings.

The kids settled in quickly and made new friends almost immediately.

The ethical Capybara village & the not-so-ethical Malai Farm

The Capy Village opened just three days before we left last time, so we never got the chance to visit. Naturally, it was one of the first places we went this time around.

Asia seems to have developed a mild obsession with the South American capybara, the world’s largest rodent. Cafés, farms, toys, stationery… if it can have a capybara on it, someone has probably put one there.

Always a little wary about supporting animal attractions in countries where welfare standards can be hit and miss, we were pleased to see this place appeared well run and that the animals looked healthy and cared for.

The kids got to feed and stroke capybaras, guinea pigs and meerkats. Yet another animal encounter to add to the growing collection from this trip.

What will also go down in the memory bank, albeit for entirely different reasons, was Malai Farm, 45 minutes north of Hua Hin.

With free entry, we wandered in and at first glance it looked promising. A huge area with animals roaming around.

However, the word farm felt a little misleading.

Prison would have been more accurate.

The more we explored, the worse things seemed to get. Animals were crammed into tiny enclosures and conditions became increasingly squalid.

What really did it for Sofia was a horse with a badly deformed leg, hobbling around on its three functioning ones. There was nobody around to explain whether it was a birth defect, an old injury or some kind of disease, but after that our enthusiasm for the place disappeared pretty quickly.

Things only got worse.

Lions were chained to a wooden platform waiting to pose for tourist photos. A rabbit had apparently just given birth, but her babies looked dead and nobody seemed to have noticed. The crocodiles were in an enclosure so small they could barely turn around.

In the end, we left fairly sharpish.

Views & Sunset at the Holiday Inn Sky Bar

The Holiday Inn dominates the skyline in the southern part of Hua Hin, rising 27 floors and standing as the town’s tallest building at over 100 metres high.

We headed up to the rooftop Sky Bar for sunset and were rewarded with stunning views across the coastline, city, mountains and ocean.

There was also a glass floor viewing deck which, I’ll admit, I still struggle to walk across without questioning every life decision that led me there.

Sofia, meanwhile, happily pranced around on it without a care in the world.

The food was excellent and, with children banned after 8pm, we made our exit before we got ourselves thrown out.

We’ve taken things much easier this time around, having already seen most of the sights.

Most days have involved lounging around the pool and generally doing very little.

Getting wiped out for over a week & kamikaze fish

We all got wiped out by a bug for over a week, which was annoying. But considering it was our first illness in nearly a year of travel, we can’t complain too much.

Sofia managed to squeeze in a horse ride, and we’ve discovered a few new beaches south of the city which were almost completely empty.

Exactly how we like them.

Khao Lak, around 30 minutes south, was particularly stunning. A huge sandy beach, crystal-clear water and not another person in sight.

We floated around on our inflatables, doing very little and enjoying every second of it.

Then the fish arrived.

First came a few tiny kamikaze fish that started nibbling at our ankles, giving us all a small fright.

Then hundreds of them appeared.

Suddenly they were launching themselves out of the water in every direction.

The way I was lying on my inflatable (or, to be more accurate, the kids’ inflatable that I had temporarily “borrowed”) meant that at least a dozen landed directly on my lap, wriggling around in a state of complete panic.

Meanwhile, hundreds more had launched themselves onto the shore where they were now only seconds from becoming very dry fish.

We did our best to rescue them, desperately scooping them back into the sea.

When people say fish are thick, there may actually be something in it.

They simply refused to learn.

They’d swim into the shallows, attack our legs, launch themselves at our bodies, then throw themselves onto the beach.

We saved as many as we could, but the sheer volume was impossible to keep up with.

Eventually, we admitted defeat and headed to a nearby café with breathtaking views for lunch.

Saying goodbye to our beloved Hua Hin & the great crowd of friends

After four weeks, it was time to say goodbye once again to a town that has played such a huge role in this trip.

Outside of our stays with family in Russia and the UK, Hua Hin has been our main base, and we’ve now spent a total of three months in this buzzing little town.

We’ve made countless memories here, met some wonderful people and built friendships that will last far beyond this trip.

And I have a strong feeling there’ll be a Hua Hin v3.0 at some point in the future.

For now, though, we head north for a very different experience.

Thailand’s cultural capital awaits: Chiang Mai