All eyes were on the immaculately coiffed Cocoa as she slid from her lemon-coloured sunlounger to strut beside the pool. Pausing to sniff the sea air, she unrolled a tiny pink tongue, and three more pomeranians bounded across, their owners trotting dutifully behind, waving treats and lining up photographs.
A lapdog pool party was probably the last thing I expected to see on a trip with my husband and two young daughters to Hua Hin. The original Thai beach resort is better known for attracting royalty and retirees, but as its oldest hotel turns 100, the resort town is out to prove that it’s still got it. And at the Standard, the newest luxury boutique hotel in Hua Hin, Instagramming is par for the course.
Arriving at Hua Hin beach, a four-mile stretch of pale sand washed by gentle waves and with the odd high-rise hotel punctuating the horizon, we decided that it was attractive, if not one of the prettiest in the country. It is full of life, however, with locals and tourists gathering at sunset each night to play on the scattered rocks that give the beach its name (it translates as “stone head”).
The Standard has brought Miami glamour to Thailand
STANDARD HOTELS
The history of Hua Hin is intrinsically linked to that of the Thai railway and in the early 20th century the quiet fishing village became a convenient overnight stop for those on the long ride south. You can still make the journey on the train, though we went door to door in three hours in a minivan from Bangkok to Hua Hin.
In 1923 the Railway Hotel, as it was first called, had its grand opening. It was designed by the Italian architect Alfredo Rigazzi and built with a road leading directly to the station that passed under the legs of a giant topiary elephant. Thais believe that walking beneath an elephant brings luck, and the bush still stands today, with four gardeners dedicated to pruning it. My kids loved hiding in its belly of leaves.
At the same time King Rama VI built his Maruekhathaiyawan summer palace nearby and inaugurated the Royal Hua Hin Golf Course for the new hotel’s guests. The palace is closed to the public at present, but the golf course is next to the train station and we stopped to admire its centuries-old banyan tree, which is respectfully wrapped in silks; a family of small owls, much loved by locals, peeped sleepily back at us from the boughs.
Fast-forward to 2023 and the hotel, renamed the Centara Grand when it changed hands in 2014, is celebrating its centenary. And just as Britons rediscovered their own coast during the pandemic, Bangkok residents have deemed Hua Hin to be fashionable once again. The town is still popular among Brits too, and with good reason — we found five food and night markets, golf courses, themed waterparks and seafood restaurants. Hua Hin offers the street food and cultural buzz of a city, with the added bonus of sand, sea and cooling breezes.
There are five food markets in Hua Hin
ALAMY
In the 1920s princes and aristocrats built bungalows in Hua Hin to take advantage of its pleasant climate. The station still has an ornate waiting pavilion that was built for the royal family. At the Centara Grand, meanwhile, repeat visitors chase shadows of old Siam up the sweeping teak staircases, across the fan-cooled, wraparound verandas and among the topiary in the meticulously tended formal gardens, which are also home to banyan trees, tresses of pink bougainvillaea and lilac clouds of crepe myrtle.
The creaky floorboards and mirrors in the hotel’s Railway Wing are originals, and the Railway restaurant replicates the Victorian-Thai architecture of the train station. The Museum café and bakery displays the hotel’s telephone switchboard from the 1920s and its first check-in desk, over which dainty towers of cake are served. Settling here for afternoon tea one day, we opted for the Thai version — pandan rice pudding and set custard — fearing traditional cream cakes might wilt in the heat.
On the wall is a touching letter from a Dutch soldier who was captured in Myanmar during the Second World War and put to work building the Death Railway in western Thailand. When the war was over he visited the hotel and wrote to tell his wife that the stay had made him feel like a gentleman again. Different generations of his family have since visited.
Other guests enamoured by the hotel — which won more admirers when it operated as a Sofitel from 1988 — include a Brit who named his racehorse Centara and a couple from Cornwall who have visited the hotel 80 times, spending what amounts to four years here in total; unsurprisingly they made the invitation list for its centenary party in January.
Phraya Nakhon Cave
GETTY IMAGES
Not all places to stay in Hua Hin have the character of the Centara. But the leading wellness resort Chiva-Som, which has contemporary rooms in traditional Thai pavilions and seafront gardens, is another pioneer, while new and interesting boutique hotels here include the first Standard to open in Thailand, in 2021.
The Standard has an entirely different feel, bringing Miami modernism to the town with its 199 rooms, suites and villas in white-cubed buildings and a poolside bar set beneath concrete-slab parasols. DJs play at weekends, there are regular Los Angeles-style pool parties and we were thrilled to find a disco ball shimmering above our villa’s bathtub. We also loved the colourful blossom, lizards and birdsong in the lush gardens — though a member of staff did admit that some of it is piped in and that staff sometimes have to turn the volume down.
Much like its guests’ puffed-up pomeranians, the Standard is fun and showy — my husband and I ate tuna tartare marinated in Isaan spices at its Praca restaurant and tried body-painting in the spa, smearing each other with pastel-coloured clay mixed with essential oils beneath a frangipani tree. There were bodyboards, paddleboards and surfboards to play with, and as the sun set behind the hotel’s palm trees we drank maraschino cherry cocktails and glasses of frosé (frozen rosé) in an attempt to outpink it. It was clear that hipsters had found Hua Hin, as a farmers’ market was set up in the Standard’s garden on our last day, with local producers selling sourdough, jerk sauces, charcuterie and kombucha.
A day trip beyond the resorts revealed magic of a different kind. An hour’s drive south of Hua Hin the Sam Roi Yot National Park encases a ridge of jagged limestone teeth that rise up from marshland, and one of the peaks contains the otherworldly Phraya Nakhon Cave. To reach it we had to pad across worm-wrinkled sand and haul ourselves into a longtail boat that sped us to a pristine white beach. From here even my three-year-old managed to climb the steps, which took us 430m straight up to the cave.
The Centara Grand, formerly the Railway Hotel
We knew that we were close when we spotted spectacled langurs, or dusky leaf monkeys, overhead. Inside a vast cavern, incense burned in a small, gilded pavilion that was theatrically lit by a channel of golden sunlight. In the natural opening above it emerald vegetation tumbled down from a cobalt sky. As we gazed at the scene, the buzzing of cicadas gradually intensified before dropping away again, only to resume seconds later. Butterflies spiralled up to meet the sunshine while, further back, stalactites formed ghoulish faces in the cave wall, as though they were the pavilion’s fearsome protectors. A small panel informed us that the pavilion had been built for King Rama V — another royal seal of approval.
Back in Hua Hin we investigated the town’s excellent reputation for seafood. In the gloom of the Chatchai indoor market, tubs of skittish shrimp bubbled and pearly scales flew as fish were prepped for sale. One man chopped a watermelon into chunks while another (there’s always one) tried to weave his motorbike between table legs, assorted bare ankles and puddles of guts and salt water.
For the freshest of catches you need to pay a morning visit to the seafood stalls huddled at the bottom of Khao Takiap mountain, beneath a golden Buddha statue and past a line of turquoise-painted fishing boats. Arrive late and you might have to share the produce with scavenging monkeys that lollop down from the mountain to snaffle leftover crabs.
Lunchtimes are best spent in one of the restaurants that were once high-society holiday villas and have sea-facing terraces. At the end of the day we also found grilled sea bass and red snapper at wallet-friendly prices by pulling up plastic chairs at the night market.
The market vendors in Hua Hin are refreshingly un-pushy, and its nightlife is similarly relaxed. At weekends the Tamarind and Cicada markets have a festival feel. Decorated with paper lanterns, they host food stalls, childrens’ entertainers and live acoustic pop music as families crunch on paper-thin dried squid that has been wrung through a mangle, or pull on plastic gloves to tackle sticky slabs of pork ribs.
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Thanks to the recent influx of younger Thais there is also a burgeoning beach-club scene. Sleek upmarket restaurant-bars such as Oceanside and Sundance are places to sprawl on white daybeds and pick over modern Thai food — stir-fried clams, chilli and basil served with toast, for example — to a soundtrack of ambient beats.
Hua Hin has grown a lot in 100 years, and the railway might be about to change its fortunes again. Next year the single track line from Bangkok becomes a double track, which should cut the journey from the capital by 90 minutes to two hours. A new station is being added, with wooden boards and trims to match the original, which will become a museum.
Thailand’s original beach resort is moving on, but it’s holding on to its history too.
Natalie Paris was a guest of Kuoni, which has seven nights’ B&B at the Centara from £1,299pp, including flights and transfers (kuoni.co.uk), and the Standard Hua Hin, which has B&B doubles from £105 (standardhotels.com)
