We copy the Santorini

This April 2012, we wanted tranquility and so again Hua Hin we went. En-route to the destination in our jelly bean of a Honda jazz, we stumbled upon this newly opened imitation of Santorini. See, in Thailand, we copy everything. First it was bags and clothing apparels, now we copy the whole town. Newly opened, we were lucky to be among the first few hundreds to have walked her alleyway. All buildings in bleach white tastefully splashed with ledges of a dark baby blue. It is huge the compound and hot as the sun blazed down. Some tenants had not moved in yet but aplenty of them had already opened shop. As usual, the regular types of shops you would find in all touristy places. I could see this place fast becoming one of the “die-die-must-come-take-picture” here places. Thais have this weird concept that if you never come to certain places in certain provinces, you have not actually been to that province. My conclusion was verified when we stumbled into a crowd of photographers from some TV station I did not know shooting a sexily dressed see thru covered tall beautiful i-want-her type of Thai movie star whom I did not know. As the hours passed more people came and soon it was time we left on our way to Vana Varin, our destination.

Advise I would give is, if you would like to visit Santorini, and it is the weekend you are going, do it on the Saturday en-route to Hua Hin. Make an effort to u-turn as this place is located on the other side of the road in the direction back to Bangkok. See, if it’s a Saturday, all people will be heading to Hua Hin and all will plan to go Santorini on the return trip the next day. So the “return” day on Sunday, Santorini will be Sardine-rini. And go early, less people, less blazing sun. You know how hot Thailand can get.