Disabled holidays; sun and rain in Hua Hin

When I am planning our holiday I always take the weather into account. I love sunshine and warm weather. So I like to travel to warm places with lots of sun in the European winter. But when you are living in Australia you probably like to travel in the Australian wintertime, summer in France and rainy season Thailand.

Since I have travel often to Thailand I have experienced all seasons here, winter, summer and rainy season. And surprisingly I found the rainy season not that bad. Most of the time it rain is short heavy showers, sometimes with a lot of wind, but never a hurricane. I'm used to a humid climate in The Netherlands and cold rain. In Hua Hin, Thailand rain is always warm. You get wet, but not cold.

When you plan your holiday it mostly depends on holiday season, school holidays and so on. To help you to find the ideal weather you can consult climate in Hua Hin or any other climate website on the internet.

Monks, early morning on Hua Hin Beach. 

Assisted living, yes or no?

November 13, 2011

Every new day has new chances. Yesterday evening Kung, the Thai nurse, went to bed without saying goodnight while we were talking to Alfie. After all we didn't see him for 5 years. Since then a lot happened. And not knowing what time we had to get up. Well no problem. We will see tomorrow when she knocks on our door. We have to get up at 6am. Departure is around 7 am. But this leaves me with Jan to be showered, put into bed and backpain. We took Kung, a Thai care taker, at this trip. Assisted living, YES.

Around 5 Kung is knocking on our door. Hanneke opens the door and I tell her to go back to sleep for an hour. After an hour she is coming back to dress Jan. Together we go outside for breakfast. In the meantime Charles is collecting our luggage. This is a friendly, helpful, hard working man and already deserves a tip.

Today we are moving to the next camp. Alfie will take us on a game drive. We follow the river Sabie and along the road we see new animals. And every time the landscape is different from the day before. Kung is sleeping during the trip and waking up everytime we stop. She is not able to take care of me anymore. So Hanneke is taking over to ensure my need of assisted living.

During the day we see a lot of nice things. Like a elephant museu, a bushbok on the terrace of the restaurant, a local wheelchair / commode and of course a lot of animals. We see a sale on Amarula, a local liqor made from the Marula fruit. We buy two bottles and get 8 glasses for free. And after a wonderfull afternoon spent with friends to be we arrive at Satara Camp.

Our quarters are wheelchair accessible cottages again built in a circle. And before Jan even has noticed he already has a flat tire due to the thorns of the trees surrounding the cottages. And thank God we have Alfie with us. He is fixing Jan's wheelchair in no time. Thank you Alfie you are the greatest.

Charles and Alfie are preparing diner while we are settling in. Before diner Jan has a chat with Kung. Kung tells Jan she is to tired, she needs sleep, she is not used to heavy work, etc. Together they decide it is best to put an end to this employment. Exit Kung. Assisted living, NO. Hanneke takes over my care.

During diner we talk to our travel companions and treat them on Amarula. Everyone likes it and the bottle is emptied within the hour. After lending our plug to Robert and wash the glasses we go to bed.

To be continued.

In case you are looking for place inThailand where you can find an assisted living situation look at http://www.gehandicapten.com/

Holidays and summer holiday.

Accessible temples in Hua Hin

February 2, 2010. Khao Takiab, Monkey mountain en temple. Movie is showing Kirsti Cath, her care takers and Jan.

One of the tourist places you must have seen during your holidays. Nothing special but just a nice place to look around even when you are disabled. Buy some peanuts or bananas to feed the monkeys. Walk upstairs, +/-100 steps, to see the temple when you feel like it. Take a look at the shops. They have very nice handpainted t-shirts. Behind the shops you will find a wheelchair accessible toilet / restrooms. Stroll / roll down the road and enjoy the view of Hua Hin Beach all the way up to Hua Hin center.
Watch your gear especially your food. Monkeys can and will take it.

Close to the temple is the best accessible beach of Hua Hin. Take a look at this previous post.

Wheelchair accessible local markets Hua Hin

Hua Hin has some nice local markets where the citizens of Hua Hin are shopping for their groceries. The Chat Chai Market is one of these markets where you can shop even when you are disabled. It is located in the centre of Hua Hin just 200 meter from our wheelchair accessible apartment Tira Tiraa.

You can buy fresh fruit, vegetables, fresh and dried fish, shrimp, chicken, meat, clothes, toys and some more. At night local farmers brings their goods into town and early in the morning, around 7 they start to sell their product. It is an all day market. The market closes in the afternoon or when products are sold out.

We love it to shop here. People are friendly and appreciate you buying their products. Sometimes they warn you. Telling you this is no falang food. But when you like to taste different kinds of food don't let them stop you from buying.

Visit this market in the morning. This is when local people are coming to buy their food. But when you are in a wheelchair keep in mind that the paths are narrow. When it is busy you need patience to see this market where women fall asleep behind their stalls and the neighbour is watching their small businesses. It is one of these places to make nice pictures during one of your holidays.

Hua Hin Jazz festival

We already wrote a little piece about the coming up Hua Hin Jazz Festival sponsored by our home country brewer Heineken. The festival is pastence. And it was not the only one on this planet. The Hua Hin festival was a great success. I don't know how succesful the Bonaire festival was. In case you want to see pictures of the 2010 festival look here. And for those who didn't know, the main stage near the Intercontinental Hotel is close to our wheelchair accessible home where disabled people can spend their holidays. And close to this hotel is a beach access ramp for wheelchairs and scooters.

Season Greetings

At the end of each year we look at all the things we did last year. We look at all the new developments and we inform our past guests, future guests and others who are interested about this. This year is no exception. In this way everyone has the opportunity to inform himself/herself before the new travel guides are published.

We had an extraordinary busy year. We have welcomed known and unknown guests at all wheelchair accessible locations. Our managers in Hungary and France and our housekeepers in Thailand welcomed our disabled guests with great enthusiasm. They take pride in their jobs and are very pleased with the returning guests. Twice a year we visit our locations to make sure we keep up the quality so much appreciated by our guests with a reduced mobility.

Our latest location is the accessible apartment Tira Tiraa, downtown Hua Hin. In October and November we and our housekeeper Fon have welcomed our first guests who were very satisfied with our apartment and the service we offer. Conveniently located in the centre of Hua Hin, this apartment is luxurious decorated and has a the big private terrace with pool hoist at the pool side. Together with excellent service of our housekeeper this apartment is a beautiful place to stay during a holiday.
In March 2010 we will add a third location. Studio74 is located in the same condominium building as apartment Tira Tiraa. It will suit families, friends, travel companions and care takers of our disabled guests who want to have more privacy.

Apartment Tira Tiraa and Studio74 can be found on Google Earth. Panoramio excepted one of our pictures of the building and is published on Google Earth.
Koordinates: 12˚34'25.14"N 99˚57'18.39"O

At the same time we started a Blog. All new information and developments will be published on our Blog. You can read our Blog on
http://www.wheelchairthailand.blogspot.com . We kindly ask our guests who have visit Thailand to write about their experience on our Blog.

Furthermore we have published pictures of our accommodations in Thailand on Picasa web albums. The next link will bring you directly to our album picasaweb.google.com/WheelchairThailand . Feel free to give comments to our pictures at Picasa.

And we started to twitter. We will send tweets to everyone who is interested in the little things. The next link twitter.com/gehandicapten will get you there. Do you want to follow us?

The walls inside our house in Hungary and in our apartment in France got all painted this year. And at these locations we have bought new garden furniture. And we have replaced all the linen at both locations.

In Hungary a new manager started this year. His name is Misi. He is a retired official and our neighbor. We got to know him as a enthusiastic and reliable manager who is very friendly and helpful towards our guests.

Finally we wish all our previous guests, all our future guests and their family members, their friends, their care takers and everyone who is reading this Blog

A Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy and travellish 2010

Kind regards,

Hanneke Fronik