justwilliam

You don't say whether you will be alone or with friends/family, nor whether you are male or female.

This time last year I stayed at the Golden Guest House for about 3 weeks. It was spotlessly clean, and the proprietor, Patrique, was most helpful and watchful. I expect to stay there again in the future, and I can recommend it highly. I paid around 700 Baht per night.

You can Google it for more information, or look on TripAdvisor.

Regarding seafood:

At the far north end of the beach is the fishing pier, and there are a number of seafood restaurants in that area. I have been to 4 or 5, and they are all quite good. Some are on the beach, some on the harbor, and some just in the middle. Different people have their respective favorites, but my guess is that you could choose any one and be generally satisfied with the quality of the food and the prices. They are popular with tourists and the younger crowd.

There is another seafood restaurant (unfortunately I don't remember the name) that is popular with the locals in Cha-am (few farangs). To find it, you travel north towards the pier, but fork left instead of right before the canal bridge, and then there is a sharp left hand bend in the road, and the restaurant is on the right hand side just after the bend. In my opinion it has the best seafood, and good prices. But that's just my opinion.

When my wife and I were looking for a house to rent in Hua Hin, we initially tried the web, and then the agents. In our experience, without exception, the places advertised on the web were very over-priced, at least 2 times the going rate. The places we were shown by agents were not very different, maybe 50-100% over-priced.

In the end we did what everyone recommends, and drove up and down the streets looking for "house to rent" signs. In this way we found a very nice house, 3 beds, 4 bath, quiet, clean neighborhood, 3 minutes walk from the beach, for Baht 12,000.

I was in Cha-am for a couple of weeks in March, and stayed at the Golden Guest House. It is located on Soi Bus Station, about 20 yards from the beach road.

The rooms are spotless, and the facilities very nice. I paid Baht 700 per night for a large, air conditioned room with a balcony overlooking the beach.

I have no connection with the ownership or management of Golden Guest House.

I have rented from Budget a number of times in the past.

I always had decent vehicles and excellent service. They are located near the Grand Hotel, a short distance south of the town center.

They are not the cheapest, but you won't have to worry about insurance.

I shall be in Cha-am the last week of February, and am seeking a recommendation for a decent guest house, for less than Baht 900 per night.

I like clean, and not too noisy. I shall have a car, but prefer not to be more than 500m. from the beach. I speak some Thai.

Any suggestions or advice would be gratefully received.

You don't mention budget.

If you are not too restricted, I suggest you check out Baan Lon Sai (sp?) in Khao Takiab, but the Hua Hin side of the mountain, about 5km south of the HH town center. It's hard to miss; it's by far the tallest building in those parts, located about 100 yds south of "The Rock" hotel, and on the same (beach) side of the road.

When we checked a couple of years ago, prices were in the Baht 12 million to Baht 25 million range -- but it's definitely exclusive. The sizes fit with your stated requirements, most owners are wealthy Thais, and it doesn't figure on the farang websites. You have to physically go there to inquire.

We lived opposite for a year or so, and walked past it every day on the way to the beach.

We had good experience (with our cats) at the Vet on Soi 55/1. They speak excellent English. I'm sorry I can no longer remember the name, but it's a short Soi.

The Soi is illustrated on Google Maps but isn't labelled. However, it's in between Soi 55 and Soi 55/2 (as you might expect!), both of which are labelled.

On the web site to which I referred in my earlier post, Fisherman's Village is quoting rooms from Baht 3,020, Rabiang Rua from Baht 1.729, and White Beach Resort from Baht 1,215. All three are right on the beach.

I am personally familiar with Fisherman's Village, but not with the other two.

We lived in Phetchaburi for three years, and used to visit Haad Chao Samran frequently. Unless things have changed very recently, I do not recall too many bungalows for rent, especially near the beach.

There are 3-4 decent beach hotels-cum-resorts (each of which has bungalow type rooms available), and maybe 20 or so guest houses and inexpensive hotels. Outside of the 3-4 decent hotels, I doubt there is any English spoken, and therefore a web search might not be fruitful.

I would suggest you search Google for "Haad Chao Samran," where you will find details of the hotels to which I referred on a web site with the URL "hotels2thailand", among others.

By the way, we loved Chao Samran for its solitude and tranquility, and the excellent and inexpensive seafood cafes.

I'd like to give you a little more of our personal experience, which may be helpful. We were in your shoes about 2 years ago, looking for somewhere to rent in Hua Hin.

We had been living in Phetchaburi for 3 years, which I liked very much. But my (Thai) wife's family were there, and eventually we felt we had to get away from them.

We were close enough to HH that we could spend plenty of time looking around. We started with the web, and found that rents were in the $1,000 range for the kind of place we might like. Too much for us.

Then we visited agents, at least 15 of them, and generally found they were asking about $750 for the same kind of place. Still too much.

Finally we did what everybody in the know advises, and spent some days just driving up and down the sois looking for "For Rent" signs.

This way we found a very nice house in Khao Takiab, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 2,000 sq ft, clean, everything works, 4 minutes walk from the beach, no stray dogs, no garbage in the soi, for $300 per month. The (Thai) landlord was a very nice man, and lived opposite. Any problems we had were attended to the same day.

But I after a few months I decided I didn't like HH at all, so when our year lease was up we moved to Nakhon Pathom. There we found a similar house for just $120 per month, although nowhere near the beach!

I believe your biggest variable will be rent. You need to provide more information before the "locals" can offer good advice. For example, do you want to live near the beach, or back in the hills, or in the town centre, or 5-10 miles north or south? Are you looking for a detached house, or a town house? How many bedrooms/bathrooms? The rent will vary enormously, from a minimum of about $300 per month, to well in excess of $1,000 per month.

And the car; will you purchase outright, or will you need to make payments from your $400 per week?

Eating out is very inexpensive if you stick to the local foods and the local cafes. But if you want to eat Western food in a Western atmosphere 2-3 times per week, Hua Hin is not at all inexpensive.

I have no idea about golf clubs.

Please provide a little more info, and you will be surprised at how valuable the responses will be.

(and without wishing to appear impertinent, I am wondering how you managed to settle on Hua Hin as your preferred destination without already knowing the answers to these questions).

Yes, on the south side of Ratchadamri, on the east bank of the river, next to the bridge.

Yes, it's near a bridge.

I'm sorry you had to spend your time in Hua Hin rather than Phetchaburi.

If you tell me where you are coming from, I can give you directions to Baan Rimnaam. And when I said it was a little pricey, I meant by local Phetchaburi standards. It is far less expensive than anything similar in Hua Hin, for example.

Are you staying overnight in Phetchaburi, if so where? I lived there for three years recently, and can give you more suggestions if you could let me know what kinds of things you and your guests like to do or see.

Phetchaburi has hundreds of cafes, but few restaurants (and almost no English language signage). One I would suggest is located on the river at Google Earth reference 13, 05, 18.84N 99, 56, 54.78E. I think it is called Baan Rimnam, but I'm not sure. It's a little pricey (for Phetchaburi), but is in a nice setting and can handle large parties.

The most obvious attraction is Khao Wang, the palace on the hilltop, and the surrounding park. There are many other temples in the city of Phetchaburi, if that is your wont.

I am not aware of any Indian restaurants; only Thai and Chinese.

We were faced with the same dilemna a couple of years ago, and I would second johnnyk's response.

You can shorten your search time considerably if you know beforehand whether you want to live in the town centre (ie near the bar district), or further out but still near the beach (say within 1 km), or back in the hills somewhere (think of 20+ mins to the beach or town, by car).

We wanted to live near the beach, but not in the town centre, and we spent only one day searching. We were fortunate to find a suitable place that day, and were able to contact the owner and sign papers immediately.

Our approach was basic -- just drive up and down all the roads and sois looking for "for rent" signs. It worked well for us.

I agree with Moonfruit, I was very satisfied with the work they did on my Specialized, that I imported from the US.

It has an English name -- "The Hua Hin Bike Shop."

Lite Beer, you were not wrong.

The ruling was that I can apply for a retirement extension, but otherwise I have to leave Thailand by September 30 when my visa expires.

If I want a tourist visa, I have to leave and return; the Thai Wife visa cannot be "converted" to a tourist visa.

I shall be leaving soon, but who knows? -- I may come back in a few years.

My wife passed away last Friday, the cremation was yesterday, and we had the scattering of the ashes ceremony today (Tuesday).

I'll go to Suan Phlu on Thursday to check out my official options, and let you all know the results (I live in Nakhon Pathom).

Here's a little more detail.

My current Non-O Thai wife visa expires on September 30, and I have (more or less) decided to leave Thailand anyway, rather than suffer any of the various indignities described above.

I presume I can just leave on or before September 30 with no consequences.

Any thoughts?

Thank you all for your condolences and your advice.

We had no children together, and I am not sure I wish to pursue permanent residence, so I guess I am stuck, as Lite Beer says. I will however enquire of the Immigration Dept to see if there are any special provisions for such circumstances.

I have been here for five years on a Thai wife visa, but my wife has just passed away. Although I am over 60 years old, I'm not sure I would qualify for a retirement visa on financial grounds.

Do I have any choice but to leave Thailand?

A couple of years ago we attended a wedding at the Regent Cha-am, and I was quite impressed with the way it was handled by the hotel. About 150 or so guests. The hotel is a few miles north of HH airport, and most if not all the other hotels along that stretch of beach use HH in their names.

The Regent Cha-am has now become the Holiday Inn Cha-am, so I would guess the rates would be reasonable. Worth checking out, IMHO.

I was just trying to be helpful.

Perhaps I selected an inappropriate form of wording when I referred to "housing estates." In Thai I would have said หมู่บ้าน, but most people have no idea what this means.

And by dint of further explanation, our trips to Bangkok are for medical attention, and the particular doctor is only available for private patients in the evening. We usually leave the hospital between 8:00pm and 9:00pm, which is not the best time to be embarking upon a 4-6 hour train journey, first class or otherwise (and I am not from the UK).