Getting from Bangkok to Huahin
When I decided to go from Bangkok to Huahin recently, it was a massive ballache figuring-out the quickest/cheapest/safest/best way to do it because there are so many departure terminals. So here's everything I learned, simplified and all in one place.
I'm not going to cover private transport here. If you plan on hiring a private taxi for the drive, it's going to cost you in the region of 2,000 baht, but that wasn't something I considered. I'm just going to cover buses and trains.
Taking the train from Bangkok to Huahin
Since I last lived in Bangkok, Hua Lamphong has been replaced by Bang Sue Grand Station as Bangkok's main train station. What does that mean? It means that most trains, but not all, now leave from Bang Sue. Just to keep everyone confused, some local, slower services still leave from Hua Lamphong.
The first point of confusion comes on the State Railway of Thailand website; that's the official government website for checking train times in Thailand. Once you've figued-out how to get the site into English, you'll see a search box to "Check Train Schedule & Fares".
The State Railway of Thailand website
If you select your origin as Bangkok and your destination as 'Hua Hin' (note the space, it won't work without it) then it returns one result; an 'Ordinary' train (that means it's a local, third-class train that makes loads of stops) leaving Bangkok at 09:20 and arriving in Huahin at 14:15. So that's it, right? There's one train per day from Bangkok to Huahin.
Not so fast. What this site fails to make clear is that 'Bangkok' here, means Hua Lamphong station. If you want to search for Bang Sue, you have to search for the not very obvious 'Krung Thep Aphiwat' ('Krung Thep' is how you say Bangkok in Thai). Searching from here to Hua Hin returns 11 results so you actually have way more choice than you might initially realise, and all of these trains are about an hour faster than the almost 5 hour journey that's scheduled if you go from Hua Lamphong.
I've always liked taking the train in Thailand, and as Hua Lamphong station was close to where I was staying in Bangkok, but Bang Sue was over the other side of the city, I contemplated taking this slow train from Hua Lamphong. Part of the appeal is that Thailand's roads are notoriously dangerous so you have a much better chance of survival on the train. Unfortunately experience tells me that Thailand's trains are rarely on time, so a five hour trip is more likely to take seven, and after that amount of time you can get a numb arse on a third class seat. Not wanting to have to go all the way to Bang Sue either, I decided that I'd risk my life on a bus instead.
Taking a bus from Bangkok to Huahin
If it's not confusing enough that there are two train stations with services to Huahin, there are three bus stations that have services to Huahin. Because of the aforementioned safety concerns, I'd have preferred a big bus (as opposed to a minivan). Sadly I learned that big buses to Huahin only depart from the massively inconvenient Southern bus terminal, and I'd rather die than have to get there. The other two choices are Mo Chit, which is quite close to Bang Sue (so a long way away from where I was staying), or Ekkamai Bus Terminal (also known as the 'Eastern Bus Terminal'), which was near to me so I opted for that.
Note that, unsurprisingly given the name, this terminal primarily serves eastern locations, and as such there are a lot of different services going to Pattaya. There's just one that goes to Huahin, and I think it might be quite new because on my taxi to the bus station I told the driver I was going to Huahin and he questioned whether I could even get a bus from there to Huahin. I had to show him a photo I'd taken a few days earlier of the ticket kiosk selling tickets to Huahin, from when I'd gone there on a scouting trip, just to convince him.
The Huahin kiosk at Ekkamai bus terminal. It's on the right as you go in, next to a guy who'll be leaning out of kiosk and shouting "Pattaya" at you repeatedly.
On this scouting trip I'd asked the (unnecessarily unfriendly) woman who works in the kiosk whether I needed to buy a ticket in advance. She told me to just come an hour before the bus I planned on taking. I have a Thai friend who regularly makes this journey and she told me that the times don't mean too much and the buses just leave when they're full. Thankfully both pieces of advice proved false.
I got stuck in traffic on the way to the bus terminal (surprisingly) so didn't arrive until 10:30am. I asked for a ticket on the 11am bus and I think I was one of the first to buy one. There was absolutely no need to be there an hour early. The bus was delayed until about 11:10am before leaving, but thankfully they didn't wait until it was full because less than half the seats were taken. That meant that everybody on board who wanted a double-seat got one.
I'd also been warned that carrying a suitcase as I was, they may charge me more if it didn't fit in the back of the minivan. Again, this proved untrue as there was a space inside the bus for luggage. There were no extra charges, and the ticket cost 200 baht.
Being a minivan there are obviously no toilets on board, and we made just one very brief (less than 10 minutes) toilet stop a couple of hours into the journey, so don't drink too much before boarding because you'll have to hold it in. The total journey time was about three and a quarter hours. There was a small convenience store at this stop if you need any snacks.
As we got towards Huahin, the bus stopped and let locals off at various points, but it's worth adding a warning about a potential scam when we got into Huahin.
Quite near the Hilton hotel, which is in the town centre, the bus stopped and the doors opened and this suspiciously friendly guy got on, eyeing any foreigners, asking where they were going and saying he could help them get to their hotels. I wasn't sure at this point if this was the last stop, or if it was going to be the closest stop to where my room was, but my inherent mistrust of fellow humans did me a service as I declined his offer of help and opted to stay on the bus. A German guy that I'd been chatting to for much of the journey didn't, and the last I saw of him as the bus drove away, he was getting into an unmarked car.
I'm sure this Thai guy just operates as an unofficial taxi and pays the driver a little kick-back to be able to get on and prey on any unsuspecting foreigners.
Once we were moving again, a local on the bus that I'd been chatting to told me that she had no idea why the bus had stopped there as it wasn't a stop. Instead the bus terminates opposite the Market Village Shopping Mall, roughly here. It isn't at a bus station or anything, it just drops everyone at the side of the road. I was very glad that I'd stayed on because this was just a five-minute walk from my hotel, and it also helped me learn where buses going in the opposite direction depart from.
To Mo Chit, they depart from next to Market Village, down the side of the shopping mall, opposite to where you get dropped-off. However, if you want a bus back to Ekkamai they depart from down the side of the Blueport Shopping Mall, about a 15 minute walk from here. You can buy tickets at both departure points.
Had I listened to this unnecessarily friendly man that I'd never met, I'd have had to pay a taxi fare to get to my hotel and wouldn't have had any idea where to catch the bus back to Bangkok from, so be wary. It seems a pretty innocuous scam as scams go, but a scam none the less.
If you aren't lucky enough to be walking distance from here, then Grab is always an option, or there's a line of tuk-tuks outside the Market Village Shopping Mall (you'll need to walk over the footbridge that you get dropped-off next to) so you won't be left stranded.