Pattaya-Hua Hin ferry to begin on New Year's Day

[Smiles]

If you think the South Pattaya pier is a mess you should take a gander at Hua Hin's downtown pier. It can hardly handle a two-man squid boat. There is no way it could handle a reasonably large ferry.
Most of the attempts at starting up a Hua Hin/Pattaya ferry service have used the pier(s) at Pak Nam Pran which is a half hour (+) drive south from Hua Hin.

Apparently there is a brand new pier being built on the beach between Hua Hin and Cha Am. (About a 15 minute drive into Hua Hin).
There's a amateur video showing a plane landing at Hua Hin Airport: at the start of the video and another peek at the 30 second mark in the video there is definitely a kind of pier being built out into the waters.




I have no idea whether this new pier is related to a ferry start-up, but ... it's being built for a reason and it certainly looks as if there's some serious money being spent.
More on this as we approach year-end.

I did however enjoy this post in llZ's link to that ThaiVisa thread:

Hot news: Sin City to Hurrah Hin ferry is a dead sperm in a condom, due to an expert study revealing that the water might be unsafe and needing stuff like lifejackets!

Nothing like a good old pile of rank cynicism. (But he's probably right )

[christianpfc]

On Jan 1st, I went to the pier (just south of Khao Takiap, about 7 km by air south of Hua Hin railway station; information by a Thai friend who lives in HH), and asked people there who confirmed that will be the place where the ferry will dock. On the picture, the ferry looks too big to dock there; or the pier too small, whichever way you see it; or rather the distance between pier and land (Khao Takiap) to narrow.

No signage at all at the pier, and without google maps I wouldn't have found the pier.

But there are pictures of a sign and a building on a pier, which is neither Bali Hai nor the pier I went to. (Will read the HH forum thread to find out more.)

If it had been running, I would even have taken the ferry to cross over to Pattaya, but with all these delays, I'm out for now (until my next trip to HH or Pattaya, but by then the ferry service might have stopped because they found the water is too wet).