Prachuap Khiri Khan - Hua Hin

Plearnwan retro shopping mall a few kilometers north of the center of Hua Hin has been a huge success. It achieved breakeven in just one year. Built in 2009 for Bt40 million, the retro shopping mall attracts more than 10,000 visitors during weekends, and between 3,000 and 4,000 on weekdays.

The Hua Hin mall is fully occupied with 70 retail tenants offering high—priced souvenirs or food. However, the visitors – mostly Bangkokians on a weekend getaway from the hustle and bustle – are not really going to Plearnwan for shopping. Now, they are going to there to snap photos and plenty of photos because the place is so cute.

Well, it might all be faux but it’s cute that the „mall“ looks a little bit like an old settlement on the banks of a river or canal – never mind that the bridge doesn’t lead over water, but over the parking lot.

After taking pictures, the Bangkokians probably either continue onwards to some fancy restaurant in Hua Hin or to a quiet (i.e., without foreign tourists) five-star resort south of Hua Hin or even down near Pranburi.

Way back when, my first invitation to go to Hua Hin – not my first visit as I had gone alone on a previous occasion – initially puzzled. My friends said we should go to (Sofitel) Hua Hin for lunch.  I asked why we should drive two hours in order to eat. And the answer was simply: Because the seafood at that restaurant is delicious.

I failed to see the logic as Bangkok has plenty of restaurants with delicious food. But I soon came to realize that in Bangkok, it is less about the destination than about the journey. Spending time to reach a destination whether that destination is outside Bangkok or in Bangkok was a given thing (especially before the Skytrain and the Metro) as traffic jams can be true time killers, so the key is to spend that travel time in good company, i.e. with friends.

In other words, in reality, the objective of that Saturday lunch in Hua Hin was not the lunch, but to spend time together with friends. That’s also why milling around shopping malls is such a big pastime among young people from the Bangkokian middle class. They can meet friends in a controlled (safe) and air-conditioned environment with plenty of opportunities for shopping, eating, and having wholesome fun.