The Beauty of Cha Am & Jurassic Resort

We have all heard of Hua Hin. Indeed, many of us will have been there, perhaps more than once. It has always been a major stronghold of Thai tourist destinations and very popular with Expats. And why not; lovely it certainly is. But what about Cha Am? Lesser heard of for sure, lesser visited also I suspect.

Found in Phetchaburi province, it is a little closer to Bangkok than Hua Hin, which is around 35 km further on south. Indeed, where we stayed at The Jurassic Mountain Resort. Google maps shows it as 167 km from the central marker of Bangkok (Democracy Monument), a driving time of around 2 hours and 8 minutes. Link to map here. https://goo.gl/maps/ht4wQm6XxoyUnbbU7 and some shots of some of the sights we saw, which i will follow up with more of on another article.

The resort was quite a shock to us all, in a very good way. We didn’t realise that it had recently undergone a total refurb, in just about every way. The owners proudly gave us a small tour of work they had done, where, when and why and in fact it amounted to an almost total refit of every aspect; the rooms/villas, the grounds, the restaurant, the car parking area, signage, fishing lake and so on and on went the list.

The end result is superbly appointed, designed, laid out villa suites for guests, all of which were at least 50 square meters I would think, and offered tea & coffee making facilities (some even had full on kitchen facilities), super comfy queen beds, En-suite facilities, TV with Android box service and superb unbroken wi-fi. In all my travels, which I consider to be quite extensive, I would definitely rate these villas at 4 Star.

Outside the villa we had our own large terrace area with table and chairs for two. This terrace offered us beautiful views out across the well manicured resort grounds that feature a lagoon, bridges to help you walk over to the restaurant, swimming pool and an abundance of superb greenery, flora, fan palms and whatnot.

Anyway, we were checked in by the resort manager, an adorable Thai gent named Khun Piak. I have to say I have never had such a thorough room check-in. He showed us everything, where the light switches were, the dimmers, how to operate the ceiling fan, the Android TV, how to order food for in room dining and so on. A very meticulous man who clearly takes sincere interest and pride in his work.

Once unpacked, we decided to check out the fishing lake we had heard so much about. The lake was a lot bigger than expected and is really very well thought out and set up with Sala's every 50 meters or so for anglers to base themselves at what the resort calls 'The Swim'. Each Angler gets a spot where they can put out their rods and a Sala in which to sit and chill out wating for the alarm rigged line to alert them they have a bite. Of course, you can also order food and drinks and eat out at the Sala, which for comfort also had a ceiling mounted, osilating fan to keep you cool.

Max & Joy, on our group, got stuck in to this right away and within probably less than 30 minutes Max had himself a real tug of war. Turned out to be something in the region of a 50lb Siamese Carp.

Then it was over to Joy to show us all that this is also very much a ladies activity. At first we thought it might be the same Cap, but in fact all the fish are marked so they can see if it is or not. The main reason for this being they protect the fish from being caught too many times a day.