Cha Am City

Cha Am city is quite small. There are no western fastfood restaurants, no McDonalds, No KFC, No Burger King. There are plenty of other restaurant. So you won't stay hungry. Prices are reasonable.
Once in week there are night market near the railwaystation. It is really worth of visiting. Prices are cheap. It seems that most of locals gather there to shop and have good time.

Near cities

The closest big city is Hua Hin. From there you can find western fast food restaurant like McDonalds, Burger King, Kentucty Fried Chicken.
There are also one big shopping center in Hua Hin. It is called Market Village. There are a lot of shops and one good place to buy food (Tesco Lotus) . Information and floor plan of Market village.

Baan Talay Samran Neighbourhood

Baan Talay Samran area is about 6 kilometers from the city center. Just and just walking distance. For most people it is too far away to walk because of the hot climate. It you think to walk downtown, do it early morning when it is not too hot. Follow the beach (try to stay near). Probably you want to take a taxi back. Especially if have bought something from Cha Am. There are fixed price to Baan Talay Samran, no use to bargain. By car using public roads it is more than 10 kilometers to Cha Am.
Land around Baan Talay Samran seems to be quite peaceful. No big buildings except near the beach.
When we were there it war summertime, off season. Huge Apartment buildings were totally empty, except guards and housekeeping. The place is probably different during winter when most of the tourists come. There was a lot of "for sale" signs on empty sites, maybe the Baan Talay Samran Neighbourhood looks different noadays. It was summer 2007 when we were there, I don't know when you read this.

Hotel building

The hotel building was practically empty when we was there. It was summertime and most of the hotel had no visitors at all. In Cha Am city I saw advertisements outside hotels and they promoted rooms with aircondition and TV for 300-500 Baths. 300 baths is about 6 euros or 9 usd. Per night!
Anyway, the Baan Talay Samran hotel seemed nice. There was a tiny gym dowstair with stationary bikes and similar aeronic equipments. No barbells or dumbells or any muscle things. There was also several elevators in the hotel.
Hotel have shared pools with apartment buildings. Totally four pools. The closest one is biggest abd the best, middle one for small children and the one close to the beach is nice pool also. Fourth one is a little bit "off road" and practically for the apartment building nead it.

Apartment buildings.

We stayed two weeks in Baan Talay Samran hotel area. I know that there are thousand of visitor each year there. Before trip we couldn't find anything about the area, just some basic hotel information. Nothing about the area itself.
We lived in a bungalow apartment house. Houses wewe extremely nice and comfortable. I don't have nothing bad to say about the apartment. Downstairs there was one big room with build in kitchen (what is the correct term?). Kitchen was fully equipped: a microwave oven, a stove, a full size freezer and water heater. There was totally 3 bathrooms, 2 upstairs ans 1 downstairs. Totally 3 bedrooms all upstairs.
Own small pool, "jacuzzi".

Good

Very silent area
Superb and big apartment houses
Good and not crowded beach.
Good quality/price relation.

Bad

Have to take a taxi whereever you go.
Smell of smoke sometimes when local burn their rubbish and palm leaves.
Not so bright waters anywhere in Cha-Am - Hua Hin area.