Despite everything that was terrible about it, the train ride from Bangkok to Hua Hin, we all agreed, gave us a great sense of the country. It took us, right out of Bangkok, directly through an unseen part of Bangkok filled with terrible houses made of aluminum siding as the roofs and mid-90s movie posters as window coverings. Once out of the city, we passed through breathtaking farmland - something i've described as looking like the Mississippi Delta with palm trees, wet rice fields, and mountains.
The trip itself is very long spent being unable to sleep, playing sudoku, and eating white bread from time to time. Once we actually arrived to Hua Hin, many of us had developed something that we called "wood-ass" which is a most terrible condition that one's butt gets from sitting on a flat wooden board on a train for five to six hours (I recovered just in time for the train back to Bangkok...gah).
Hua Hin was rather shocking to most of us because it was so westernized. With both Burger Kings and pizza joints (with menus in English) it was hard to convince ourselves that we were in Thailand and not in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (the comparison goes deeper, but i'll leave it here for now).
We spent marvelling for the first part of the day at how quaint a little town it was, and the charm lingered for me until our dinner that night when we tried to actually order the western food we had started to crave so much after countless meals of curry and pad thai.
The first sign came, for me, with the two Thai women singing mid-90s karaoke to a whining synthesizer. This depressed me very much, partially because I don't like many of those songs (especially when it sounds like it is being played on a keyboard we own as children...which it was in this case) but also because I had started having those little feelings of being in Myrtle Beach rather than a coastal Thai town. The second sign came with the delivery of our food. I, in a typical moment of craving, had ordered pizza margherita (tomato, basil, and cheese) and had been given bread with cheese melted on top of it. David and Matt ordered hamburgers and were given these grey slimy toad-looking specimens that puffed between the buns.
After our meal, we were shocked to find how empty the streets were - especially despite the seemingly lively city life that had been around earlier that day. We decided to explore the beach and ended up finding a rock that looked out over the sea - dotted with green dots all around its coast. Men played cards under dimly lit tents, while the eternal sea ebbed and flowed. It was quite nice and relaxing - despite the fact that sitting on a rock with a bad case of wood-ass generally does not work incredibly well.
We also noticed that we were in the shadows of a twenty-something story Hilton resort hotel. Only a few of the lights were on, and we could only wonder where all the people were.
The next day was spent relaxing at the beach and reading (Matt is currently thoroughly enjoying Wuthering Heights while Kelsey decided to swap her May issue of Vogue for an autobiography of Gandhi at our guest house's book exchange).
We also enjoyed two much better meals today - one of them being at a really cool restaurant called Monsoon. After dinner, we decided to go check out the bars - most of which were filled with older white men and very young thai women (often times, together...). We found an "Irish Pub" (didn't even sell guiness) and were quickly approached by two 13 year old girls selling flowers. While Matt initially refused to buy any, he decided to play the girl in connect-four and was soundly beaten 3 times (he would distribute his surplus roses - all of them - around the bar) while I was completely destroyed by her in a game of pool (i'm beginning to wonder if everyone here (especially the women) are professionals at pool).
We leave the next day - ready to leave the beach ("it's the low season) and even more so Thailand. We catch the train back to Bangkok (these time with cushioned seats!) and barring a few minor uncomforts, we return home and pass out.
Cambodia soon...
hope y'all are great
tom
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