And now, we continue with our series on B&B's R&R in Thailand with Part 2: The Hua Hin Experience.

We cruised south in a rented Mercedes driven by a dictator looking fellow that had the courtesy to leave us alone in our hungover misery. It's a good thing we were travelling at speeds in excess of 100 miles an hour and made the 3 and a half hour trip in just over two hours, or I probably would have lost it all in the car.

Now, if it weren't for the intermittent paper trail, you could easily convince Bryan and I that we were never actually in Hua Hin, it was getting that bad (is he joking? Who knows?), but we do actually have several memories and a few pictures to sustain us.

Like this:


Which eventually turned into this:



I'm not quite sure when these were taken, but I believe it was around noon. The setting is the Peony Hotel, our home for our four nights in Hua Hin. The hotel bar was called the "Lucky U" and the girl who was the head waitress was, believe it or not, called Lucky. We told her that "Lucky" didn't sound very Thai (sounds more stripper to me), and asked her why she chose that name, to which she replied:

"Because Lucky You (pointing at me) and Lucky You (pointing at Bryan)."

"Ahhhhhh," we both said, nodding at her sage explination, which I only now realize makes very little sense. I should have asked her if it was me that was lucky or her, but instead I ordered another beer.

We had several rendezvous with the bar staff at the hotel and by the end of the trip they no doubt thought we were total asses. At one point we found ourselves in the Lucky U again and I called Lucky over.

"Excuse me, Lucky?"

At which point she probably rolled her eyes.

"Yes?" She said, "Another beer?"
"No no. Well, yes, but that's not why I called you. Could you tell me what day it is?"

She looked at me in silence for a moment and then over at Bryan. Bryan looked right back at her.

"Actually, I was wondering myself," he said.

"It's Tuesday," she said.
"Ahhh, Tuesday," I said, "Bryan, it's Tuesday."
"Tuesday. Of course it is."
"That's great. In that case we'll have another round please. Thanks Lucky, you're a gem."


Hua Hin is a great little spot, it has character, the people are very friendly, and the beer is cheap. As far as I can see it has only one strike against it: Fat Europeans Wearing Swimsuits (or not wearing them, as the case may be.)

I'm just going to throw this one out there on the table, take it as you will:

Europeans are gross.

Sure, the young ones are ok, i suppose. If you're under 30 and you want to go topless on a beach, that's fine by me, the problem is it's never the young ones that do it. And if you're a dude, odds are you're wearing a speedo no matter what your age; and unless you're Ian "The Thorpedo" Thorp, or a competition swimmer of similar status, get your fat ass out of that speedo and into a decent pair of trunks.

All of them sit out in the sun until they are a hairy, glistening, sweaty lobster red, and not a one of the women (old or young) shaves their armpits, the mere thought of which just made me throw up in my own mouth a little bit, even while I sit here writing this, far far away from all of them.

Gross. Just gross. Unnaceptable.

Every day around 1pm we would go to this beach bar that I can't remember the name of and sit and drink and chat with the locals for hours. To call it an actual "bar" is being a bit generous. It was more of a "drinking shack," but that's cool, because drinking shacks are cooler than bars anyhow. At that shack we met this guy, one of the bartenders:


This guy, along with another fellow, dared us to fill our entire table with empty Singha beer bottles. We came damn close (with a little help from Charlie, another rocking Toyama-ite that came to visit us). Either way were falling all over ourselves when we had to go visit our tailor for the final fitting of our suits.

I think you can chalk up our tailor as another in the group of people that weren't too sad to see the back of us. Of our four fittings, we were only really functional in one of them.

Bryan decided to go with two suits, both of them pimping. Here is a picture of him holding his head in one of them. I'm not sure what he said to me, but I think it was something to the effect of "get me a trashcan."
Here's me. I opted to go for the cream colored linen suit with a pink striped shirt, Don Johnson style.


There are a couple of things I want you to notice about this photo: The first is how tight the pants are. Serious nut-huggers. At one point the tailor dude said, "yeah yeah, we know you're big." The second is the poor tailor girl in the back. I wonder why she looks that way? Could she have seen my nuts?

After our final fitting we wandered over to a rock bar and tipped the unbelievably talented lead guitarist a ridiculous amount of money to play a spot-on cover of Europe's The Final Countdown. It was perfect. Then we found ourselves in a dance club. It wasn't that sweet. I remember seeing one lady-boy's shirt falling totally off his/her fake boobs without him/her noticing it. Gross. I guess they lose feeling in their chests when they hack it to pieces and shove silicone bubbles inside of themselves. Go figure. Small price to pay to look like a wierdo though, right? Am I right?

At one point Bryan went to take a piss and then came back and tapped me on the shoulder:

"You have to go into the bathroom."
"What? Why?"
"Just go."

So I went.

It looked pretty damn normal, so I sidled on up the urinal, whipped it out, and started whizzing when all of the sudden someone grabbed my neck.

Two things went through my head at this moment. The first was "I am going to die here in this club." And the second was "How clean are these dudes hands?"

Then he cracked my neck, loudly. First one way, and then the other, while I was peeing. Sure, it felt awesome, but still, mess with a dude when he's peeing in the US and you stand a good chance of getting shot.

After cracking my neck he set a warm washcloth on the back of my neck. As soon as I finished up, he took it off and told me to put my hands above my head. For the breifest of moments I thought I was going to be robbed after all, but then he picked me up from behind and cracked my back. This tiny thai dude actually picked me up and cracked my back. Unbelievable. That alone warranted the tip.

All in all I think I preferred Hua Hin to Bangkok, mostly because it was a beach town, and we were the young American superstars wherever we went. Bryan was even called out a few times because he has what I have since come to learn is called the "Michael Owen Factor," meaning that asian people think that he looks exactly like Michael Owen (also known as "Saint Michael" or "The Boy Wonder"), a pro-soccer forward that plays for Newcastle United and England's national team. He tells me he gets this all the time in Japan, too. Whenever I look at him I just see him for the scurvy dog that he is, but hey, I'm not a thai chick. I do know this: he's a hell of a guy to drink across the world with.



It was everything we were looking for in a vacation: a lot of sitting, a lot of drinking, and a lot of being real, real sweet.