How About Hua Hin?
Are you a middle-aged caucasian man in pursuit of adventure? Has your marriage of thirty years recently ended in bitter divorce and you’re desperate to give your kids a reason to stop talking to you? Do you have a large bald spot that could do with a healthy dose of sunburn? Do you like drinking with like-minded men into the late hours of the early evening? Then Hua Hin is the place for you!
Located on Thailand’s east coast and only a few hours south of Bangkok, Hua Hin is a fabulous city to visit, or even live, for the mid-life-crisis man. With its long, sandy coastline, American-style shopping malls and not much else, Hua Hin is the ultimate destination to rediscover who you are and who you want to be in your few remaining years.
You start off your morning in the master suite of the Intercontinental hotel. Set by the water, the morning breeze calmly shakes the satin curtains which frame a sapphire ocean view. As last night’s viagra starts to wear off, you turn to the Thai woman lying beside you, the woman that you now consider your closest confidant. Though she’s old enough to have been babysat by your daughter, you know that age is just a number and that your love knows no bounds. Besides, everyone else in town is doing it.
You make your way downstairs to the breakfast buffet. You fill your plate with potatoes, roasted tomatoes, hash browns, baked beans, sausages, bacon and eggs. If only such delicacies could be tasted at home!
After breakfast you and your young friend sit by the pool and you read the latest John Grisham novel whilst she completes a wire transfer using your mobile phone. A few strawberry daiquiris go down quickly (daiquiri for the woman, you’ll just have a beer). The drinks underscore the soft, calm atmosphere that permeates your stay in the coastal paradise.
At ten o’clock you decide to leave the pool for a slow walk on the beach. The conversation is electric, your partner is amazed by your knowledge of the workings of an internal combustion engine and agrees that there are way too many Africans coming to the UK. You momentarily pause on the soft sand when you realise it is eleven-thirty and you haven’t taken your opioids yet.
Lunch is only a short tuk-tuk ride into town. At a local restaurant on a pier overlooking the sea, you have steak with chips on the side, as well as a couple of Chang beers (it’s always good to try something local). Delicious!
After all the calamity and excitement of the morning, you take a short drive back to the hotel and have a quiet nap in the master suite.
In the late afternoon you are revived by two local paramedics. Once you’re given the all clear you head to a local tavern on the beach. Against the sound of the crashing waves, you have one or two or fifteen beers and tell your partner how she means the world to you. She smiles. As the sun goes down behind you, the evening breeze tickles the few remaining hairs that poke through the top of your button-up shirt.
For dinner you go for some fish, or maybe even try something a little foreign like a margarita pizza. You pass by the local night market with all of its funny smells and arrive at the head of a road called ‘Hua Hin Alley 80’. The exciting street is filled with women just like your partner holding on to the hand of a man just like you. There are bars with Australian flags hanging out the front and cannabis dispensaries littered along the alleyway.
As you walk down the street, women sitting out the front of massage parlours make eyes at you as you pass. “Hello handsome man,” they yell. “Come inside. Massage. Massage. Free condom.” The feeling of being catcalled just because you wanted to walk down the street fills you with great joy and you still cannot understand why women used to dislike it when you did the same to them when you used to work at that construction site.
You stop at a bar with neon signs on the walls and a dartboard on the back of the door. You stay and have a few more drinks while a guitar-playing gentleman performs his renditions of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ and ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger.’ You sit across from another middle-aged man whose singlet kindly displays his large bicep with its excellent Southern Cross tattoo. He talks for a while about how the spaghetti at the food court in the mall down the road is too oily. You drink a few more beers with him.
After a while you decide it’s time for a massage. You return to the most beautiful woman you passed when you were being heckled earlier in the evening. She has a thick layer of makeup on which would give Marcel Marceau a run for his money. She takes you into a back room and relieves all your aches and pains, ensuring she is careful around the hip as it was recently replaced.
You are comforted by the massage but the massage, as a microcosm for the entire day, is really just a build up to your favourite bit, the ending.
