In our Nasan hotel room the day before we leave, Lian and I are surfing online for accommodations farther north. But Hua Hin is crazy-busy in high season and Lian phones hotel after hotel. Same story every time: "Is full," she says yet again, hanging up. But our train tickets are nonrefundable and we've both seen enough of the old home town. (MUCH MORE than enough, in my case.) So we really don't have much choice but to hope for the best once we step off the train in Hua Hin in the dead of night. At least we know we won't be cold.
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| Hua Hin railway station. |
By 2:30 a.m. we've had enough of the mosquitos in Hua Hin's beautifully restored antique railway station. Lian ventures down to the dark street and approaches the driver of a
songthaew, the covered pickup that serves as public transit in many Thai towns. They talk at length and she reports back. "He know a hotel still open, not expensive. Can take us, 150 baht."
Our ridiculously excessive baggage fills the back of the
songthaew as we wheel away from the train station, winding down side streets and alleyways to arrive at a nasty little hole that thankfully has no vacancies.
"I think we can looking another?" Lian offers. So off we fly to a nicer part of the tourist zone, where the night manager of a midrange hotel agrees to let us crash in the lobby until the next day, when their single vacancy opens up. But he won't let me access their wi-fi until noon check-in, the prick.
A single night at the Thipurai City Hotel is our punishment for poor planning. Our room would have to be three notches better even to be called "nondescript." The bedding reeks of cloying floral deodorizer, the air conditioner produces more noise than cold air, and a staff phone mounted on the wall opposite our door rings incessantly. Within minutes of our Thipurai check-in, we go in search of better digs and find them for our next and final night. Thipurai will be shedding bitter tears at my tartly worded TripAdvisor review!
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| Hua Hin tourist chic. |
Not only is Hua Hin stinko with elderly German and Dutch tourists, their expat countrymen run the show in countless guest houses, bierstubes, ristorantes, bistros and other Euro-storefronts that crowd out the indigenous commerce. You wonder why these sweaty Aryans even bother leaving home in the first place. Oh, and guess the skin color of the folks who do the crap jobs in those white-owned businesses.
The only reason we've ventured into this occupied territory is for Lian to visit her 20-year-old niece, Eve, with whom she is very close. Eve calls Lian
Meh, the Thai word for mother. As Lian related to me last year, she cared for Eve since infancy after her sister died; several years later, Eve went to live with her father. Now Eve studies accounting at the university, specializing in the hotel industry. She sure as heck chose the right place to start a career.
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| Eve and Lian on the loose in Hua Hin. |
In the afternoon when classes are finished, Eve meets us in front of a nearby McDonald's (ugh) and we stroll around the tourist zone, the ladies chattering and window shopping as I lumber dutifully behind. It sure helps to have a local guide who knows the good places: Eve leads us to a modest-looking outdoor restaurant on the pier that serves up amazingly fresh Thai seafood and lots of it, for a non-gouging price. And I am intrigued to watch as the waif-like young girl takes command of the party from the moment we walk in: Eve wants, and gets, THAT table (which is marked "reserved"), and the wait staff continually look to her, not the elders, for their next orders. And yet later in our hotel room she curls up and falls asleep on Lian's shoulder like a small child.
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| Pimped-out bus. |
The next day at the Hua Hin railway station, we are chagrined to learn that all northbound trains are once again fully booked for several days in advance. So we opt for alternative travel: a luxury coach with a whorehouse-gaudy interior and comfy reclining seats. We sleep for most of the trip, but I wake up an hour out of Chiang Mai and realize that our driver is a maniac who cannot bear the sight of any tail lights in front of him, no matter how fast they're moving. And so we slalom around dump trucks, 18-wheelers, other buses and every other moving obstacle, barreling down the mountain without ever touching the brakes. Thrilling!
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Flash back to the final night in our Nasan hotel room. Lian wants to massage my scalp and shoulders, and who am I to say no? I settle back and enjoy the pampering, sultan-like. Lian is unusually quiet. And then:
"You remember I tell you Eve is my niece?" A pause. "Eve is ... my daughter."
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