If you ever feel like going to a dirty, shitty, disease ridden, pestilential city, try Bangkok! I arrived at 6.00am on my way to Hua Hin (more work) . Dawn broke, it got light, but you couldn’t see the sun because of the thick fug of pollution that hung over the country like a wino’s doona.
Fortunately I was headed for Hua Hin which is three hours south. The smog sort of cleared by the time we got two thirds of the way, but was replaced by a humidity haze. The Sheraton there is new, apparently designed by the people who designed the Mirage resort at Port Douglas. Very comfortable and probably the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in.
The problem was I’d arranged to return to Bangkok to do some Christmas shopping. Bad mistake. Imagine all the crap at the Chinatown markets and multiply by a million.
In the evening I decided to go to the restaurant next door to the hotel, sat down, ordered a Singha beer, only to be told that there was a moratorium on the service or purchase of alcohol for the next 30 hours due to the Thai elections, that applied to everyone everywhere in Thailand. As I was only staying another 34 hours, this presented a problem.
I checked with the hotel, and they were in the same boat – all bars closed. Not to be deterred (which I had to be after returning to Oz) I found a friendly tuc tuc driver who found a “tell ‘em Joe sent you” bar.
After I got home, I ended up being sick, had an asthma attack for the first time in twelve years, and took a week to recover. Not going back there, mate.
You can always tell how good a place is by the dunnies, and the Sheraton at Hua Hin gets 6 stars out of 5.
Mind you, Mensa could have a good test of “what do you do here?” from some of the others. On the way to HH, I felt the call of nature and the pressure of dodgy Thai airline food. The taxi driver stopped at what looked like a perfectly respectable truck stop and I headed off to ablute. When I opened the cubicle door, there was a European pedestal (bonus!), a tiled square tub with clean water in the corner, and a white hose with a tap in the tub. No paper, no instructions, no clue. I decided to pass (well not really) because I couldn’t figure out the correct permutation of things to do without getting dysentery or looking like a water pistol gang had attacked me.
I also didn’t feel like asking the taxi driver how to use the toilet. He didn’t speak English all that well, and I wasn’t up for the Marcel Marceau.
There’s the beach in the distance beyond the umbrella, except you can’t see it because of the haze. Gimme Mooloolaba any day!
Filed under: Great Tales
