Hua Hin.

The whole time that we were in Thailand I did not wear socks. Not a single time in two whole weeks. Pretty impressive, huh? Most of the time I wore flip-flops, but for the beach I especially bought some sandals, even though I hate sandals. But they are just more practical than flip-flops when walking in the sand and water.

Anyway, I have got to be the world's slowest blogger. I had the pictures ready for some time now, but never got around to writing a post. Now the World Cup has started (with a 4:2 victory for Germany) and I didn't even get a chance to write about that yet. Just know that 3 games a day are a great pleasure, and even if I'm not watching them all, it's good to know that they are going on.

Hua Hin is one of the oldest beach resorts in Thailand, and the king has his summer residence there. It might be his permanent residence, I'm not sure. A bunch of kings before him did as well, so today tourists can marvel at the old palace that he had built there. And when we went, we did so as well. The palace is made out of teak wood and some of its wings go all the way down to the beach, so the royal people could go swimming there. The picture here and the next one are taken from the outside, as taking pictures inside is punishable by law with up to 23 meals of nothing but banana juice and mussels, shells included. I wasn't going to risk it.

This picture was taken by Wattanikha, and it's much better than any of the shots we took of the palace. The one below is the best we could manage. I realize that it's taken me much too long to write all this, so I'm just going to let the pictures speak for themselves, and add a few comments here and there to go with them. I know I'm not gonna be successful, especially with my obsession to have the paragraphs harmonize with the pictures by filling up the spaces more or less neatly.


Because really, do you still wanna read about our trip to Thailand when we're already in New Zealand and while so many other exciting things are going on at the moment? Did I mention the World Championship of soccer yet? Cause Germany's hosting it this year and I try to watch as many games as possible. Today (Sunday, since by the time this actually gets posted I'm sure it's not anymore) I missed the Netherlands' match against Serbia and Montenegro, but was awarded with a slight sunburn. The weather has been awesome here the last few days but I'm afraid it's not going to last for as long as I wish. Can you believe I'm talking about the weather now? Man, I'm really outdoing myself this time. Let's check out some pictures from our hotel in Hua Hin.

Technically it was called a resort, and it consisted of a bunch of two-story buildings. There is a swimming pool surrounded by these buildings with lotsa purdy trees and plants all around it. We took a picture of it, but also swam in the pool. It was thrilling, as they were also raising baby sharks in there. But they feed them the leftovers from the breakfast buffet, so no nibbling occurred.

This is the bathroom in our room. As you have probably guessed by now, you had to climb up that orange ladder to flush the toilet, which had a little reservoir there at the top (not pictured). To work it you had to climb up and unplug the drain, just like you would in a bathtub or sink. Then, when the water is gone, you close it back up and fill the tank back up by turning on a faucet that feeds the tank and shutting it off once it was full.

Isn't that a great story? I tell some variation of it every time we show the picture and it gets funnier every time. Trust me. Here's a story that really happened: On the second day, there was a dead bird on our balcony. So I went to the reception, to have them send someone to remove it. With like a dustpan or something. So I go to the reception desk and tell the guy "There is a dead bird on our balcony." He smiles at me but somehow I'm not convinced he understood me. I already spoke clearly and slowly, so I repeated in a different word order. And again. "On our balcony there is a bird, and it's dead." A sparkle in the guy's eyes: "Aaah, birthday." He started getting out a book to write something down. I knew then this was gonna be tough. I thought, well since 'dead' is an adjective, let's try the present tense of the related verb: "There is a bird and it died." which I elaborated by putting my head to the side and sticking my tongue out at the corner of my mouth, my best interpretation of death in birds yet. Another sparkle in his eyes: "Ahhh. Hair dye! In your room. When?" It was hopeless. Finally, they just sent a guy along, who, upon seeing the bird, exclaimed "Dead!" much to the surprise of Christina who had no idea of the troubles I went through and was just amused that he would point it out like that. So the dude just grabbed the bird with his bare hands. Well with two fingers by its tail. I would have liked to tell him that he could go and grab a dustpan, but I was afraid we would end up with 5-course meal sent to our room and a box of paper towels with blue flamingos printed on them. When I told the story to Wattanikha and Dimitar, Wattanikha told me that most Thai people have problems pronouncing the 'r' in English words. I had noticed this but observed the substitution with 'l'. Anyway, she said that when the receptionist said "dye" he really meant "dry". How's that for intercultural communication?


These next two pictures are of a little peninsula which had another golden and very tall Buddha statue on it. That alone was pretty cool, but the best part about it are the monkeys that live on that rock. They are technically wild, but through continued contact with tourists they are quite tame. After our jungle adventure with the elephants (more on that forthcoming) this was another amazing animal experience.

Some non-affiliated German tourists fed this guy a banana. I don't know why monkeys excite me so much, but I thought it was the coolest thing to be so close to a free-range evolutionary relative of mine.

On top of all these great adventures, Hua Hin gave us great food in restaurants right on the beach with views that just screamed "Relaxation!". Notice how that is totally mismatched. Cause if it actually screamed that, how could you relax? Get it? No, well, it's art you uncultured pig. Okay, sorry, no, I take it back. Got a little carried away there. You know I love you. Come, give me a hug and we'll be friends again, okay?