The Battle of R and Goliath

Hua Hin, Day 22

Aah, another day of getting up to the sound of the waves and having breakfast by the beach as we contemplate our day - I could get used to this, but I better not!

11 Dec 2024

The sunburn is not too bad and not painful - thank goodness or else we'd be spending the whole day hunting for every available sunburn medications for his nibs! No some antihistamines and sunburn cream seems to be doing the trick so far. So we shall not be having a beach day today my friends!

R and Goliath

My goodness, I cannot believe that I have forgotten to mention Goliath! Well, it seems that R is more like Dr Doolittle than we had imagined as he seems to be attracting all manner of animals wherever he goes.

This time he spotted a small gecko in our room, and he immediately sent a WhatsApp of the animal to Zoology daughter S to advise upon. I named the gecko Goliath for obvious reasons ( he was absolutely tiny - photo is like x1000 his actual size) but hence began the game of hide and seek between R and Goliath.

Every time we came back into the room, he would search him out. Sometimes, Goliath would brazenly defy R by being in full sight but in a different spot from where he was when we left him, and other times, he was nowhere to be seen (which worried R a bit more). Goliath was also extremely fast, on one occasion when we saw him on the floor, we tried (and by that I mean R handed me a folder) to try and direct him to the outside where he could hopefully re-join his family and pals - but Goliath was having none of it and scarpered across the room and out of sight.....until the next day.

Goliath shared our room for about 4 days and then disappeared. He may have been removed by housekeeping, or perhaps he's lurking in the wardrobe somewhere. I shall try to remember to mention that when we are packing - just to re-ignite the love-hate relationship they have.....mwawahhhwaahwaaa....(evil laugh again).

Blue Port Shopping Mall

After breakfast, we headed to the Blue Port Shopping Mall. This was about a 25-minute walk from the hotel, and it is supposed to be the more 'poshier' and upmarket mall in Hua Hin. However, we were quite unimpressed with it. It was certainly much quieter and less festive-looking than the Market Village mall.

Never the less they did have the 'good' massage chairs, so it got extra brownie points for that and of course I had a wee relaxing massage whilst there. A 10 minute massage in one of these chairs is fine for me, but I don't think I could do an hour in one of these (or even with a person).

After a walk around the various floors and shops, we walked back to the hotel for a shower and a rest as we were planning to go out in the evening (a bit of a rarity for us!) to experience the Hua Hin night market.

Hua Hin Night Market

The night market is about a 25 minute walk in the opposite direction to the Market Village and BluePort Malls. It was quite busy with various stalls, vendors and people and R's first words were "it's like a larger version of the Barras in it's heyday".

There were two key areas of the market. The main market, which was very busy and a little hectic, and a more sedate market area that connected to the main market. We preferred and opted to have something to eat at the more sedate area, which was very nice. We had some chicken and pork vegetable kebabs with watermelon smoothies, which were fab.

After we'd had our walkabout and some evening dinner, we walked back to the hotel. It's amazing how exhausting the heat is, even when you are not out that long. Whilst the heat is more tolerable in the evening, it is still quite hot, and it doesn't take very long until you feel hot and sweaty and just want to shower and rest. When we first arrived in Hua Hin, I thought I could see the attraction to stay here but as the time goes on, I'm not so sure as it's just so damn hot all the time!

Hua Hin, Thailand