At 3am, one of the train conductors woke me up from my comatose-like sleep that had lasted about 53 minutes. I had just enough time to stuff my laptop and books back into my bag, and put my shoes on before the night train stopped at Hua Hin station. The name Hua Hin literally means "Head Rock", which is pretty much how I felt at the time.

I stepped off the carriage into the thick weeds that grow along the edge of the track. I was in car 18, so I had to walk a long way back to the station house. Before I caught the train, I had been thinking it was potentially a stupid idea to arrive in Hua Hin at 3am, and I thought I might end up spending the rest of the night in the station. It turned out that there were a bunch of songthaew and bicycle samlor drivers outside the station. I negotiated a fare of 40 baht with a bicycle samlor driver to take me to a guesthouse called Ban Pak Hua Hin, which the guidebook says is very clean and not too expensive.

Bicycle samlor's are very quiet, and riding on the back of one through the empty streets of Hua Hin at 3am was fun. I talked to the driver a bit in Thai. I asked him why he wasn't at home asleep, and he said because he had to work, and that he would sleep tomorrow morning. I guess that means he does nightshift.

I looked at an aircon room at Ban Pak Hua Hin. It was dissapointingly filthy. There was something (I couldn't quite make out what) crawling or dribbling or something across the bathroom floor. The place must have changed owners since the guidebook was last updated.

The samlor driver told me he knew another place that was much better, so I agreed to go take a look, and after I checked out a room, I decided to stay, mostly because it was so late and there weren't heaps of other options. This place is called Sirimaa guesthouse. It's a series of rooms down one side of a pier-like structure that extends right over the beach to the edge of the water. Along the other side of the pier is a bunch of plastic tables and chairs.

After I checked in, I bought a bottle of Pepsi and sat at one of the plastic tables until about 4am. There were about a dozen fishing boats out on the Gulf, visible because of the flourescent white and green lights that they shine onto the water around them. I watched the boats for a while, and eventually went to bed an got to sleep at about 5am. My sleeping patterns have been messed up for the last 4 nights now

Now it's 2pm, and I'm starving. I'm going to go out and find a place that has toast and coffee. I think I'll also try to find another place to stay. Sirimaa guesthouse is okay, but 250 baht expensive for a room with no attached bathroom, and it could be cleaner. I should be able to find something better for the same price.