I seem to have checked myself into what can only be described as a vintage survival capsule. One of Hua Hin’s old stilted piers, the sort the municipality has been dismantling for “encroaching on public land” since roughly the Late Bronze Age. Some have already gone. This one is still here through sheer bloody-mindedness and salt deposits.

I found it during an insomniac dawn wander, following the roar of the surf like a moth with questionable judgement. Suddenly I was in the old fishing-pier quarter, staring at a wooden structure clinging to the coastline as if no one had told it the century had changed. Naturally, I booked a room.

The deal: 550 baht for a fan (the November sea breeze does most of the work anyway), or 850 baht for aircon if you enjoy chilling the Gulf of Thailand at your own expense.

The room itself is painted a cheery sky-blue, presumably so you do not notice when the actual sky comes in through the rattling windows. The waves thunder directly beneath the floorboards with all the subtlety of a bowling alley. But honestly, this is precisely the charm. Old Hua Hin, before glossy resorts and rooftop cocktails. Fishing boats on the sand. Salt-bleached timber. And the constant sense that the sea would quite like its living room back.

Clip one: filmed inside the room while hoping not to be adopted by Poseidon.

Still, sleeping above the water in a place that may not exist much longer feels like a novelty worth embracing. Preferably while sober.

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Postscript: the morning after.

The whole place sways with each crashing wave, like a Clacton beach hut in a north-easterly gale quietly questioning its life choices.

I cannot pretend I slept. I had, with flawless timing, chosen the night Hua Hin was being slapped about by the remnants of a tropical storm.

In fact, while I was lying there waiting for the floorboards’ final monologue, the city raised red flags and banned swimming altogether:

🚩 “Hua Hin bans swimming” … as the sea tries to climb onto the land
Waves of two to three metres, a beefed-up northeast monsoon, and a wind surge marching across the South… basically everything you do not want when your bedroom is held up by wooden legs older than most democracies.

Officials installed red flags along the main beach from the Chao Mae Tubtim shrine to Khao Takiab and told everyone to stay out of the water until further notice. Sensible, though I would have appreciated a similar notice pinned to my stilted room.