Hua Hin is a coastal city just a few hours from Bangkok, traditionally associated with middle-class Thai tourism and a noticeably slower pace than Pattaya or Phuket. It attracts foreigners looking for something less party-oriented and closer to everyday life, and the stories set here tend to reflect that: chance encounters in small, unremarkable bars that grow into serious relationships, sometimes with a happy ending and sometimes not.
Graham, a 68-year-old British retiree, reluctantly takes out the mandatory health insurance for his retirement visa in Hua Hin. Months later, a heart attack teaches him why the policy he saw as a formality turned out to be the most important decision he made moving here.
James, a 60-year-old Scottish widower, retires to Hua Hin for the golf and starts eating dinner every night at the same noodle stall by the pier. It takes him four months to exchange more than two sentences with Nok, the owner, and much longer to win over her children, who've already heard too many stories about retired farang like him.
A 54-year-old Swiss man tried his luck with three online dates in three different Thai cities. The Khon Kaen woman had a steady job, her own home, and paid her own way, but turned out to be a few years older than him. Now he's not sure whether to let that matter.
A 62-year-old retired American recounts how he met Dada at a Pattaya massage shop, married her in a Buddhist ceremony in Isan, and everything fell apart when she started quietly withdrawing money from the joint account he'd opened for the dowry.
A 51-year-old Canadian recounts how he went from a tense relationship in Pattaya to supporting Lek for two years as she built a food stall in her village near Prakhon Chai, until she vanished without explanation after a temple retreat.
A 55-year-old Australian recounts how, after walking out of a relationship in Hua Hin in a bad mood, he wandered into the most boring looking bar in town and met the woman he'd marry in Perth years later, after a visa rejection for the strangest reason.
After seeing plenty of bar scams in Thailand, a Swedish man was introduced online to a woman from Isaan looking for something serious. Months of daily calls and a visit to her family later, the relationship never quite came together. It wasn't the love story he hoped for, and it wasn't a scam either.