My days in Hua Hin are pretty ordinary, mundane. I wake up late, have some coffee while I scan my Internet connections, before working on my daily news feed. Then maybe the end of the day on the beach and then dinner. On occasion, I will make the walk to find dinner.

Yesterday was more of the same – until beach time.

The previous day, I had been on the beach, fishing for no reason as usual (there are no fish out there!). What this involves is walking my rod and bait out into the surf for about 80 yards before casting, and then anchoring the rod on shore in a sand spike. I use a small, metal spike I found locally. Cheap but effective.

Yesterday, as I was preparing my gear to go to the beach, I realized I had left the sand spike on the beach the night before. Oh well, I thought, I’ll just have to hold the rod myself until I can buy a new one. The thought even occurred to me that my sand spike was so cheap that it might still be out there, still stuck in the sand or perhaps thrown up to the edge of the beach out of the water’s way.

Like any place, the section of beach I use has its regular customers, like me. There are a number of Thais who recognize me, and vice versa, although we rarely talk except to say hello. It would be a useless exercise anyway. One of those Thais works at one of the boutique hotels along the beach and frequently sits on the sea wall in the evening. He is a friend of my fishing buddy Yat.

Yesterday, as I was walking to what looked like a good area to fish, this man came out waving at me. I waved back, and then realized he was waving my sand spike at me.

He had recovered the spike from the sand after I left the day before, put it away for safe keeping and brought it out as soon as he saw me. I gave him a hearty “kop kun, khap” (thank you) and he beamed me a wide, gap-tooth smile.

Certainly, a bit of brightness in an otherwise unremarkable day.

It got a little better, as I actually caught one small needle nose fish in my new cast net, so I had some bait to fish with. The kids on the beach got a kick out of it, but it did not result in catching anything bigger. Like I said, there are no fish here.

It’s so bad I’m even considering spending $80-100 to go to one of the fish farms they have here, where you can catch very big freshwater species, mostly catfish.