Big Adventure - 20

Christmas in Thailand

I will attempt a description of Christmas here but probably won't do a great job.

Christmas does exist here - it is completely an accommodation for the foreigners, an opportunity to make some money from their silly little holiday. Decoration is marketed and sold as being for Christmas as well as New Years, so for the most part what is available is chosen so it can do that double duty. As I said before, we bought a 6 kilogram (about 13 pound) turkey with bread stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce, cooked and packed in a Styrofoam cooler. And we found a bottle of our very favourite Wolf Blass wine. However, we paid more than it costs to feed me and Jacquie for a month.

Seven of us ate Christmas dinner together – me, Jacquie, Mathew, Mike, Yen, Ju and Ja. Ju and Ja were good sports and tried all of the bland flavourless food – I think it was made palatable by piling the spicy lime glass noodle salad with shrimp Ja made on top of it. I guess I’m settling in – I too thought that was the highlight of the meal.

After dinner six of us (not Ju) went swimming. Five of us acknowledged that it was the first time in our lives any of us went swimming on Christmas day. Ja didn’t say one way or the other, at least that we understood.

The bars along the road mostly celebrate the season by having the girls selling themselves wear skimpy red outfits and Santa hats. Can you say ho, ho, ho? One place has a large inflated Santa out front pole dancing with the girls, and on at least one occasion getting a lap dance. That particular bar also had live music and free barbeque to celebrate “number 25”, so of course that is where we went for Christmas evening. Continuous music from two excellent bands, delicious barbeque (no turkey), a pool tournament (“killer”, about 3 bucks to get in and the winner – not me or Mike - made about 60 bucks) and dark rum and cokes (no eggnog).

A Thai Christmas tradition at the hooker bars.

New Years is a different story. All over Asia it is intensely celebrated. A news story out of South Korea explains an initiative to get celebrants to promise not to keep the tradition of getting a prostitute at the end of the liquor soaked new years eve parties. And from Thailand, tens of thousands of police cracking down on “drink driving” in an effort to reduce the usual 6-7000 accidents with the accompanying 500-600 deaths across the country over the 4-5 day holiday. (I figure the rule on Koh Samui where the death toll is always high will be to stay off the roads completely). The vast variety of gift baskets available at Tesco almost all have a big bottle of Johnny Walker (most either red or black label) in them.

I don’t know if it even hit your news channels there, but the earthquake near Taiwan has severely damaged 6 of the 7 underwater optic fibre cables which provide most of Asias internet connectivity. The vulnerability of the whole system has been demonstrated, with the entire financial sector being seriously affected. It will take until Jan. 16 to effect any repairs and until the end of Jan. to achieve full repair. In the meantime extensive rerouting is occurring, and our connection is often gone and at best very slow. So for now it’s no phone or video chats and very little email. My work will be compromised also.

Completely unrelated to any of this, if anyone would like to read another, and different perspective on life here, check out Mike and Yen’s blog at:
www.roamingwanderlust.blogspot.com
We are even mentioned, so I periodically check it to make sure there is nothing too bad in there.

Sabadee be mai. Happy New Year.

My plan for this edition, the last of 2006, was to attempt a review of the events that happened in our lives this year. While I at first thought that would be an overwhelming task, after some reflection it has occurred to me that only a few of the really, really important things have actually changed after all. We are still together and still happy ( I guess I should say I am and let Jacquie speak for herself) and Sami is still with us and I think happy (he can't speak for himself). We all still have our health, and sometimes are too tired or too hot or too cold or working too hard (but not as often). We still don’t have enough free time with our friends and family, and that is worse now – except the new friends here. I still get to play basketball and go for walks with Sami and Jacquie (more often now) and we still watch the odd movie on television (instead of renting for about $1.50 we now usually just buy for about $3.00, and usually they are just released and still in the theatres).

So really, what has changed? I guess I’m a lot more relaxed and calmer about life now. That is the biggest change for both of us – the reduced role that work now plays in our lives – the newly achieved balance that I now cherish so much.

Speaking of relaxed, we spoke with Nigel (Nigel’s Barbeque) and he advised that the place to go for New Years Eve was Chaweng beach, because all of the resorts and beach bars and restaurants (and there are hundreds and hundreds) all have fireworks. We all decided that sounded cool, so we ate at a local restaurant first then all (me, Jacquie, Matt, Mike and Yen) jumped in the truck and headed to Chaweng in time to see it all.

Now, I need to mention the running stats being published daily in the Bangkok Post on this years death and injury toll for traffic accidents this holiday, better known as the “Seven Deadly Days”. Like a score sheet, each day they add yesterdays totals with comparisons to last year. So far we are down 14% from last years grand total of 609 dead and 2500 injured. About 50% are drink driving related (note Johnny Walker gift baskets mentioned above), and another 25% from speeding. In excess of 80% of the dead and injured were on motorbikes – hence our choice of going by truck and walking a bit further.

I also need to tell you that since arriving here Sami has developed an extreme fear of thunder and fireworks. So all of Sunday has been a long day for him, and especially since sundown when the fireworks started to be basically constant. Our being there really didn’t help much, so we put him on our bed with the A/C on and left him.

I have now seen - really seen - fireworks for the first time in my life. They are clearly plentiful and inexpensive, and they were everywhere on Chaweng beach. Yes, all of the resorts had large displays, each one about equivalent to Bridgewater on July 1. And yes, each bar and restaurant added their own smaller display. But what Nigel hadn’t mentioned was that every drunk with an extra ten or twenty bucks in his pocket had some too. I figure we now know what Beirut was like back in the day. On two occasions the blast went off so close to us we could feel it. On one of those occasions the blast caused a wind that blew Jacquies dress. You had to be very careful where you walked, so as not to be in the line of fire. I saw three large rockets go wrong and shoot into the crowded beach, then go off in the crowd. We didn’t hear any screams over all of the explosions and rock music and drunken hollering, so we are happily assuming no one was seriously injured.

I will never forget having a large rocket go off ten feet from me, and then the firework go off directly overhead. . By 12:30, after about 45 minutes of intense fireworks going off in three directions as far as you could see – and overhead, so I guess that’s four directions, we were fully shell shocked and the display started to subside. All that was left in the sky by then were a few late fireworks and the thousand hot air balloon lanterns that had been sent up by revelers, creating a new artificial solar system for our viewing pleasure.

And a happy new year to all, and to all a good night.