Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everyone from Bangkok
29.12.2011
32 °C
Hope everybody enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Day and that you're all suitably merry on sherry, mince pies, port, turkey, duck, roast potatoes, red wine, more red wine, cheese, biscuits....the list goes on.....seriously though, I hope you all had a lovely time with family & friends. As you can probably tell, we missed you all .... and our Mum's cooking....Christmas Day was strange to start with - on Long Beach, Krabi, but it turned into a fun evening with a Thai Buffet and the most cheesy karaoke evening!
We were staying in another 'beach hut set-up', an upgrade on the last place in terms of hut style, run by a Thai couple, their adorable daughters, and pack of dogs - most of which we fell in love with. We made a great unit of buddies to enjoy christmas, and though it may not mean much to you all, I feel I need to mention them as we spent a week with them (including christmas) all and wouldn't want to forget..... We met a South African couple (Beronese and Kelvin) who we did some book swaps with (we definitely got the better deal, I think!) intelligent and energised, they will be moving to the UK to study the classics at Oxford or Cambridge, yet us mortals managed to have a deep a meaningful with them about SA politics across our verandahs.....nice!
A great Aussie group of 4 - Heather, Lockie, Irin and Robbie (the latter being a heavy bearded, full figured gay and proud guy who loves singing Mariah and Britney in a hilarious tongue in cheek way - made our Christmas evening). They also saved our bacon when we travelled to our hut by boat - the Thai boatman couldn't get near enough to shore, so we arrived in an eery 'Lost-like' style, the sea up to our knees, complete with backpacks, bags and the like...without these guys to help us with our bags, it could've been interesting.
Sara Marie (Northern Nutter who likes to tell you how much she's spent on 'looking as good as she does') complete with her two guys - it took us 3 days to work out if they were her sons, brothers, lovers or cousins......we got there in the end - nonetheless they were a very entertaining 'family'.
A mad french woman with a very kind heart, her husband and their two punchy kids.
Two Finnish guys who were working at our camp while earning their keep so they could practise their Thai Boxing in the evening - think Eurotrash, techno bling dressed guys, with tribal tats and bad undercuts, complete with mean faces - you're getting the picture.........but the biggest softies who would greet us in the morning with comments like, 'hi there......vell, vat a bootiful morning sit is' They were a bit odd
So that was our Christmas - an electic mix, not forgetting the Thai owners who were way too enthusiastic about Karoke including Sang Som from the bottle drinking Grandma who loved kissing everyones kids; and camouflage army-gear wearing Grandpa who just loved to party. Ross kept calling out 'fire in the hole....' which he wasn't bothered by, thank goodness.
On our last day, I inadvertently became Doctor Doolittle, broke up a dog fight that left Tofu with a bleeding face (Ross applied the Iodine perfectly) and then fed and watered a very very young pup that had got separated by it's Mum, before the French husband got on a moped and returned it to her in the woods.......
The place felt like a commune at times (in a good way), everyone waved us off as we left with the french lady calling out.....'you two are soo lucky, so so lucky - what a fantastic adventure, just brilliant' - she's right, and we have to keep pinching ourselves. This was the first time we had left a place with any emotion, as when travelling, once you're ready to leave, you just go and get excited about the next chapter.
We arrived this morning to wonderful Bangkok via a 13 hour night bus. Jaded but excited to be here for new year, we're staying in a great little Danish-run guest house and have met another lone traveller - Henry from Holland, who has given us some great tips for our trip into Laos.
Happy New Year to everyone, hope you all enjoy the celebrations wherever you'll be. We'll be watching the lantern festival and fireworks on the banks of the Chao Praya River.......
Tonight, Ross will thrash me at pool...:-)
Love to you all,
Charlie & Ross
Posted by charlieandross 03:43 Archived in Thailand Comments (8)