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Hi Everyone,
It appears that people liked yesterdays entry. Fantastic, Thank you for the compliment STA.
I have to tell you that it was only about 28 degrees on Christmas Day and briliant sunshine, I just 'had' to have a swim before 3 of us headed off to Wat Phrathet on Doi Suthep just outside Chiang Mai. Pom and Ng wanted me to see one of the most sacred sights in the area as they recognised that this was an important day for Christians, which I thought was very nice of them. The journey is actually quite horrible and takes an aweful twisting mountain road up to a high point where legend has it that a white Elephant trudged up this mountain carrying Holy relics of Buddha and dropped dead from fatigue, where the Elephant fell, the Temple was built. Well I'm not blooming surprised poor thing, I felt exausted and that was just in the back of a taxi!
It is a splendid place and one of the most visited by the Thai's. Having been shown how things should be done and taken part in offerings in the true Buddhist way etc we went down the road for some soup. Now one of the things I can tell you about Pom is that she is very slim but eats like a horse, I honestly can not keep up with her, she has got to have hollow legs there can be no other explanation, it is impossible otherwise! We, well actually she, eventually finished and we headed for our taxi but just we did so a huge bull Elephant came charging down the hill. Seemingly totally out of control, cars darted this way and that, people dived for cover behind food stalls although they would have been no protection as the Ele headed straight for a poor womans fruit stall and started scoffing down copious amounts of bananas! The woman started shouting and hollowing but Ele was having non of it he was really going for it as fast he could. His Manhout caught up with him but not before he had done a considerable amount of damage to the Ladies takings! The Manout started to coax him away but he must have got the whif of another stall on the opposite side of the road as he bolted (if you can describe a 3 Tonne Elephant as Bolting!) across the road and repeated the process on another stall, at least this owner had the piece of mind to offer up the fruit and started feeding him which meant he could be led away from the people and up the road. He still went back for more though and as we were leaving he actually went back to the original stall and started all over agian, bless him!
We did eventually make it to the Red Lion and had a great evening, the meal was great value and very tasty, I managed to have extra portions of stuffing and Xmas pud on account that Thai people dont like it (fortunately!) we had a great day and a Merry Christmas indeed.
Over the period to New Year I acquired a room mate, Tristan, an Englishmen who turned out to be really interesting and a good companion, resulting in conversations long into the night. As it happened we got on really well and it was unfortunate that we had not met prior to this point.
New Years Eve was one of those evenings which will remain in my memory For Ever! You will no doubt now be familiar with the 'Chaing Mai Massive'! well we were at it again only this time I was taken to meet one of the Relatives who owns a restaurant further along the Ping River, if you read about my evening during the Loy Krathong festival and how busy the area around the river gets, well, New Years Eve was no exception. Quite a lot has changed since my last visit with new premises springing up, this served to make the area really busy and combined with the exuberant locals was makin g for a really realy good evening. It was beautifully clear and a very warm night fireworks commenced around 6.00pm as soon as it was dark, they continued until what felt like 6.00am the next morning! We eventually made it to Tai Phrae Gate in the middle of the Old Town and were met with terrific scenes, with our now normal, three on a bike, form of transport we made it to as close as possible before walking to the Gate arriving with just 7 minutes to 2009.
Fireworks were exploding all around us, if there was any order to the proceedings it was difficult to fathom but there was a wonderful spirit about the place and 'jubilant' would be only one way of describing the crowd. We were close to a giant screen showing events taking place in the square about 100 feet away, it was pointless trying to get there in time so anchored to the spot we waited for 'The Moment' to arrive. There were firecrackers, hundreds of lighted lanterns, rockets, bangers, sparklers and various Whiz Bangs going off all around, there was noise from the P.A. modern and traditional Thai music, excited children, very excited adults, tourists, Thais and travellers, people dressed up people dressed down but everybody and everything was Happy. The moment arrived - 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 !! The World of Chiang Mai errupted! It didn't seem possible but even more fireworks filled the air and sky, the noise reached a crescendo when a 'bomb' was lit and set off on the road behind us not thirty yards away, the crowd hastilly parted as it fired off all of its rockets before laying wasted and smoking in the road. The celebrations continued well into the morning and were still in full swing when we finally left around 1.30. The girls had work the next day and I was preparing for Cambodia. One thing remains though and that is to say that this was an exceptional New Year celebration, the Thai people are normally happy and smiling which seems a bit of a cliche now but it was lovely to see such natural people being even more happy, laughing and taking the enjoyment of life to another level. I had an evening I will never forget.
As you can tell, I'm catching up. The next leg is Cambodia which I will add for you this week - hopefully!
See you soon.
Chris
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