Christmas and New Year in the tropics

---

I’m not going to go into details about my time in Thailand over Christmas and New Year except to say where I went, and I have posted some photos which will give you an idea of what I was up to. Suffice it to say that I had such a good time that I decided to stay for longer and extend my trip in general. I was getting a bit stressed about not having enough time to visit the places I had wanted to and tired of moving from one place to another every two nights on average. So I stayed on Koh Phangan for a while with a quick visa run too Malaysia just before Christmas which I spent with friends and friends of friends back on Koh Phangan. New Years was spent on Ton Sai Beach with other friends. We also went to a ‘remote’ island called Lao Liang on an eco resort before going to Koh Lipe, one of the very southern-most islands on the West Coast of Thailand. I dived a few more times, went kayaking a lot, soaked up some sun and generally had an awesome and very relaxed time.

Some people might wonder what it was like spending Christmas in such a warm climate away from friends and family. In short, the people I was with were of the same optimistic mindset as myself and we made an effort to have a really nice time together. Of course it was hard getting into the Christmas spirit when you spend Christmas day on the beach and can’t get any food that is even remotely similar to a Christmas dinner - but we still had Christmas lights, there was a plastic tree in the restaurant and I played canasta like I normally do with my mum. My Christmas playlist on my iPod worked overtime for a few days filling my head with images of snow-clad landscapes, warm fireplaces with stockings and beautifully decorated trees which made it feel a lot more like Christmas. So all in all, it was a very pleasant and relaxing Christmas - truly in the spirit of spending time with each other without any gift races or the bitter cold of Northern Europe :-)

New Year’s Eve was also very special. We celebrated in style and saw loads of fireworks like I’m used to from Denmark. Of course it’s much nicer to be able to watch them without being wrapped up in layers and layers - and the local touch of flavour was the sending up of hundreds of lights in small square air-balloon type constructions. It was amazing watching all the lights float up and across the starlit sky. I know the Thai don’t celebrate the return of light like we do in Scandinavia when the winter darkness reduces our daylight hours to sometime between 8.00 and 15.00 - but I still liked to think that these floating light vessels were also commemorating the return of light - like the fireworks.

---

Photos

You could actually stand under this and get a very wet massage
We then held a synchonised swimming competition in the pool in from of the tumbling water - scarily Becky and I lost. Not sure what that says about us - or about the guys!

And we're back on the buckets!
Simon, Andy and Ell

And fluorescent paint
Andy getting a paint tattoo

And then they picked one for me too
In case you're wondering what it's supposed to be, I can't really help you. Some kind of cross breed of a boxing kangaroo and a crocodile is my best guess.
If only I'd known this paint doesn't come off your clothing - favourite dress now has fluorescent green on the front!!

Lovely ensemble, eh?
Me with devil's horns and all manners of fluorescent shit