Barely Christmas and a blurry New Year
We spent Christmas in Phuket which is a strange island that seems to be inhabited, mostly, by Russians and Swedes. We arrived at our hotel in Kata Beach and were pleased to see the whole town 
bedecked with Christmas trees, lights and tinsel. On Christmas Eve all the resorts and hotels held big gala dinners with special buffets, live music and other entertainment. We spent the evening sat at a cocktail bar on the beach watching the locals sell fireworks and paper lanterns to the tourists. By midnight, as more and more people piled on to the beach after their gala buffets, the sky became full of floating lanterns and there were so many increasingly loud, weapons-grade 
fireworks being let off that it was a bit like sitting in the middle of a re-enactment of the D-Day landings.
"This is great," we thought, "imagine what it'll be like tomorrow!" So we asked at the various restaurants what the deal was for Christmas Day and would we need to book and would there be turkey etc. Every single one of them told us that Christmas ends at midnight on Christmas Eve - they don't celebrate Christmas Day at all, just the 24th. Sure enough, we woke on Christmas morning to find that all the decorations were coming down, the special menus had been cleared away and Christmas was officially over. We went to the beach to have a consolation Christmas swim and marvel at the bewilderingly miniscule items of swimwear favoured by the Russian tourists - we saw thongs that were barely more than a hem. This looked great on some of the girls, titilating even, but was a bit distressing when seen stretched over a big hairy bloke. We went back to our room and opened a bottle of gin.
That night, we wandered out into town for dinner and a Christmas miracle happened. We saw a boisterous looking bar in full flow and decided that that was where we should be. As we entered, a woman approached us and told us it was a private party for the diving school next door. We thought she was going to ask us to leave but instead pointed us towards a covered pool table and with the words
"Get stuck in" revealed a scene that brought a tear to my eye: a feast of roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, a variety of vegetables, onion gravy and THREE roast turkeys. And, as is tradition with Christmas dinners everywhere, they had cooked too much and were virtually begging us to help them eat it. I'm sure I heard an angelic chorus of 'Hallelujah!' - though, to be honest, I was busy trying to decide how many roast potatoes it was polite to put on my plate.
As if this wasn't miracle enough, we then returned to our own hotel to discover that they were having a party of their own. More free food and, more excitingly, free wine. And just when we thought it couldn't get any better than that, a microphone squealed into life and
we span round to see a tiny little Thai Elvis impersonator take to the stage. I wondered whether they'd actually ordered little Christmas elves but got this guy due to a spelling mistake. Delvis (for that was his stage name!) was brilliant - but he looked a lot further away than he actually was. As a finale he sang It's Now Or Never, cajoling an Italian tourist to join in with a chorus of 'O Sole Mio, while Claire and I, fuelled by a few too many wines, were shouting Just One Cornetto! It was our weirdest Christmas ever.
We then spent a couple of relaxing days on Koh Phi Phi, which is beautiful and 
pristeen (you have to pay a 20 baht "cleaning fee" to the island on arrival), before heading to Krabi for New Year. We were staying on Railay peninsula which has a couple of stunning beaches and is only accessible by boat which makes it feel like an island. It's quite a small peninsula and we'd explored most of it on day one. One of the highlights was a bizarre cave full of penises. It is a shrine to some ancient 
goddess or other and the
tradition is for fishermen to leave carved wooden phalluses as a gift to her in return for good fortune on the waves. The result is that this little alcove is now chock-full of what look like early prehistoric attempts at sex toys. Hundreds of them! It's hilarious.
On the 30th, we made the mistake of going to a "Pre New Year's Eve Party" that one of the bars 
was holding. We started on buckets of Vodka Redbull, just to get us warmed up, while we watched some local lads spinning fire sticks and flaming bolas. We then moved on to "Banana Coladas" as we met some interesting new friends and showed them just how drunk a 40-year-old can get on fruit-based cocktails. There was then a period of highly energetic dancing, profuse sweating and a gymnastics competition with the fire-twirling local lads. Which we lost. We arrived back at our room at around 4.30am. I attempted to have a shower, slipped on the wet floor but cleverly used the bridge of my nose and
the edge of the toilet bowl to 
cushion my fall. Claire found me curled up on the bathroom floor, whimpering like an abandoned puppy.
So when we awoke on New Year's Eve proper (sometime in the afternoon) things weren't looking great. My nose was throbbing, I was having trouble getting one of my knees to work and every time I attempted to stand up, I was swaying like you do on a choppy ferry crossing. We staggered outside for an ill-advised lunch before returning to our beds until 7pm that same evening. Summoning all the energy we could muster, we decided to venture out once more and attempt to celebrate the real New Year.
We met Ed, one of the interesting people we'd met the night before and one of only a couple 
I could actually recall having met. The three of us went to the main beach and sat with some cold beers, watching the celebrations unfold. There were several of those gala dinners going on along the beach and each one had different music blaring out which meant at any given point you had at least three tunes in earshot which was a bit distressing. There were more of the floating paper lanterns we'd seen in Phuket so Clare and I bought one, wrote our New Year's wish on it, lit it and watched it ascend into the sky to join the hundreds of other 
lanterns as they drifted out to sea. At midnight there was a big fireworks display from a boat in the bay and we saw in the new year, there on the beach, hugging strangers while 
fireworks echoed off the surrounding mountains. It was magical.
We then returned to the last night's bar and another night of cocktails and dancing. We were getting a lot of nods and waves from people I was convinced I'd never met before but who Claire pointed out I'd apparently spent large chunks of the previous night with.
Ed also kindly pointed out which ones I'd upset that night. We had a great time, weren't quite as drunk as before and somehow managed to stay out until 5am. And this time I managed to not headbutt a toilet - let's hope that's a positive sign for 2012.
bedecked with Christmas trees, lights and tinsel. On Christmas Eve all the resorts and hotels held big gala dinners with special buffets, live music and other entertainment. We spent the evening sat at a cocktail bar on the beach watching the locals sell fireworks and paper lanterns to the tourists. By midnight, as more and more people piled on to the beach after their gala buffets, the sky became full of floating lanterns and there were so many increasingly loud, weapons-grade 
fireworks being let off that it was a bit like sitting in the middle of a re-enactment of the D-Day landings."This is great," we thought, "imagine what it'll be like tomorrow!" So we asked at the various restaurants what the deal was for Christmas Day and would we need to book and would there be turkey etc. Every single one of them told us that Christmas ends at midnight on Christmas Eve - they don't celebrate Christmas Day at all, just the 24th. Sure enough, we woke on Christmas morning to find that all the decorations were coming down, the special menus had been cleared away and Christmas was officially over. We went to the beach to have a consolation Christmas swim and marvel at the bewilderingly miniscule items of swimwear favoured by the Russian tourists - we saw thongs that were barely more than a hem. This looked great on some of the girls, titilating even, but was a bit distressing when seen stretched over a big hairy bloke. We went back to our room and opened a bottle of gin.
That night, we wandered out into town for dinner and a Christmas miracle happened. We saw a boisterous looking bar in full flow and decided that that was where we should be. As we entered, a woman approached us and told us it was a private party for the diving school next door. We thought she was going to ask us to leave but instead pointed us towards a covered pool table and with the words
"Get stuck in" revealed a scene that brought a tear to my eye: a feast of roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, a variety of vegetables, onion gravy and THREE roast turkeys. And, as is tradition with Christmas dinners everywhere, they had cooked too much and were virtually begging us to help them eat it. I'm sure I heard an angelic chorus of 'Hallelujah!' - though, to be honest, I was busy trying to decide how many roast potatoes it was polite to put on my plate.As if this wasn't miracle enough, we then returned to our own hotel to discover that they were having a party of their own. More free food and, more excitingly, free wine. And just when we thought it couldn't get any better than that, a microphone squealed into life and
we span round to see a tiny little Thai Elvis impersonator take to the stage. I wondered whether they'd actually ordered little Christmas elves but got this guy due to a spelling mistake. Delvis (for that was his stage name!) was brilliant - but he looked a lot further away than he actually was. As a finale he sang It's Now Or Never, cajoling an Italian tourist to join in with a chorus of 'O Sole Mio, while Claire and I, fuelled by a few too many wines, were shouting Just One Cornetto! It was our weirdest Christmas ever.
We then spent a couple of relaxing days on Koh Phi Phi, which is beautiful and 
pristeen (you have to pay a 20 baht "cleaning fee" to the island on arrival), before heading to Krabi for New Year. We were staying on Railay peninsula which has a couple of stunning beaches and is only accessible by boat which makes it feel like an island. It's quite a small peninsula and we'd explored most of it on day one. One of the highlights was a bizarre cave full of penises. It is a shrine to some ancient 
goddess or other and the
tradition is for fishermen to leave carved wooden phalluses as a gift to her in return for good fortune on the waves. The result is that this little alcove is now chock-full of what look like early prehistoric attempts at sex toys. Hundreds of them! It's hilarious. 
On the 30th, we made the mistake of going to a "Pre New Year's Eve Party" that one of the bars 
was holding. We started on buckets of Vodka Redbull, just to get us warmed up, while we watched some local lads spinning fire sticks and flaming bolas. We then moved on to "Banana Coladas" as we met some interesting new friends and showed them just how drunk a 40-year-old can get on fruit-based cocktails. There was then a period of highly energetic dancing, profuse sweating and a gymnastics competition with the fire-twirling local lads. Which we lost. We arrived back at our room at around 4.30am. I attempted to have a shower, slipped on the wet floor but cleverly used the bridge of my nose and
the edge of the toilet bowl to 
cushion my fall. Claire found me curled up on the bathroom floor, whimpering like an abandoned puppy.So when we awoke on New Year's Eve proper (sometime in the afternoon) things weren't looking great. My nose was throbbing, I was having trouble getting one of my knees to work and every time I attempted to stand up, I was swaying like you do on a choppy ferry crossing. We staggered outside for an ill-advised lunch before returning to our beds until 7pm that same evening. Summoning all the energy we could muster, we decided to venture out once more and attempt to celebrate the real New Year.
We met Ed, one of the interesting people we'd met the night before and one of only a couple 
I could actually recall having met. The three of us went to the main beach and sat with some cold beers, watching the celebrations unfold. There were several of those gala dinners going on along the beach and each one had different music blaring out which meant at any given point you had at least three tunes in earshot which was a bit distressing. There were more of the floating paper lanterns we'd seen in Phuket so Clare and I bought one, wrote our New Year's wish on it, lit it and watched it ascend into the sky to join the hundreds of other 
lanterns as they drifted out to sea. At midnight there was a big fireworks display from a boat in the bay and we saw in the new year, there on the beach, hugging strangers while 
fireworks echoed off the surrounding mountains. It was magical.We then returned to the last night's bar and another night of cocktails and dancing. We were getting a lot of nods and waves from people I was convinced I'd never met before but who Claire pointed out I'd apparently spent large chunks of the previous night with.
Ed also kindly pointed out which ones I'd upset that night. We had a great time, weren't quite as drunk as before and somehow managed to stay out until 5am. And this time I managed to not headbutt a toilet - let's hope that's a positive sign for 2012.
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