Sawasdee Pee Mai!

Or "Happy New Year" as they say over in your part of the world. Many thanks for all the comments over the last few weeks (and the poem Frank - very good! How's the weather where you are?). Its about midday on New Year's Eve at the mo' (so it's five in the morning at home). Yesterday we made it to Ko Samet, an island south of Bangkok in the Gulf of Thailand, and installed ourselves in a cabin on the beach surrounded by beach bars and restaurants. We had a preliminary New Year's Eve party last night but finished at eleven. Much fun! This place is a sort of cross between the hippy-ness of Key West in Florida with the beach chaos of Ponta Negra in Brazil during the day. In the afternoon, all the bars clean up their part of the beach, lay carpets and cushions and bring in low tables for eating and drinking by the sea. The biggest of them put on some pyro-entertainment with fire jugglers, fiery limbo dancing contests, home-made fireworks and, if you want something gentler, you can buy paper lanterns from beach vendors, set fire to the wick at the base, and watch them take off into the night sky. I'll confess that, after a bottle of cheap Thai brandy that Mike bought, the whole thing was very spiritual, like setting a shard of my soul flying off into space alongside all the other little flickering balls of flame. Or maybe that was the hallucinogens in the giant prawns we had earlier . . . Anyway, it would have been spiritual had it not been for the techno music pounding from the bar next door. Where was Pink Floyd when you needed them?

Anyway, short post this time. We have to prepare for tonight's onslaught (probably by drinking beer on the beach all afternoon!). If you are reading this later in the day, we hope you all have a jolly good time at your respective celebrations. Here's to lotsa fun in 2009!!!