Christmas Day In Thailand

It was definitely a Christmas Day like no other. Beaches, 35+ Degrees, buckets, bach raves and not a single Christmas jumper in sight.

Being in a Buddhist country means that the Christmas hype was completely none existent so come December 23rd I was felling about as Christmassy as Abu Hamza. However this all changed when I got to Koh Phangan and hit one of the main Backpacker (so therefore westernised) meccas of South East Asia. There were Christmas Trees and Santa hats galore and horrendous Christmas songs (which so far I had thankfully managed to avoid) blasting out of most of the restaurants. This meant that come midday on the 24th I was feeling very Christmasssy indeed.

I was on the beach covered in foam at the stroke of midnight on the 25th. A situation I never expect to be in again on Christmas Day. Someone set a few fireworks off and we all wished each other a merry Christmas, it was lovely haha. Although the trance music did take away from the Christmas vibe somewhat.

I have no idea what time we went to bed that night but the majority of Christmas Day was spent in the land of slumber until about 3pm when we made our way to one of the bars offering a traditional Christmas dinner. We were all well excited at the prospect of this and while the novelty of having a Thai green curry for Christmas dinner in retrospect may have been far better choice, the lure of the Christmas dinner conquered all. Unfortunately the dinner we got was absolute dog shit! Chris's turkey was mainly skin  and Tom and I could hardly eat ours. Disaster. This meant all of us at this point were very jealous as we thought of all the lovely dinners you guys would be having back home!

After the meal we all went to the beach to chill for a bit just because we could, before all making our way to the various internet cafes dotted around the island to contact friends and families as it was now about 10am back in the UK so time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. This actually made me pretty sad as seeing Dad in his Xmas bow tie on skype and my Mum, sister and Grandad all chilling out in the lounge made me miss home an awful lot.

That pretty much concludes Christmas Day 2009 really, after the skyping sesh we heading back to the room to unwind before covering our bodies in UV pain before we hit the beach for the Christmas Day Full Moon. Just like the last one I was at in May it was awesome! However as it wasn't an official full moon it was a lot smaller scale which was a shame. Despite this we still partied hard till the sun came up. Although I did manage to fall asleep on the streets for a bit which worried the others who thought I had died haha.

It was a strange affair one I enjoyed and disliked at various stages of the day depending on what I was doing. One thing I learned however is how much I actually love Christmas. It was the first time I had felt properly home sick in my 11 months away and I was missing not being with my family and friends very much indeed.