Southeast Asia

Was woken at 5:00am this morning to the neighbours phone playing the sugarplum fairy dance at an ear piercing tone and continued to do so at 15-minute intervals for the next hour and a half until Dee chucked a deodorant at the wall and woke them up. Went back to sleep for a few hours. Brendan came by about 9:30 after his blood test at the hospital and told us he had Dengue Fever, which is a mosquito transmitted disease with no vaccine and no treatment aside from painkillers which are taken for the next week or so until the pain subsides.

Mum rang to wish me Happy Birthday [Yay, 21] and Merry Christmas and I talked to dad, Kris and the entire family for quite a while. Afterwards Dee Brendan and I walked down the bakery for breakfast / early lunch, Dee paid because it was my birthday which was very sweet of her and she even bought a box of camembert because I’d been saying how much I miss cheese here. It was a great breakfast and we sat and talked and I read my book while the others made their Christmas phone calls home.

When I went back to the room Dee surprised me with a birthday present of shampoo and conditioner, a new journal and lollipop. It was really cute of her because there isn’t exactly a lot of stuff you can buy for someone who’s backpacking, and they were all bits and pieces I needed. I read my book for a couple of hours while Dee went and used the computers, she is seriously addicted to the internet and msn messenger, I have no idea what she’s going to do in Laos when we might have trouble finding an internet café.

At 3:00 we headed off to the Blue Lagoon hotel for our Christmas dinner. The hotel is owned by a Scottish guy who for the past 2 years has cooked a traditional Christmas dinner for all the homeless backpackers in Pai. The cost was 450B, which is incredibly expensive for one meal but not outrageous for a Christmas dinner. There was 2 turkeys, ham, stuffing, an assortment of veggies and gravy. It was delicious, I cant believe how much I ate. We met two crazy Irish guys, Owen and Harry, and while we were talking an old guy came around and filled all our glasses with rice wine and told us to drink up. The entire table collectively took great sips and then almost immediately wanted to spit it out again, it was about 100 times worse than the cheapest vodka you’ve ever tasted. It was so potent, and yet the old guy drank it back like it was water. There was live music all night and Karaoke too which was fun, although I didn’t sing.

We played cards and pool before eating Christmas pudding for dessert, which tasted just like at home. The others weren’t feeling well so we went home about 10. I’ll admit I was slightly disappointed, I would have like to go out on my 21st, but both Dee and Brendan are still not well and I had a great day anyway. I can make up for it later.

Tags: Thailand

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 7th, 2006 at 5:43 am and is filed under Thailand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.