I have always been a Christmas skeptic, but I suppose its a bit like my atheism which toned down to agnosticism as I age and become less idealistic. Hey, I am not going to turn down the chance to be intoxicated just cos that's suppose to be wrong.
On Christmas eve, Emma and I met up with Jo and Rachel, two JETS from japan who are also in BKK, and Malin the Swedish chick I met in Lao. The evening started with singha beer and a collection of weird snacks we picked up at the markets - rice caramel crackers, fish cakes, roasted broadbeans coated with chilli powder, fried dough, etc etc. And that crazy drinking game the kiwi chicks form halong bay taught me.By the time we made it to the seafood restaurant with live crustaceans displayed on ice outside, the Khao san area was already packed with tourists and Thais out for a good time. Soon we were in tears, not for the diners sitting in the corner by themselves with their The Darvinci Codes, but the overpowering chilli the chefs tend to sprinkle by the handfulls in everything they serve - mainly to make you order more beer. It really is a circus out here - other than the usual street vendors with pad thai and fruit, and the massage shop ladies, there was a little Thai boy selling endangered birds (10 fits into a small bamboo cage), a little French boy who's parents are obviously oblivious to the fact that he is annoying all the diners with his remote controlled bat-mobile, a man in santa suit cycling around the street with a tuk-tuk decorated with white pipe cleaners and xmas light to resemble a giant snow queen vehicle belting out xmas carols - 20 baht a pop for a ride. And the indian magicians that can tell you exactly when you'll meet the man of your dreams, how much he'll make, when you will have your first child and whether you're in line for that inheritance.
The rest of the night was debaucherous mixture of 7-11 beers, crazy Thai pop music and toilet ladies telling you that you've gone into the men's toilets. And a bit more of being mistaken as Japanese. I've heard enough of AISHITERU for now.The morning was quite nice - another hot sticky day in Bangkok. Emma has not emerged from her recovery but I was keen to get back into the curries (while I make my xmas phone calls) - an open air smorgasbord in the shallow ally way beside the guest house which has over 20 curries to choose from, at 25 baht a plate with free grayish ice water (which I have sworn against after seeing a pile of ice being transported on the back of a truck, no containers or covers, just dripping out onto the road and straight into the ice machine...). Nothing beats chilli on a day like this!!
We dragged our hangovers all the way to the Chatuchak weekend markets in the afternoon where we met up with Jib - whom i haven't seen for 10 months. Its one of the biggest markets in the region, over 20,000 stalls and as it was the end of the year it was packed with ppl. I can't believe this is the middle of the winter cos the heat alone makes your eyes blurry, let alone doing this while you just had xx amount of singha beer the night before. The warehouses where half the stalls are is like a big rice cooker and it was impossible for girls of our delicacy could really handle.
We ended the day with, you guessed it, KAREOKE! To my surprise, the Thais aren't really that into kareoke, most of the clientele are ex pat Japanese. But thanks to Jib who is also a kareoke junkie we found a fantastic place in Asoke, and just drowned ourselves in song 
for the rest of the evening. i really missed doing kareoke with Emma, we just know each other too well - we are like kareoke soul mates - the words and the melodies just gel and together amd belt out like poetry. We created a big monster that the Asoke residents (particularly those with children) would be glad to see the back of.This is probably around the 80th time I did "My Way" - about time I lost count, really.
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