Holidays in Thailand
Admittedly a little late, but I'm posting about it anyway!!
Here’s something you learn when living in Thailand - Thais love to celebrate. They will celebrate just about any holiday - domestic or foreign. This makes for a wonderful holiday season regarding decor and themed events and shopping experiences, ice skating (yes, even ice skating in hot-ass Bangkok), food, cocktails, and more. As much as we wanted to spend our holidays with family like we normally do, there were a number of factors that prevented it this year:
a. It’s cold back home and it’s not cold here,
2. We basically just got here and it’s SUCH a long flight, and
d. Flights were INSANELY expensive!! Like over $3.2k expensive. As my dad put it- “$3200 may be the amount between us ever seeing each other again.” (He didn’t ACTUALLY mean that by the way, the point more so being “Wow, that’s a really expensive flight and difficult to justify.”)
So instead we spent Christmas here in Bangkok with the two of us and New Year’s with some friends both old and new in Chiang Mai.
Christmas in Bangkok
In typical Bangkok fashion, the city goes over the top. Think Rockefeller-size trees (yes, multiple, not just the one), Christmas villages, and even dancing winter-themed mascots.
We went to one Christmas village that actually had a snow machine making fake snow… in Bangkok… Think about that for one moment. In a city that rarely, if ever, dips below 72 F, they blew artificially created snow into the air. It was a really weird feeling to be walking along on a super balmy evening, then feel cold snow on you and look up and see snow swirling in the air. But here is a sampling of photos from our Christmas-time wanderings.
Christmas morning was wonderful. I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast, which has started to become a bit of a tradition for us, and we did the usual present opening. I made a gingerbread house and we watched Christmas movies. Overall, we kept it pretty low key, which was nice. But later in the day both of us started to get a little bummed out. I know I was just slagging off cold weather, but I hadn’t remembered how much I associated Christmas with cold weather. I even missed cold weather a little (but just for this one day). And one thing that is both a blessing and a curse - everything is still open here on Christmas. This makes for great convenience, but did kind of minimize how special the day felt as a result. And lastly, both of us really missed our families. Like, a lot. In many ways it didn’t really feel like Christmas to us, but in this way the most. Yes, it sounds like a cheesy holiday special, but we’re both so lucky to have family that we actually like and get along with, so yeah… Christmas wasn’t quite Christmas without them.
Regardless of our mid-day holiday funk, we were still able to get ourselves out to have a fantastic dinner at one of our favorite restaurants here in Bangkok, El Santo. It's an upscale Mexican restaurant with some of the best frozen margaritas I've ever had. They had a special menu, which I'm pretty sure we were the only ones to order that night, and it was amazing. Chef Daniel really did a number on us that night. It was just the right thing to cheer us up a bit. Luckily, Justin is a lot better than I am about taking pictures, so he got photos of every course we had.
New Year's in Chiang Mai
So New Year's was a bit of a different vibe. First of all, Chiang Mai is WAY more low key than Bangkok. Bangkok is a bit of a spectacle. Chiang Mai, on the other hand, is a little like Neverneverland for bohemian expats who seek to live a more simple life. That's starting to change a bit with increased tourism, but it's still there. I have a friend who came out to SE Asia for about six weeks as his graduation gift to himself, and he's traveling around with a few friends of his (now new friends of ours I like to think!). So we got to hang out with them.
The trip started with quite a maddening hurdle to climb over when I woke up to an early morning message from our hotel, which I had booked weeks ago, saying they canceled our reservation due to overbooking, but hey! Booking.com was willing to send me a link to another place a mere 40 minute drive away with terrible reviews that I could book (insert BIG eyeroll here). So there we were, bags packed and ready to get on a plane that afternoon no hotel reservation for what is probably the second busiest week of the year in a major tourist destination. Awesome. I spent about 3 hours trying to book at a hotel that provided more than just a few bunk beds that was even remotely close to where we needed to be. I even thought I was successful in doing so multiple times, only to be told at the end of the booking process that the hotel was full and in yet another ire-inducing instance, to be messaged shortly after actually booking saying sorry, but the hotel is actually full so our reservation would be cancelled. I nearly gave up, because the only places available were exorbitantly priced, but in the end, decided money is just money and went ahead and booked. And I'm glad I did.
The friends booked a guesthouse with an outdoor kitchen area. They were nice enough to cook for us on multiple occasions and it was really great to be reminded of what it feels like to just chill with some friends while sitting around a table. It was really great. We went to the wet market to get ingredients, I napped in a hotel room and let myself just lay around some days, I visited some new(ish) places, and I got to introduce some people to my new favorite cuisine - Burmese food.
One of the highlights was the sticky waterfalls. I had been wanting to go since my first trip to Thailand but never made it out. The water is so heavy in minerals that it's coated everything in limestone, so you can just walk up the waterfall without worrying about slipping and completing your journey with filling out hospital intake forms. Really crowded, but still suuuuuuper cool. I felt like a little kid again. Though when I go back, I will be getting up first thing in the morning to go, because there are a lot of people around now and you have to wait for every wannabe Insta-influencer to get their pictures before getting your turn to go up. No longer is it about the experience folks! Nope, just about getting that pic for the 'gram!
On New Year's eve, the city shut down massive portions of a few of the more heavily visited neighborhoods and in its place, set up markets. It was essentially one giant festival area packed with people - like the whole city joined the party. There were fireworks going off all night, with one or two big displays at night. People were lighting lanterns to set free (I have very mixed feelings about these because of the pollution and fire hazard issues, but they are beautiful for sure). Live music was playing in several areas. We walked around a bit, but ultimately decided that all we needed was time in the outdoor kitchen to just chill with a small group of good people at midnight. So that's exactly what we did.
On New Year's Day, (surprise, surprise) we had a tasting menu - another delectable experience. B Samcook fuses Thai style with others for his menu, and at what I would argue, a really affordable price for high-end cuisine: 6-7 courses with bottomless wine (you switch between red and white depending on what you're eating for that course) for ~$50? Yes please! And every course was delicious (albeit one a little too heavy on the gold flake). Again, Justin coming in clutch with remembering to capture it in photos.