We flew back to Bangkok on New Year's Eve morning to spend our last couple of days on the beach near the airport. Cookie, Nee and Thee graciously returned to Bangkok and picked us up at the airport and we all drove a ways south to Baen Sung beach. We all booked nice rooms in the resort across the street from the beach.
More sunshine, more massages, more Thai food, more laughter. The kids and I layed around the pool and Cookie and family avoided the sun......we avoided the beach, it was just too crazy. Baen Sung is a tourist havens for Thai's from Bangkok. The beach was packed with families under umbrellas or in the water, with local food vendors and fresh bbq seafood. The streets were packed with cars, cars that just seem to park where they choose to stop, thus reducing a 4 lane street to one lane.
I argued with Nee and Thee and agreed only to go to dinner with them on New Year's if I could pay for everyone. Under duress, they agreed. I don't know if you should go against the grain like that, but in our culture, it seemed appropriate to pay after everything that they had done for us in the past couple weeks. We had dinner at a beachside, seafood restaurant. The kids drank a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label and got goofy......
After dinner, we walked thru the vendors, the food fair, listened to music and people watched before the countdown to 2010. We were just about the only white people in the crowd, it was truly a local experience. There were fireworks and flares and music playing out of pimped out cars with dancing partiers everywhere. It was an interesting night, but I missed the tradition of the Barron family New Year's and watching fireworks over Lake Whatcom.
I think 2010 is going to be a great year.
