Christmas Day

After the exhilaration of the early hours of Christmas morning, waking up to stockings and cards just topped it off. It was about as close to a traditional Christmas as you could hope to get in a hut, in the mountains, in Thailand. Jolly splendid stuff. We were a little slow on the offing, having gone to bed a little later than planned post back gammon and port, but we were soon back on the road to return the bike to Shannon and Holly.

We went for a very tasty Christmas day lunch and then tried to go and hire a motorbike, as I had high hopes for visits to waterfalls, canyons and other such natural splendors. Not being seasoned "motorcycle hirers", we were unaware that most get hired out before the crack of dawn in Pai. We wondered aimlessly up and down and shortly after I decided to wax lyrical about how we: "weren't going to do anything for Christmas day, oh woe". An hour or so later, and with patience being a virtue, we finally got ourselves a bike and we were off.

Some spectacular views and a near-death experience later (don't try and jump over waterfalls children - the "fall" part is there for a reason) I was content that we had done Christmas day justice. After a quick Christmas call home to wish all merriness, we decided to get moving again and headed back into Pai for dinner. This consisted of a burger (not me) and some extremely spicy Chinese Kale in oyster sauce (blew my head off). Shortly after we met up with Shannon and Holly in a hookah bar just around the corner from the restaurant, which was full of very merry Thai men playing cards and giggling... We ended up seeing Christmas day off by buying a lantern each and launching them off the most rickety bamboo bridge, not without the help of some kindly Thai boys who probably had to stop after witnessing our initial pathetic attempt (the first lantern was launched into the river rather than the air).

As we said goodbye to Holly and Shannon before jumping on the bike and headed off on the dark road home, I thought it was a marvellous end to Christmas all around.