Yes, the gaps between these are increasing; That’s because I’m slowing down. I expected it to happen, so … I’m not surprised.
New Years Eve arrived on schedule.
Apparently there’s a thing about releasing lanterns at New Year’s, so that they can float away & set fire to things, so the aforementioned lanterns are banned in the city. Though I understand it didn’t stop everyone, and I did spot some Thai Fire Service people waiting near the Old City, so maybe they weren’t so sure the ban would work either.
Various hostel folks were planning bar hopping or similar, which isn’t really my thing, and there was some form of celebration event planned at the Tha Phae (East) Gate. Out of curiosity I went for a walk around 8pm, to see how things were going out there, and to see whether I wanted to rethink my ‘quiet evening’ plans.
The footpaths outside stores & restaurants & bars were packed, unsurprisingly, but very few people were using the paths by the moat/canal, so it was quite a pleasant walk around to Tha Phae Gate.
I’d never gone past the outside of the NE corner of the Old City, so I’d not seen the slumping brickwork until that evening.
Tha Phae Gate was a predictable pre-madhouse situation. There were crowds, and people selling things, and stands where people could take photos of you in the real world equivalent of an Instagram photo frame.
There was a sort of cut-down version of the Sunday Night Market happening along the road cutting through the Old City. Nowhere near as many stalls, though I think all the same ‘foodcourt’ areas.
When I first wandered along it, I thought one of the bars had a karaoke setup with bad speakers & a drunk person on the microphone, and the volume cranked up far too high. But then it was there again, a bit further down the road. Near as I can tell, it was being played through some kind of public address system which was not coping with producing actual music, and was so loud that the speakers weren’t coping. My ears certainly weren’t happy.
Maybe I have no appreciation of Thai Pop Music, or maybe the volume/speakers were causing problems, but it sounded awful. Drunk karaoke awful.
Back in the hostel, after Phai the owner left for the evening, there were still people looking for a bed for the night. First one was a French guy who knocked politely on the door & asked.
Second one was pulling on the locked door hard enough that we were worried he’d break it. I told him the hostel was full (it was, Phai had told us that), and he then asked if I was the owner, and then whether I could give him the WiFi password so he could find a place. I did not give him the password, but pointed him at the hostel across the road to see whether they had a room; You know, like a crapweasel.
I suspect that if I’d been the owner, his next step would have been to offer me money to sleep in the lobby. And if I hadn’t been blocking the doorway, he might have just tried to occupy anyway; Kind of had that vibe?
After the second one, us lobby dwellers decided to put a note on the door, which seemed to do the job. We did check a couple of sites out of ghoulish curiosity, and in all of Chiang Mai there was one bed on Hostelworld & maybe 8 hotel rooms, one of which was US$600 for the night.
I did make it to NYE, just.
New Year’s Day was a very quiet experience. Many people were sleep deprived or hung over or both.
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