Christmas spirit in Thailand

The king is always there to greet you.

Our room in Julie's Guesthouse.

Joni is tuning himself into the Christmas mode.

Monkey Business in Chiang Mai?

The downstairs common area at Julie's.

The Nuanpranee House offered everybody a Christmas meal!

Nuanpranee House.

Many different ways to rent a room.

The free ride to the Magic Forest Party.

Joni and the Magic Forest.

If Christmas spirit means that people are kind to each other and show respect on one another then Christmas spirit is to be found in Thailand all year round. Tourists are probably the main reason why they celebrate Christmas here in Thailand, but according to what we saw (and heard) yesterday I would say that quite many of the locals were in an equally merry mood as the farangs (westeners) and quite many of them also enjoyed dressing up like elves. Anyway, it has been nice to celebrate a green Christmas for a change.

Christmas 2010 on our part was very chill and there was no hassle involved. We spent the days reading our books at the guesthouse and in the evening we had a nice meal. Joni gave me a really cool christmas gift; a 2,5hour luxury treatment at a local spa! It was awesome! Yesterday evening we went to a christmas party called the Magic Forest Party. The setting was really cool and it felt as if you were dancing in a forest. They sprayed some foam from above the dancefloor so it felt a little bit like it had been snowing.

Since our last blog update we have changed our guesthouse twice. After the Green Oasis we got a room from Julie's Guesthouse which has been recommended in Lonely Planet. Julie's has been one of the best places we have stayed in so far! I felt like a thousand bucks when I realized that the air in our room was filled with the scent of fresh linen! Our room had several windows too. There were two common areas at Julie's, one on top of the roof and one downstairs, and those areas were meant for the guests to hang out and to get to know each other. If you come to Chiang Mai do try to get a room from Julie's! We would have loved to stay there for two more nights but the guesthouse was fully booked. Therefore we changed our guesthouse again yesterday and now we are staying at Nuanpranee House. This is probably the cleanest and the newest guesthouse we have stayed in and if there was the same kind of atmosphere as in Julie's, this would be really perfect. Julie's cost us 250baht and Nuanpranee 290baht per night.

We tried to think about the highlights and hardships we have had on our trip so far, but we realized it is a bit difficult to pinpoint anything. Everything has gone very smoothly and pretty much according to our plans and we have not encountered any major problems or challenges. It has just been really nice. :) I guess the worst thing that has happend is when one morning the cap of our toothpaste was filled with little ants on the inside (and we have not even seen that many cockroaches!). And if that is the worst thing that has happened to us I would say that we are doing pretty well!

The first night we arrived in Thailand we went for a lovely dinner with our new Thai friends. During that first dinner in Thailand we made pretty much every single mistake you can make if you want to get your stomach really upset: we shook hands with everybody, did not use the hand sanitizer, we ate some finger food and we also tried the spiciest foods on the table. Ever since then we have been care free eating from the street kitchens and nothing seems to turn our stomachs around. Quite the contrary actually; I am in Asia and already on my second round of taking laxatives. Who would have guessed!