January 31, 2007

Traditional Thai dancing. The Thai people are forever resourceful. The lights the girl is holding are made out of water bottles cut to look like flowers.

A Thai fire balloon. These are amazing, especially when there are hundreds of them in the sky at one time.
More Thai dancing. Check out those nails!
Sunny, Daylin and me in our fancy Western party hats and our ornamental Thai flowers.

So, I'm a little late getting this post up. It's been a busy and crazy two months. If you remember, I was down in Southern Thailand on an island for the Christmas holiday. It is a quiet island with not too many tourists. The place we stayed put on a big New Year's Eve dinner complete with Thai dancing. The girls had obviously practiced for a long time. Their families from the neighboring village came to watch. Wrapped in their head scarves and standing on the on the edge of all the festivities, the mothers looked so proud of their babies.

After the Thai dancing, the karaoke started. Oh boy. What is it about Asians and karaoke? There were some pretty good performances though. A mousy German woman psychologist really belted one out and it was great. And the whole time they were on the island, I was thinking her husband was the rock star. Go figure. I sang something but it was very, very bad. I Just Called to Say I Love You (the choices were very limited). That was the first and last time I will ever do karaoke.

When midnight rolled around, all the Thai people starting singing a Thai song. Then it was onto the beach to do some fireworks and the fireballoons. The fireballoon is a tradition here for special occasions. In some places, hundreds of them are released at the same time and the sky is filled with floating candles. It is a beautiful sight. Even with the few that we had, it was still remarkable. I like the symbolism of floating something into the sky, letting go. The whole thing made me a little teary eyed, even now.