Happy New Year from Thailand!

I can't believe it's been this many years that I have lived in Thailand. It was supposed to just be a year or two but this country has made me fall in love with it and now I hope that I never have to leave. We'll see. I have lectured many people about wasting their 20's and 30's by hanging around too long and I don't want to be one of those people.

Let me tell you how New Year's is in Thailand. Honestly, it is a lot like it is anywhere else that I have lived but the only difference is that they actually go out and enforce drink-driving laws for one day a year.

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The largest celebration takes place in Bangkok, the capitol. But is suppose that wouldn't really surprise anyone. The fireworks are a bit more laid back and cheaper here in Chiang Mai but I'm ok with that because I don't like when noise goes on for too long no matter what the reason is.

The bars are packed and all of them have overpriced "special deals" that I avoid and for me I didn't even go to the place I intended to do the countdown at until 10:30PM and then I ended up leaving early because the regulars were horrendously drunk and annoying. I must have tolerated this sort of behavior in the past because I too was drunk and didn't realize it but now I have some reflecting to do: If I was anywhere near as annoying and loud as these people were I definitely do not want to be that way.

Now as far as the drink-driving checkpoints being set up all over the place, I'm actually very much in support of this.

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Thailand has far too much drink driving in it and because of this and other reasons such as road rules basically never being enforced, Thailand's roads are super dangerous. Add boozy and sleepy drivers into the mix and roads become crazy. I rode my bicycle to the bar and even then was really cautious about the one busy road I had to cross over. I'm no saint, but I don't do a lot of drink driving because it is stupid especially in a country where taxis are as cheap as they are here. The prices for taxis doubled on the apps between 10pm and 2am, but I think that is acceptable and they have to give incentives for people to actually work during those times so I think I would be happy to pay the extra. So once a year it is $8 instead of $4? No biggie.

When the clock ticked past 12 it was kind of amusing because there were several locations that set off fireworks around the city with the main focus being the downtown area. They can't seem to agree about what time midnight actually is so they were being set off at different intervals. Maybe they do that on purpose so that if you wanted to, you could see all the displays. I tend to think that it is incompetence because once you start to interact with Thai government officials for a few years you start to realize that smarts is not one of the job qualifications.

I had a pretty great 2024 and I am looking forward to a great 2025. If you had a bad 2024, how about changing a thing or two in your life? One of the things you could do is move to Thailand for a bit and see what all the majesty is that I am referring to. It changed my life, perhaps it could yours as well.