Tonight, our hosts held a Basi (bah-SEE) ceremony–funded happily by us–in honor of the new year. Several of the village residents came to enjoy the eating, singing, dancing and most importantly, the drinking. We consumed large quantities of lao-lao, a Laotian home-made rice whisky not unlike moonshine.
When they asked us to sing a song of our own, we were somewhat at a loss. We chose to perform Ose Shalom and The Irish Rover…. not exactly representative of American music. We think it confused them.
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true, but no need to worry--i can no longer see anything of interest from where i live. (unless the terrorists have decided to attack our nation's soy fields.)
Let's not forget that two airplanes flew into the World Trade Center within view of your apartment a few years ago.
but... we're in the south of thailand now. :-o hopefully things around here will be peaceful and quiet.
and australia is on our list--so maybe you should move back to the states. ;)
It appears your new years celebration was indeed auspicious, as you were not in Bangkok or the far south of Thailand.
I hope the rest of your trip is safe. And now I'm thinking it's not so bad that you never seem to have time to visit Australia.
which is why the buddha wore slippers!!!
What a great way to usher in a new year. Sounds like a once in lifetime celebration. I don't think I know the words to any song all the way through, let alone after consuming large quantities of home brew.
By the way, I did my laundry this week (almost as interesting as Angor Wat, no? But wait- there's a point...). All my socks from the trip seem to have the same pattern of dust and schmutz on the soles. Yet another reason to go Velcro on my next Asia trip!
Happy trails, folks!
The "several village residents" actually included the village chief, the shaman, the astrologer - all the elders of the community, PLUS the local band - quite a gathering if you ask me. :) BTW, the astrologer was the one who decided we should have the party on the 31st instead of our originally scheduled date of December 30th. So on many levels, it was truly and auspicious start to 2007 :)