Admittedly it's is not exactly earth-shattering news, but for the first time in 20 years I haven't spent the New Year holiday in Isan (the Northeast). This was not due to any dramas, but simply a combination of factors that made it more sensible to stay in the Big Mango.
I must admit to missing what has become a traditional pilgrimage. It is always refreshing to escape the mayhem of Bangkok and for a few days ease into a much slower pace of life, which at times almost grinds towards a complete halt. That's something I can handle rather comfortably as I get more wrinkly. It must be very similar to being transferred to an inactive post.
Although I didn't go to Isan, I am pleased to say the Northeast came to me with the wife coming down from Chaiyaphum loaded up with enough papaya to feed an army. It wasn't long before the sound of the pestle hammering away at the mortar heralded the imminent appearance of plates of spicy som tam.
Which brings us to another sound immediately identifiable with the Northeast.
Whenever I am in Isan there is a line that springs to mind from the old Bob Dylan song Don't Think Twice It's Alright. If you are ancient enough you have probably guessed it: "When your rooster crows at the break of dawn."
This song should be the Isan anthem, for there must be millions of roosters occupying the Northeast, all equally determined that nobody can enjoy a morning lie-in. And they don't necessarily wait until dawn to crow. There is always one show-off bird which begins tuning up before 5am and this often starts the whole lot off. You definitely don't need an alarm clock.
Night of the socks
Admittedly it can get a bit chilly in the Northeast at this time of the year. A few years ago in Chaiyaphum it was particularly nippy and I couldn't sleep because my feet felt like icicles. Ridiculous though it might sound for a tropical country, I had to put on a pair of socks in bed to help me sleep.
Mind you, in the daytime it was beautiful, but the locals were still all wrapped up as if they were on an Arctic expedition. When I explained that if the weather was like this in England everyone would be taking off their clothes to sunbathe, they thought I was raving mad. They may have had a point.
Future shock
It is customary at this stage of the year for newspaper columnists and other bores to make predictions concerning the forthcoming 12 months. However, considering what went on in 2020, no one in their right mind would hazard a guess as to what we are in for in 2021. Even Nostradamus would throw in the towel.
I checked which sci-fi movies from the past were set in 2021 to get an idea of what horrors Hollywood thinks we might be in for. Most productions seem to have wisely avoided a 2021 scenario, so perhaps they know something we don't. But there were a couple…
The very title of Seeking a friend for the End of the World (2012) tells us all we need to know as a couple find love while waiting for the world to be smashed to smithereens by a giant asteroid. All a bit messy and not particularly encouraging.
Then there is A Quiet Place (2018) in which the world is taken over by blind monsters with an acute sense of hearing.
So, according to the movies, in 2021 we face either being wiped out by a giant asteroid or gobbled up by creepy monsters. Take your choice.
Rocket man
In one of the more entertaining stories in the Post last week we were informed by an official that Thailand will have its own space mission to the moon within seven years. We don't want to dampen his enthusiasm, but one suspects that Thailand will have more urgent matters to tackle than embarking on a space odyssey.
Thailand has not exactly been on the cutting edge of space exploration, although the Bun Bang Fai rocket men of Yasothon may beg to differ. Some of their rockets look capable of pushing space to its limits. However, you watch them being launched at your peril. Some rockets have the unfortunate tendency of blowing up in spectacular fashion or taking off horizontally.
Litterbug
Aside from the actual 1969 moon landing, one space event that captured the imagination in Thailand was the adventures of Skylab. You may recall that Skylab was a giant American space station that hurtled back to Earth out of control in 1979. Many Thai-language newspapers predicted that the space station would score a direct hit on Bangkok.
The word "Sa-ky-lap" was quickly adopted by Thais for anything that had the potential of going totally out of control and was often mentioned in association with tuk-tuks, along with anyone considered to be just a few satang short of a full baht.
The spaceship missed Thailand by a mere matter of 5,000 kilometres, crashing to Earth near Esperance in Western Australia. In a nice Aussie touch the local authorities fined Nasa A$400 for "littering".
Happy New Year everyone.
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