Christmas Cancelled

Christmas Eve dawned bright and sunny – temperatures approaching 30 degrees Celsius and (unsurprisingly) I didn’t feel myself missing the British winter – nor the awful pop music, crap television and frenetic commercialised pressure of Christmas shopping. As the day wore on, things just kept getting better: picked up the train tickets (for me and my best mate Dave, who was due to arrive in Bangkok on Christmas morning) for Samui without any trouble; found free wireless internet access and had several long pleasant msn chats with friends back home; and then discovered that Harry – one of the British girls from Serendipity Beach – was in town and arranged to meet her for Christmas Eve drinks on the infamous Khao San Road. The only slight downer was that Harry was a bit upset because her boyfriend’s flight from London had been delayed by a day and he wasn’t going to make it to Bangkok until Boxing Day. I thought it was lucky that she’d have a mate to hang out with and keep her spirits up for at least part of the wait. It certainly didn’t occur to me that her boyfriend would be on the same flight as Dave…imagining that he’d have flown from Manchester / Liverpool to a hub like Schipol and caught a connecting flight from there.
We met up that evening and I’d like to think my high spirits were doing a good job of keeping Harry’s mind occupied. It wasn’t long, however, before we’d established that Dave and Jim were actually booked on the same flight. After 2 rapid international phonecalls, my fears were confirmed and I was staring down the barrel of Father Christmas’ doom. I’d been excited about Dave’s arrival, not least in his role as present-deliverer from Blighty, but until that moment of realisation I hadn’t realised how much I was relying on him to connect me with my home, my family and my other friends. I’d enjoyed the previous 3 months immensely and, although I’d whiled away many a quiet moment reminiscing about my loved ones, it was only now that I understood just how much I missed everyone. I was devastated to say the least.
Ever a seeker of practical solutions in situations like this, I immediately went to a travel agent and bought Dave a connecting flight to Samui on Boxing Day morning – Christmas might have been cancelled, but nothing was going to stop us from getting to that Full Moon Party!
Having done as much as I could, I got back to Christmas Eve drinking…but with little gusto. Part of me was wallowing in self-pity, part was feeling for Dave, stuck in a bloody airport for Christmas. Mostly, I was just feeling unsettled because I didn’t know whether his rescheduled flight would make it in time for the big event. Dave missing the Full Moon Party would have completely defeated the object of missing his family Christmas…and I didn’t much fancy going on my own. I sloped off to my hotel two minutes after midnight, wishing Harry a Merry Christmas and arranging to meet for lunch the following day.