New Year's Market in Krabi Town

Ughh... we are 15 days into 2012 and I am still talking about New Year's.

But...we made it to the 2 weeks lasting New Year's market and actually had a camera along.

Thais are masters of "food on the go". You can get almost anything on a stick, be it sausages, meatballs, chicken, or also fruit like watermelon, pineapple, and grilled bananas.

Don't like wearing in dress shoes? How about the pre-worn alternative?

Conny, the following shoe pictures are for you. You would love the market here :)

A calculator, the bigger the better, is an essential of market life here. Even if customers don't speak Thai and merchants not much English, numbers punched into a calculator bridge any language barrier.

Not so big on food on a stick? How about some bite-sized delicacies?

A smorgasbord of fried insects: crickets, worms, larvae...

I almost got in trouble for taking a picture of these little rabbits. Only after taking it did I see the sign asking for "no photo".

The skilled artwork displayed in a huge variety of teak wood furniture was really impressive, and also inviting to sit down for a breather.

The natural growth of the trees is used to create tables and benches.

Holidays abroad

It is quite different spending the holidays in a foreign culture, away from family and well-known traditions.

While Christmas is observed here in Thailand -with Christmas trees, lights, reindeer, and jingle bells -it is not much more than a commercial event.

New Year's celebrations were a lot more obvious. Part of one of the three main roads here in town got blocked off and an entire new market appeared. It's been there since a week before New Year's and, if I read the signs correctly, will be there till January 8th.

Just about about anything you can imagine can be found at this market. Countless food and clothing stalls, solid Teak wood furniture, stages for different musical acts, raffles, and much more.

Unfortunately, we forgot our camera when we were there. But since its on for a few more days, maybe we will get a chance to go again and snap some pictures.

We've heard occasional firecrackers and seen some fireworks since we came to Thailand. But starting a week before New Year's they increased tremendously; being fired off both day and night.

Since fireworks seem to play a big role we could only imagine what was expecting us on New Year's Eve. In fact, we were in for a real treat. While I don't care much for the firecrackers, as they sound an awful lot like gunfire, the fireworks we got to see were just beautiful.

From our place we could observe the "colorful explosions in the sky" of several locations in town. We could also see a lot of continuously glowing, floating spots, which we figured out were sky lanterns.

For our New Year's Day dinner I tried to bring a little 'taste of home' to the table.

We had mashed potatoes (the made-from-powder kind) with fried chicken in various forms (thanks to KFC), beef gravy, steamed carrots, and egg tartlets.

Not really like a festive dinner with the family, but it had some resemblance.