An early Chinese New Year has meant that the Western Xmas decorations were cleared away earlier than usual to make way for the bunting and red lanterns of Chinese New Year. As well as the increased number of Chinese tourists generally in Thailand, their new year holidays mean even more. I've documented their "cultural insensitivity" here before but another example stands out. A few evenings ago I was happily walking down the road when a young, well dressed, middle class Chinese family stopped on the front lawn of the very posh Santiburi hotel, right on the main road in full view of everyone. The child, a girl of about ten years old promptly removed her trousers, squatted down and did what she needed to do. She used the bundle of loo roll handed to her by her mother, stood up, dressed and as I was walking by they started to walk away leaving the mess and used loo roll right there in an unsightly pile... My inner memsahib came out I'm afraid! A very imperious two finger point at the mess and then at them and an even more imperious "move, move!". They had the grace to look sheepish and walked back to pick it up. Shocking behaviour. But at the other end of the hygiene scale another young family, Mum, Dad, child and Granny checked in here for a few days and promptly decided to wash everything they possessed, creating their very own Chinese laundry as everywhere was completely festooned with drying washing. There was so much we were all convinced they were actually taking in washing! It's really unusual to see Chinese people here at the Florist, mainly I think because most travel here as part of tour groups and stay in the bigger hotels whereas here everyone are independent travellers, so so far no Chinese returning guests. The hotel are very good at looking after their return guests and you have read the posts before about the returning guest parties with the juggling bartender. But this time they decided to do something different and treated the return guests to a day out on Koh Tan, an island a few hundred metres off Samui. The idea of me in a long tail boat going over just one hundred metres of open sea let alone a few hundred didn't work for me so I had to decline. Not sure if the juggling bartender made it either... But very kind of them to do something like this. And the hotel obviously do something right as many guests do return year after year. But they are getting something really wrong in the Tripadvisor stakes as they are dropping like a stone down the rankings. When I first stayed here they were up the top but the last couple of years there's been a steady decline and now they are at number18 of 28 hotels in Mae Nam. Yes, it's not perfect, the breakfast isn't up to much, there's an ongoing "gareen" problem with one of the pools (there are three and the other two are sparkling) but it's clean and the staff are nice and it is such a good location. And it's not overly expensive. Such a pity as any further down the rankings and they could be in trouble.
But all the bunting and lanterns are now coming into their own as the Chinese New Year gets underway. This morning, instead of the usual morning chorus of "cock a doodle do" we got the incessant sound of the rat a tat of the fire crackers going off at dawn. I think today (7 February) counts as New Year's Eve as tomorrow is the day when the Lion Dance and the Dragon thing happens. Mae Nam where the Florist is, is a traditionally Chinese area, an old Chinese fishing village and tomorrow there are the big celebrations. This morning seemed a bit more spiritual with lots of houses and shops having tables outside with cooked chickens, pig's heads, fruit and pop laid out as an offering to the gods as well as the loud firecrackers and red clothes are the order of the day. Many of the Chinese tourists are spending their holiday here in the large Carrefour hypermarket I was in earlier - not sure what they are buying but they are doing a very good impression of a ferry load of Brits in the Carrefour in Calais...
Happy New Year everyone!
