Nov. 3, 2003
Dear friends,
With the advent of Halloween, I realized, possibly for the first time, exactly what I was missing back home: the holidays. This year there will be no tree or stockings on Christmas, no Thanksgiving turkey with all the fixings and worst of all, no Court Street party on Halloween. Now, I was raised in a house where "fright night" was all the holidays wrapped into one and where my mother hung cobwebs around the entranceway and plastered signs that read "beware" and "condemned" over the windows. It was the place that always played scary music during trick-or-treat, and where, when I reached my prime teenage years, my mother's affinity for dressing up to frighten the neighborhood children was a prime source of humiliation. Naturally, my love for Halloween runs deep. And when I discovered that I might actually miss it this year, my hunt for the ultimate Thai Halloween party began.
Well, seek and ye shall find. In Bangkok there is a rather infamous street called Khao San Road. It is a haven for backpackers in search of cheap accommodation and even cheaper food and drink. It's a place that sells anything and everything - including fried insects sprayed with soy sauce for those in search of a little adventure - and it was the beginning of my trip down memory lane. Packed in among the thousands of people who flocked to the street on Oct. 31, I felt like I was back in Athens once more, aside from the fact that most of those faces belonged to Thais who had come out to watch the silly "farangs" traipse around in their Halloween garb. There was music, there was dancing, and yes, even Batman and Robin made an appearance.
By the end of the night, people had taken to the street, choosing the curb over their beds to wait until the sun came up. And after a sleepless delirium set in, I was even daring enough to hit up an insect stand, although a life threatening stomachache from the previous week kept me from diving right in. In the end, I wasn't bold enough to actually eat the insects. All in all, it was a party fit for Athens, or of at least a comparable caliber. And Batman never seemed more at home.
Take care,
Sara
