Orange stars

On New Year's Eve Bryan asked why the stars over Chiang Mai were orange.

They weren't stars he saw at all, but thousands of paper lanterns set aflame and aloft by revelers seeking good luck in the year ahead. Now, my idea of seeking good luck is to NOT play with fire amidst a packed and unregulated crowd over which huge fireworks are being set off, but that's how we brought in 2008.

Mike sustained a third-degree burn to the forearm and Marco got a cinder in his eye, but we otherwise survived. As scary as the event was, it also was hauntingly beautiful.

(as a coda: New Year's Day the boys set out to a climbing wall they'd found near the night bazaar stalls for some exercise. All they found was a blackened charred frame, a few wires hanging off it. Firework remnants had rained down on the fiberglass structure overnight and destoyed it. We wondered what else had gone up in flames.)