My 2025 and 2026 resolutions

Looking back on 2025 as it came to a close. I think 2025 was a good year for me even if I failed on a number of resolutions.

You can read through the 50 posts I have made throughout 2025 on this blog or view my 2025 YouTube Video Playlist that is most of the videos I have published in 2025 to know what I did over the year.

It was not all good I had a case of the shingles which put me out of action for about a month and was not something I enjoyed or want to repeat but I recovered and am back to enjoying life.

I have done a yearly resolution on the number of books to read in a year starting the year after I retired. In 2025 I added a number of other resolutions for the first time. I did this really just to try and keep me busy doing some new things and not so set in my normal day to day life.

I started to take some Thai classed at the end of 2024 so set the goal of taking at least 40 lessons in 2025. This resolution I failed. I took 15 classes and then decided I needed a break and would start again after Songkran but never ended up starting again. I am not sure what I will do with this resolution for 2026 but need to get back to sometype of daily study.

I kept the book reading resolution but reduced it from 50 books a year to 40 in 2025 and finished 43 within the year. I am keeping this resolution at 40 books for 2026.

I made the resolution to visit 10 provinces in Thailand that I had not seen in the past. I had passed through a number of this in the past but had not spent any time in them looking around. I visited the following to complete this resolution and posted about my travels throughout the year.

1 Uthai Thani

2 Tak

3 Kamphaeng Phet

4 Phichit

5 Nakhon Sawan

6 Chai Nat

7 Nan

8 Uttaradit

9 Lamphang

10 Phayao

My 2026 resolution will be to visit the remaining provinces so I can say I have seen all 77 provinces that make up Thailand. I will post about these new provinces if and when I travel to them within 2026. All these new provinces in 2026 are in the south of the country so will require a long motorbike ride.

I decided I wanted to move from near the center of the city of Kanchanaburi closer to what I call the tourist street. I made moving a 2025 resolutions. I talked a little bit about the move in the post All Good in Kanchanaburi back in March.

I am very happy with were I am currently living so have no plans to move in 2026.

I made visiting the Rocket Festivals a resolution and posted a number of blogs on my time there this year. I will keep this resolution for 2026 but have made the resolution to visit two specific locations that I have not seen the Rockets at before. I think I will also visit a number of the rocket festivals I visited last year as well in 2026.

I had the 2025 resolution to go to one of two different festivals I had not attended. I visited the Ghost Festival and have added the other festival as a 2026 resolution.

I made a 2025 resolution to visit a country I had never been to before. I failed this resolution never leaving Thailand in 2025. I have made this also for 2026 but think it may also be a fail, as it is a low priority for me. I look at going to a new country and it sounds like fun but I am happy zipping around Thailand. My last new country was Nicaragua back in 2018. I traveled around the US with a car and have had a motorcycle for most of my time in Thailand. If I visit a new country it will mean using public transport again and that is just not as appealing as it once was.

I seem to get in rut of always going to the same places for meals or coffee. I find a few places I like and just go to those same places all the time. In 2025 I made the resolution to try 2 new places a month to help get me out of this rut. Sounds like something really simple to do but I think I sort of cheated to mark this as completed. I had one month where I visited 2 bars I had not been in before and counted those as my new places for the month. The month I was sick with the shingles I only visited one new place and made up for it the following month with 3 new places.

I am not sure the new places resolution has really accomplished what I wanted it to do. I have tried a lot of new places so that is good and a few of these have become my normal go to places but I think I have dropped some of old normal go to places. I will just have to keep trying to add new places in 2026 but will not say it is a resolution.

I have not made any major changes from my 2025 list to my 2026 list of resolutions. I did add the Plow Field Good Buffalo event to the list just as a reminder to keep looking for when it is happening. I was traveling in the North of the country when it took place in 2025 and would like to attend it in 2026. This event is a bit hard to find out details so adding it to my list will make me check for event details as I update my resolution list monthly.

Thanks to all of you that follow me on my boring blog and watch my crappy videos on Youtube. I hope you find happiness and health in 2026.

Old Farts Hospital and School Visit

I am a member of a group in Kanchanaburi called the Old Farts. The group tries to do some good for the areas children. Once a year the group goes out to the local public hospital to give away some toys to the children and then goes to a local school and buys all the kids a bit of ice cream.

Follow is the clips I took from this years visit.

Stainless Steel Boat Race in Suphanburi

I enjoyed the Long Tail Boat Races at Wat Mai Songkrorat (วัดใหม่สงเคราะห์ราษฎร์) a few months ago. I tried to find another race and it seemed to have been canceled or I just misunderstood where and when it was taking place but when I saw the following event I decided to give it a try.

Not sure if it is in the above picture but the text on the facebook post had that this event was the Stainless Steel Boat Race (แข่งเรือสแตนเลส) at Ban Phai Kon Din, Suphanburi (บ้านไผ่กอนดิน สุพรรณบุรี) taking place on the 14th of December. It also said it was the last racing event of 2025.

I found a Ban Phai Kon Din in the province of Suphanburi and rode up to the city of Suphanburi on the 13th and booked a hotel for 2 nights. The following morning I rode out to the pin on my map that was Ban Phai Kon Din. I did not see anything that looked like boat racing at the spot of my pin. I rode around a bit and did not seem to find anything that look like a crowd of people to watch a race so I stop and decide I would try to ask about it. I had the above picture on my phone and walked up to a food stand and said in my best Thai "Hello, Do you know where this is" and pointed at the picture.

I am used to the faces of fear on peoples faces when they see this big ugly foreigner approach but the faces changed as soon as the Thai hello came out of my mouth and smiles appeared on their faces. One lady took my phone and seemed to know where I wanted to go. I did not understand much of the conversation that took place between these 3 ladies but I understood it was somewhere close to a temple but never did understand the name of the temple and then one lady said something that I understood as I go you follow me even though I do not know the word for follow.

She hopped on a motorbike and lead me a few kilometer away to a place I could see the crowd and somewhere I never would have found without the help. She stopped and pointed to the crowd and I think said there. I said thank you very much and asked if I could give her a little money and she accepted the 100 baht (about $3) from me.

I found a place to park and got out my chair and umbrella and sat down and waited for the races to start. While waiting a couple of people came along that seemed to be taking a video and sort of interviewed me. Following is the picture that was posted on facebook later of the interview.

This is the guy that I follow on facebook at DJKai Livestream that provides the info on the races. We talked with a little bit of English and a little bit of Thai and a lot of me saying I don't understand. If you want to watch me make a fool of myself it is in the following facebook video at about 26:50.



It did not seem to be a good day for racing with a lot of wind and I think they delayed the racing in hopes that the wind would die down but it never really did. They did do some racing but think there would have been a lot more if the weather was better but still an interesting day.

Following is the short I uploaded while sitting at the races and drinking a beer.



Following is the video I uploaded after returning home.

Kanchanaburi Bridge Festival 2025

I arrived back in Kanchanaburi while The Bridge Festival was taking place. I had been living in Kanchanaburi for over 2 years but have not attended one of the shows that take place at the bridge festival each year.

I decided to correct this oversight this year and am so happy I did. In my last post I talked about being disappointed with the festival in Bangkok but the Kanchanaburi Bridge Festival 2025 did not disappoint and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Following is a video where I attempted to capture a bit of the show.



Even though I had missed the main show at the festival in the past 2 years I did walk through the area of food stalls and amusement rides. This part of the festival is not really my sort of thing but if you want to get to the concert area you have to walk through these crowded areas.

I don't think I have shared this YouTube short on this blog in the past. It is of the end of a Mahahing concert I attend at the bridge festival back in 2023. I have not seen Mahahing again but I am keeping an eye out for one of their concerts.



I have attend a number of festival concerts in the past three years but this year I have only attended one and it was of Joey Phuwasit. A great concert and really happy to get to see him preform.