There are many days in Thailand where alcohol sales are banned - one is today

Thailand, like most countries, has a very large drinking culture. There are bars and pubs all over the place and the nightlife can be considered pretty wild here. I know that the opportunity to get away with over-indulging in drinking is a lot easier to get away with here than it is in my own home country for a lot of reasons. I was once given a ticket for an open container violation when I was drinking a beer in a park. I was unaware that we were not allowed to do that but that didn't matter to the officer who gave me an $80 ticket.

Here in Thailand you can basically drink however, wherever, whenever you want. I've seen guys driving down the road on a motorbike with a beer clearly visible in their hand that they aren't even trying to hide. I'm not advocating for drink driving at all but just trying to say that here they are really lax about alcohol laws..... except for certain days of the year where the sale of alcohol is banned in all establishments in the entire country.

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_{take it easy on them... i bet you couldn't write that in Thai!}

We have one of those days upon us where no one will be allowed to sell alcohol anywhere in the country. It is called Visakha Bucha Day and I don't know the details of it but I realize that it is very important in Buddhism. As far as I know, there are 3 or 4 other days where alcohol sales are banned nationwide. There are also special days such as Royal Family birthdays and the day before elections where alcohol sales are also banned.

This doesn't mean that it is forbidden to drink alcohol. You can do whatever you want on your own property but you just can't get any more. This is kind of funny because on the day before these special holidays, the booze sections of supermarkets are normally very busy as everyone prepares for it.

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I will admit that I have been one of the people in these lines on a number of occasions and mostly I don't even end up drinking the booze. It's just something that people do.

During these no booze sales times you can probably find a shop or two that will still sell it to you but they are putting themselves at great risk by doing so because while the police turn a blind eye towards a lot of things in this country, for whatever reason, they take these religious alcohol bans very seriously and will hand out fines and even jail time for violators.

The little mom and pop store in my neighborhood will sell me beer but I can see that she is not really pleased about it so I try to not put her in a situation where she needs to do this.

The good news is that we all get a day off of work as well and for me, I actually look at this as an opportunity to be able to "sleep it off" so just like I would do back in my home country these no work days are actually the days where I am most likely to drink in excess.

Thailand can be a strange country sometimes and I will of course abide by the law. I also know that there are several house parties going on during this day where all the pubs have to be closed and I don't think it is just the foreigners that do it. I suppose it seems a little bit silly to me because anyone who wants to have booze on these days simple stocks up the day before so if the idea was to prevent people from drinking on these auspicious days it certainly doesn't achieve that goal. If anything, I think people actually drink more than they normally would.

Oh well! It's their country and they can do whatever they want with it!