Today was the first of two days celebrating Buddha's birthday. Traditionally, Buddha's Birthday is known as Vesak or Visakha Bucha (Buddha's Birthday Celebrations). Vesak is the major Buddhist festival of the year as it celebrates the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha on the one day. This celebration is called Vesak being the name of the month in the Indian calendar.

For the history behind this celebration, see here:-

Vesākha is an annual holiday observed traditionally by Buddhists in the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, and the South East Asian countries of Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Sometimes informally called "Buddha's Birthday", it actually encompasses the birth, enlightenment, and passing away (Parinirvāna) of Gautama Buddha.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visakha_Bucha

So today most of the bars and shops were not selling alcohol in respect for Buddha’s birthday. So being typical travellers as well as typical English we went off for a walk around the town to see if any bars were open and selling drinks. The first place we thought would be was the Irish bar but when we walked across town to see if it was open, we were all disappointed to find that it was closed also.

Luckily (I sound like it was the end of the world!) as we were heading back to the hostel we managed to find a bar on street Soi Rommani that was open and selling alcoholic drinks so we stopped in and ordered a round of beers. As we were drinking them we decided it would be cheaper for us to have a drink at the hostel as they were a lot cheaper there.

We got back to the hostel and got a round of beers there, which were about half the price we paid in the last bar. So we all went out to sit in the garden and what started out as a day of no drinking as it was Buddha’s birthday, turned in to quite a session back at the hostel. We even managed to build a three dimensional pyramid out of the empty cans!!!