19/11/10

Eiam asked Lorraine, Lee and I to escort her to a wedding in her village, Tha Phon. Feeling ill equipped for a wedding, we ate breakfast at 8am and adorned ourselves in our least shabby clothing. I found a pair of thong/sandals which my swollen feet would fit into and off we went, 10 minutes late. We had walked a little way down the street when a motor bike arrived and the girl on it told us that the wedding was waiting for us so we needed to hurry. All along the road, people were waiting for us and once we reached them they joined the group. By the time we arrived at the wedding, there were about 35 people walking with us.
The bride’s mother was so excited to see ‘felang (non-Thai people)’ that she took us to the bride and groom to have our photo taken with them and to pour water onto their hands. We were photographed with the bride’s Mum, at her insistance and then led to our table where we were greeted by many excited guests.
The girls at our table insisted on pouring me rice whisky and on our eating every morsel of food which arrived (in abundance). Every 5 minutes we had to do ‘cheers’ with our glasses and swallow more whiskey. I tried desperately to sip mine delicately, but it kept getting topped up. At 9am in the morning, having already eaten breakfast, and with the extreme heat I was begining to feel a little squirmish!
After much food, drink and laughter we were dragged onto the ‘dance floor’ (grassy patch of back yard) to dance. By then Colin and Mal had also joined us and were dancing in the heat too.
We left when it was polite to do so (about midday) and went home to the washing. Within an hour, we discovered that ‘the party’ had arrived on their motor bikes to ‘rage on’… and so it went!
It was lovely to experience the Thai culture first hand in a small village with such lovely friendly and fun loving people.