Insane Thai Wedding

We made it to the city of Prae, and then up into the mountains, looking for a small village by the name of Nam Lin. Well, I found a village, but it was the wrong one. I was the only Non-Thai person anywhere for miles, and when I got out of the car I was surrounded by children staring at this oddity in there village. Even more surprised when I started speaking Thai with them. After quite a bit of hunting and asking we finally found the home up a dirt road by a river. I have been to villages before, but this one was really quite isolated.

So I show up at this house the day before the wedding and preparations are underway. The folks all treat me graciously, showing immediately to what they called a shower. Then the food and whiskey. I kept telling them I didn't drink, but I would estimate for the two days I was there, I was offered whisky at least every 2 to 5 minutes around the clock. The food was constantly being prepared and served.

Now, I don't want to belittle anyone, but this is part of the story. I think there may have been a bit of inbreeding in this village for there seemed to be quite a few men that were a couple beers short of a six pack. They just constantly smile and wai me, and laugh with this One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest look. Now add whiskey to that, and you have got some seriously strange people.

Most of the folks were very nice. Everyone wanted to talk to me when they found out I spoke Thai, the first day there were about 20 relatives at the home. They were pulling me in all directions. Sometimes little children would hide behind something, and just stare at me and laugh, and for the first day some were so shy, they would not even have a picture taken with me.

Now the drinking started the day before the wedding. Besides all the beer and Chiang Mai whiskey, there was a huge tub of home made moonshine that they would fill up beer bottles with and pass around. The drinking was constant around the clock. Now by the evening before the wedding, all the men were totally plastered, laughing, and falling down. The mental guys, were just slobbering, and constantly trying to touch me, and wai me.

Now something that makes this scene even a bit more weird is that while they are drinking whiskey, and everything else, they are passing around these bowls of coagulated pig or cow blood, which they all think is delicious. Just looking at it is enough to make you puke. So they are falling down drunk, eating blood, lips red, and fawning all over me. And this is just the first night.

They brought me to the nicest house in the village to sleep, a beautiful all teak wood home, shellacked, and immaculate. Right next door there was a falling down shack that could have pushed over, and someone was living in it. Now I decide to sleep and leave the festivities the night before the wedding, but throughout the night people kept walking in my room with a flashlight, shining it in my face, and checking on me. They would pinch me to wake me up, and then ask me if I was all right. It was a bit freaky.

The cooking a drinking continued well into the night while I was sleeping. They had about 20 large pots they had collected from around the village, and just kept cooking and cooking. They filled two large trash cans with baggies of rice. It looked like enough food for 500 people.

The next morning early I'm back at the house. The cooking and drinking is still going on. The wedding procession is going to start at 9 AM. The band is warming up, and of course the imported some speakers from a BKK disco or something, and the music could be heard for miles. It was ear splitting. So I am the best man, and the procession starts. All the men were just wiped out drunk, and some of the ladies too. We start walking down the road towards the wedding altar, ( or whatever you call it), there was about 20 of us in the procession. They were pounding on drums and gongs, and yelling some tribal type of song. My friend and I at the front were just laughing about it all. It was as if we were in another world. Well, we were. The mountain Thai village world.

I must mention, that my friend from America does not speak one word of Thai. He's just in love with the lady that he has spent little time with, and he's planning to move up to the mountain village. He just smiles at everybody, and sometimes asks me what they are saying. He had been there for a week before I got there, and no one in the village speaks a word of English. His new bride speaks a little.

So now the wedding starts. There's about 100 people and the crowd keeps growing. We go up in to the living room, but not everybody comes up. Just about 30 of the ladies. The men stay outside talking, continuing to drink. The bad is already playing during this solemn ceremony. So the bride and groom are on their knees for about 2 hours or more after the ceremony, as more and more people continue to show up with envelopes of money which they put in a pot. Then they take a string, rub it three times each way on the bride and groom's thumbs, and then tie each end of the string to their wrists. So by the end they have 200 pieces of string joining them together, and one piece of string tying their heads together, with a 500 baht bill in the middle of it. It was crazy looking.

After that is all finished as many people as possible cram into their bedroom. They bed has rose pedals in the shape of a heart. And the crowd asks them to lay down and start kissing. I think they are going to watch them consummate the marriage. But they just wanted to watch them kiss and take pictures of them laying in bed. It was hilarious. It's really hard to describe the whole thing in words.

Now the music hasn't stopped this whole time, and they will keep playing non stop into the night, never taking a break. Only changing singers. It's like one long song. By this time the women are all drunk too. So we have 150 to 200 drunk men and women, and they are dancing, laughing, eating everything, including bowls of blood.

And of course by now the word is out that I'm not married, and all the women are trying to hook me up with girls from the village. The nice shy girls I had met the day before, were drinking, dancing in drenched sweat, grabbing me, passing me around.

And of course, the few mentals are ever present among all this, still constantly bowing to me. The insane laughter, pawing over me and drinking never stopped.

So there we are everyone drunk, dancing, drenched in sweat, drinking blood, laughing, with few mentals dancing with each other in some village somewhere up in the mountains. Like I said, words still can not explain. Only seeing it is believing it. I am sure I will be at more weddings in the future, as just about every American I meet over here who stays very long ends up getting married.

Well, that's the end of the wedding story. I will send out a couple more pics soon.
I wish you all long, lucky, happy life.

Stickman says:

I hope my wedding is nothing like that!