Thailand - Page 3

In the grand scheme of weddings, ours was a piece of cake. We took a cab to the travel agent's office, explained that we needed to have the ceremony tomorrow, decided on the various options (all 3 of them) and paid the lady. Everything was on autopilot. The optional upgrades included: increasing the number of monks (this was accomplished by giving more money, food and fruit), improving the restaurant for the reception and adding a processional step that we elected against (for no particular reason). The date was set for the driver to pick us up first thing in the morning.

The day was going to consist of 5 steps: 1) Prepare everything 2) Go to the Chiangman Temple to be blessed by the monk 3) Take pictures at as many other temples as everyone could stand before someone acted like they are going to pass out or 36 pictures had been shot - whichever came first 4) Go eat at a fancy orchid garden restaurant 5) Ride an elephant.

First, we had to get dressed in semi-traditional Thai wedding costumes. We learned that not unlike our own traditional weddings back in the US, the hairdo for the women is the most important consideration. Lucky for Lisa, a traditional Thai hairdo is an Imelda Marcos beehive bouffant that can only be attained through persistent and prolonged teasing of her hair. She claimed it was a painful experience. Shannon and I were greatly entertained. While they teased, I was dressed in a nice silk shirt, hill tribe pants (silk break dancing pants with a sash for a belt) and a bolt of fabric was thrown over my shoulder and fastened with a gross of safety pins. Lisa was eventually dressed in a nice silk shirt, a bolt of fabric wrapped around here waist (skirt?) and she was also finished with a bolt of fabric fastened to her shoulder. Lots of gold-ish jewelry bedazzled her neck and ears offsetting the mountainous hair piled high on her head. It was almost architecturally perfect. Shannon never really stopped laughing. Even when they gave her a silk shirt and a bolt of fabric (only around her waist - you have to be special to get one over your shoulder). All through the night (allegedly), the domestic help at the organizer's house had been preparing the food that would be offered to the monk. It smelled great!

Next came the blessing. We entered the temple with no shoes - as is customary. We bowed three times to the big Buddha at the front of the temple, then we each lit a candle to signify our burning love (not really - I never figured out why we light the candles). Next the monk comes into the temple and sits on a stoop. We move in front of the stoop and bow three times with 5 parts of our upper bodies touching the ground simultaneously (head, elbows and hands). We then give the monk fruit, food and money. These are the three things that we will need in our new life together and by giving them to the monk, we are hoping to get them ourselves later. Monks can't touch women, so Lisa has to hold my arm while I hand over the goods. This is particularly useful since the fruit basket weighs almost 600 lbs. He then puts three little white dots of wax on my forehead with his finger and does the same to Lisa using a candle to apply the wax (he can't touch her). We bow three more times and he says some stuff in Thai that is translated by our hostess as "live a long life together". Then he ties string around our arms which presumably signifies a long life together. We bow more and he says lots more stuff while our hostess explains that we should be thinking about our family (including ancestors) that could not make the wedding. His words are translated as "If you have problems, fix them. Everybody has problems. You have to stick together to solve the problems." We bow for the last time and the monk leaves while one of the novice monks (monklette) scurries off with the loot. We take some pictures then head out to the temple porch to finish up. We were given a couple of little birds in cages that we burdened with our sins. When we released them, the birds fly off leaving us sin free. Surprisingly, my birds could barely get off the ground.

Next, we moved to step 3 - the photo sessions. Basically we just drove around to different temples and took pictures in front of the temples. Though they were all lovely, it was hot and we were ready to eat. A couple of hours later, Step 4 - the food. We were driven to an orchid farm about 10 miles outside of Chiang mai. Among other things, the farm had a restaurant and a butterfly farm. We took more pictures and ate a great feast ordered up by our hostess. Standard Thai fare in a beautiful atmosphere. Finally, we were ready for step 5 - the elephant ride.

The "working elephant camp" was quite a long way up the mountain. It is really only "working" for the tourists. Immediately, Lisa was uncomfortable with the camp and she started saying things like "elephant prison camp", "elephant slavery", "Dumbo", etc. Our elephants were decorated with special garlands for the wedding couple and we were mounted on top of this massive beast. Lisa never got comfortable with the experience. We rode through the jungle up and down some very steep and slippery hills, through a small river and back to the camp. The whole thing last about 15 minutes. With that, the wedding festivities were over. We thanked everyone and headed back to our hotel as newlyweds. It took Lisa and I about 4 hours to untangle her hair.

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