Another party

Last weekend we went to a big celebration. One of the guys (Dong) who works for the organisation I'm working for was being ordained into the monk-hood. Most Thai guys do it at some point in their lives. For most of them it's only for a short time, something like 3 months. Dong's only going in for 22 days - which did make the party seem a little bit over the top to be honest.

It was a really brilliant experience - a real taste of Thai culture...when we got there the street procession was already underway...





I think that most of the people involved were members of Dong's family. There were guys playing instruments and (drunk) women dancing at the front. In many ways it wasn't so different from an Irish or Scottish wedding...

Yep - that is a bottle of whiskey she's got under her arm...

The celebrations went on for the whole day and aside from eating and drinking - both of which we did a lot of - there was some ceremony as well...the first picture is from some kind of cleansing ritual (I guess) where we all got to pour water over over Dong and the second picture (I guess) was the important bit...there was lots of chanting and stuff anyway...

The whole thing must have cost a packet - there was so much food it was unbelievable - but it was good fun...They'd paid to set up a big stage with a huge sound system...it was really cool during the day because all of the drunk women were up doing karaoke...I thought that was going to be the entertainment for the day - which would have been excellent - but as it happened they'd also paid for scantily clad Thai women to come and do some singing during the night...Unfortunately for all of you, I was too embarrassed to get any pictures of this, even if it would just have been for journalistic purposes!

It's quite funny really because one of the basic tenets of Buddhism is that your not supposed to drink - but there was plenty going round at this party...also, being a monk is all about self-deprivation...so the nearly-nude singing girls seemed a little bit of a strange choice as well...but apparently these things are par for the course and I wasn't complaining about either...