5 years in exile; the wercome home party

[bassai]

A couple of days after we arrived at the village there was a big welcoming party for my wife and I. The preparation started the night before with the men dragging a gas powered pump and a bunch of 3" hose to the pool behind the house and pumping the level down by about 4'. This was accompanied by about 4 of us sitting around drinking whiskey Lao and smoking hand rolled cigarettes for a couple of hours.

At about 5:30 the next morning my wife's brother showed up with his wife and best friend from Samut Prakon with a bunch of seafood of various sorts. After greetings were exchanged their truck was unloaded and a group of us started getting tables, chairs, plates, etc. from the community center. After that some of the men started "fishing" while others "supervised" from the banks of the pool drinking whiskey Lao and smoking hand rolled cigarettes. For the record, it's still early in the morning. EARLY in the morning! But as I always used to say "it's after 12 someplace" and I had the good sense to fortify myself with handfuls of my emergency granola bars as the first order of business. mmm 051.jpg
mmm 026.jpg
mmm 038.jpg
mmm 025.jpg
mmm 098.jpg
Getting booted off the com now. I'll post some more later.
Dad's great Aunt and older sister.
mmm 087.jpg

[fileeep]

looks good bassai, nice photos, what type of fish are they on the BBQ?

[paul_au]

It was 10 years in exile from my former Thai Girlfriend last March. Gee how time has flown.

[paul_au]

Great photo's Bassai

[emu]

Yep, keep it coming

[bassai]

The funny thing about the fishing is that the men kept trying to get me to jump in and help and considering how friggin hot it was I was sorely tempted, however I had read something in the Lonely Planet some years ago that it wasn't a good idea for us farang, something about bacteria/germs we don't have defenses for. After we were back stateside it came up in a conversation with my wife and she pointed out that I had been showering, wiping my butt and brushing my teeth with the same water to no ill effect! Duh, I could have been swimming every day!

mmm 021.jpg
prepping to fish the night before

mmm 055.jpg
supervising

mmm 105.jpg
drinking buddy

mmm 115.jpg
drinking buddys

mmm 132.jpg
couple of scallywags

mmm 090.jpg
dad in house with family

Starting to get the hang of uploading the pictures now that I've had a couple of attempts. These aren't in the order I wanted so I could tell a coherent story about the party, but as you can probably surmise coherence was soon in short supply!

The amusing thing is that I was wearing my "drink like a fish shirt" my wife had bought me in Monterey California, which had a graphic of fish drinking and passing out on the back. I thought the pun was very germane to the occasion, particularly somewhere in the second bottle of Hong Thong, but no one else seemed to get the joke! I can't imagine why!?

Thank God there was not music at this party! I wanted to mention this because I had just reread all of emu's post on the wedding and watched the videos.

For the record this wasn't just a drunk fest. Family and friends of the family had come from all around and inside the house there was a large group of people avoiding our rather loud drinking group. I think it was around 11am when the 3rd bottle of Hong Thong showed up, but at that point I was enmeshed in a chili eating contest with Dad's best friend. It was no contest, I couldn't taste or feel a damn thing by then!

[khonrai]

Hi

Yes Thai's love to drink.

when ever we go back home to village no matter what time early morning or late at night someone is sent to the store
to buy beer and wiskey.

all the village knows me and know I am not a drinker so when I do take a drink the people I am drinking with feel honored
that I choose to drink with them. I see a big smile on their face they always try and get me to drink more. I think they respect me more because I can't be talked into more.

that is what my wife has told me.

[bassai]

Hi

Yes Thai's love to drink.

when ever we go back home to village no matter what time early morning or late at night someone is sent to the store
to buy beer and wiskey.

all the village knows me and know I am not a drinker so when I do take a drink the people I am drinking with feel honored
that I choose to drink with them. I see a big smile on their face they always try and get me to drink more. I think they respect me more because I can't be talked into more.

that is what my wife has told me.

That's a pretty broad statement there Cowboy.... and the reality of it is that SOME people like to drink, not necessarily that "Thais" like to drink.

I'm posting pictures here telling about my adventure in the village and my wife would have a completely different set of pictures if she was posting about this party, which was a lot larger than just my immediate drinking club that day. This was extra fun for me, because one of the men was a teacher and had a pretty good English vocabulary, and I had someone other than my wife to hold a conversation with. And, like all men drinking and having fun, we talked about the wife's!

After the party had wound down and most of the people had gone home we finished it off by going out to the land to walk around and make sure know one had made off with it in our absence.

mmm 127.jpg mmm 125.jpg

mmm 128.jpg mmm 134.jpg
Let's take a break & eat some more! Fresh off the land
mmm 135.jpg
Wait, gotta eat some more!

[bassai]

Here some more photos from my stay in Issan. We have, or I should say,my wife has 4,700 rubber trees ranging from 5 years old to the 200 starts we just planted at the time of these photos. (1 year a go) Since I was staying in the village the whole time I was there most of my activities centered around the normal village life, as everyone was mostly working, and I was rarely allowed to, we did a lot of strolling through the rubber trees! Boring by most people's standards but very refreshing for me.

trip to Thailand' 11 093.jpg

trip to Thailand' 11 081.jpg

trip to Thailand' 11 089.jpg

qqq 310.jpg

[cdnski12]

Yep, Thai Village fishing c/w an 6" turbine pump, powered by the ever reliable small diesel powered Kubota paddy tractor's flywheel. Works every time. Our recent adventure i/c the Thai GF's extended family members screaming and running around in the muck of the pumped out pond, while 2 good sized snakes desperately tried to slither up the muddy banks of the irrigation pond. Finally GF's Pa pointed out they were only non poisonous fish snakes, not cobras. The snakes probably assumed the lowering water levels was the normal irrigation process, hence they entered the pond to catch a dinner. My job is to supply cold beer, spy wine & lao cao ... and to get all the campfires going. Having grown up in a wood burning household, I am somewhat of an expert at fire starting. It usually is a pretty wild party and good fun is had by all!