A Wedding in Ratburi

You know you are in for one fine shindig when you wake up at 5:30 AM to speaker stacks from hell:

A few weeks ago, we took off for our friend’s wedding in Ratchaburi (short: Ratburi), located a couple hours southeast of Bangkok and famous mostly for its floating market. We boarded the Friday night VIP bus in Sarakham and arrived at Mo Chit station on Bangkok at 3:30 AM, and proceeded directly to Nam’s aunt’s house in Lad Prao via taxi.
We spent the next day shopping for the new house and swimming in Bangkok smog, which is quite exhausting. (Note: We managed to satisfy some Mexican food cravings at Sunrise Tacos, finally – scroll to the last comment in this post for a short review)
Sunday afternoon we rented a gutless Toyota Altis and my sister-in-law, Nok, drove us out to Nutty’s house, charming and pastoral as hell, but as such, way out in the sticks. Asking locals for directions eventually got us to her house. Nutty and her relatives were in Pre-wedding Day Overdrive, so we helped out where we could. For me, where I could was in a plastic lawn chair, sipping on cold beer Chang, and getting eaten alive by monster mosquitoes, but I was just happy to see Nutty again after so long… I went through photo albums that she had put together in Japan, and saw all of the old gang hanging out at Tenri dam, at the beach in Wakayama, making the fake humpy humpy with deer at Nara Koen. It was hard to believe it was so long ago, and I started to feel really old, so I crashed out on the beautiful wooden floor.
A few hours later, the speaker stacks from hell started blaring molam and Thai golden oldies loud enough to hear at least a few miles away. I mean, it was so loud that it made the fish in the river next to the speaker stacks jump every time the speakers popped or crackled. I had to get up at 5 to move the rental car, which we had locked in the yard in front of the house the night before. By 6 AM, things were in full swing and much bridal preparation was afoot. I have long since stopped trying to make sense of the actions or reasoning behind soon-to-be-wed females, and just tried to stay out of the way. I didn’t have my Nikon, but I tried to take a few photos before, during, and after the wedding with Nam’s digicam.








All in all, it was a great day and a wonderful wedding – here’s to the new couple!