Jump to content

?Letters from Issaan- End of story? Part 2


phoenix

Recommended Posts

Last trip around with Nok

 

 

 

We travel to Nakon Phanom, stay a few days at her family house in the village. The days I spent there are a real treat. It is hard going in terms of personal comfort, but a wonderful experience in terms of getting an inside look into village life. I hear many stories, and take numerous pictures. I witness a minor family crisis, regarding sister who drives the car. Sister storms off, ?I never come back? (that line must run in the family). Sister gone, we can use the car for our holidays up north.

 

Off for a few days to Chang Mai and Mae Hong Son. Lots of driving, some nice places visited, outside the scope of this report. I don?t get to sample much of the nightlife in CM, apart from a few bar beers next to the night market. Never mind, I love the traveling after so long in BKK. Nok falls in love with a little house in a back street in Mae Hong Son, and wants to live there. I?m not sure, we?ll see.

 

 

 

Phone call to family, Nok gets told Sister will marry in four days! That was the Sister driving the truck, who had a dust up with the family last week. Apparently, she?d been told in no uncertain terms by her parents and older sister (Nok) that her behaviour on the long driving trips down South, (ferrying migrant workers to Phuket and Krabi) was unacceptable. It transpires she had taken up as Mia Noi with an older Thai man living down there, and was siphoning off some of the driving earnings to keep him sweet. The story came back to the family via some of the villagers working down there, and Sis was giving the order to break it off, and restrict her driving to Issaan, under closer scrutiny of the family.

 

Three days later she announces she?s marrying a young man from the next village. I?d met him on an earlier trip, he seemed polite and helpful, and I thought it might be a good match. Nok doesn?t like the man, thinks he?s after money. After all, the family now has a car free of debt, and quite a large house, plus land and livestock.

 

 

 

Nok says ?Up to you, if you want to go to the wedding?. I am reluctant to cut short our trip up North, but I think she should be at her sisters wedding, and also I?d relish the thought of attending another big Issaan party, especially within her family. So we cut short our Chiang Mai trip and drive back to NP.

 

 

 

?Wedding?

 

 

 

We arrive around 6.00 pm on the day before the wedding. A few dozen guests are already there, eating, drinking and being merry. The kitchen, now roofed in and semi-walled as well, is a hive of activity, with at least 8 people preparing food. I start taking photos, a great shot of brother with an armful of bloody ribs from the buffalo that got slaughtered for the occasion. A woman walking in with two live geese (? Maybe ducks or so) one in each hand. Half an hour later I encounter them on a plate, slaughtered and being marinated. Beer flows freely, and the men are getting into a few bottles of Lao Lao.

 

 

 

At 11.00 pm, I am dragged into a bedroom by Nok and her sister. Problem. The wedding is off!

 

The groom was going to pay a small dowry of 10,000 Bt, mainly to help cover the cost of the party. Now he is refusing to pay it, so sister says: ?OK go away, we don?t get married?.

 

What I find out later is that, after we got back that evening with the car, he drove the car to get provisions for the party. At the start of our trip up North, Nok and I had stopped off at the Toyota shop in town to pay off the last of the money owing on the car. She left the receipt in the car. He found it, and realized that it was Nok who was the owner of the car, not her sister, as he had been thinking (Sister always drove the car). So Sister is not rich, he feels cheated and revokes his offer of dowry. He?ll marry her, but no money.

 

 

 

?But what about the cost of the wedding? says Sister. ?Ask your rich sister Nok, she can always ask the farang?. Like hell. They decide not to ask me, groom gets told to piss of and never be seen again.

 

 

 

Now the problem. The Monks are arriving at 7.00 tomorrow morning, to bless the house and the wedding. Too late to cancel, would be major loss of face in the village. And besides, there is all this food and all these people coming. How about, say the sisters, Nok and the Farang do a ?friendship? ceremony, get their friendship blessed by the monks. ?Not same marry? says Nok, ?but would look better for family if you sleep here, bit like engaged?.

 

 

 

I say: ?I am not getting married (Still not divorced), I am happy to tie a few strings around each other, and receive blessings, but I am NOT marrying.? ?OK says Nok, that?s settled?.

 

 

 

During the night, there are always clusters of people still awake, sitting around, eating drinking, talking, and singing. I get up at six, most people are up already, many guests have arrived during the night, about 80 in total I guess. Fewer than expected (the groom?s guests of course have been told and stayed away). I brew a pot of coffee, have my first meal, and observe the crowd.

 

The monks arrive (8 of them), and receive offerings of food, mainly delivered by the senior men in the family, Poh on his Sundays best in suit and shirt (I only ever saw him in an old white singlet and a pair of scruffy shorts, but today he looks dignified). The monks walk around and spread holy water and chants. The monks troop down the stairs again, walk around the outside of the house blessing and chanting, then troop all into the pickup truck, and get driven back to wherever they came from.

 

 

 

Next ceremony, presided over by a senior village elder, is the string tying, which I first thought was going to be evenly spread around the family, but in fact Nok and I get the lions share of blessings and strings. Before the get tied, the elder recites about ten minutes of holy texts from what looks like a very worn out little paperback with the covers missing. I am not sure what he says, but it must be important because people look attentive.

 

The first recipients of the strings are the farang (me) and Nok, first someone places an egg in her hand (Ooops, I think, symbol of fertility??), and a 50 Baht note. Every string tied something is exchanged, and each string tier receives one in return. I don?t know how the economics work out but never mind. About an hour later, the last string is tied (around 9.00 am), and the party continues. Molaam on the karaoke machine, and wild dancing happening, involving all generations. Sanuk Mak Mak!.

 

After half an hour of hopping around in the heat, I?m exhausted, and flop down in a chair (Yes, sophisticated lot, a few comfortable chairs).

 

Hot and puffing I look around for something liquid. Lo and behold, this friendly smiling young man pours me a glass of the wonderful foaming stuff from a Singha bottle, which I knock back in one gulp. (I know, 9.30 am, but hey, it is a party, and I have had already two meals and a lot of good black coffee this morning. Only mistake, I took his smile at face value, and discover a second or two later that the beer bottle is spiked with at least 50% LaoLao. Oops!

 

 

 

But it does make for quite a mellow morning after that. I start taking pictures, oodles of them, the nicest being outside, where a couple of hard working cooks carry in the buffalo head, kept aside until today, and start stripping it, adding the meat they peel off (and anything else I think) to a big tin can with boiling broth on the fire next to them. The third cook adds other ingredients, and fishes out a few bits from time to time to feed the group of spectators on the adjoining sitting mat. Two women in their early 40?s compete with each other in an attempt to finish the bottle of LaoLao. I get offered a swig but politely decline. (Nok was furious with the young man who?d given me the ?beer?. She?d successfully prevented me from drinking any spirits at the house so far, and watched me like a hawk).

 

 

 

Will be continued

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 11 months later...
  • 3 years later...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...