Wedding Day in Thailand

One of my coworkers was getting hitched today and kindly invited me and other workmates to attend the ceremony. Here's how the adventure unfolded:

The ceremony was supposed to begin at 9AM, and the location of the ceremony was about 45 minutes away. Our time of departure from the dormitory: about 8:58AM. No problem when you have a speedy chauffeur!

We piled into the car and enjoyed stretch of highway towards the ceremony. Five in a little car -- again, no problem!

But at the turnoff, that stretch of highway got narrower, more curvy, and much steeper. That is, we were going up a mountain. We went for a long ways, longer than we realized it was going to take. And the car, weighted down by a full load of passengers, inched up the mountain ever more slowly as the rains began pouring down, until...

While the overheated car took a moment to recover, so did the passengers in the backseat who were getting car sick from the stomach-churning ride up the mountain. The car had lost all its oomph to climb the mountain, and there was only one way to go: back down. After a hair-raising 8-point turn on the mountain road, we reversed our direction and descended once again. That's okay. We realized we had taken a wrong turn anyways. Crisis averted... or was it?

We raced (albeit slowly) to find the nearest gas station, on the mountain, a ways away from the highway. This might be difficult.

But fortunately we made it to the nearest gas-station-like facility!

In the meantime, the girls stepped outside of the car to get some fresh air, and possibly some motion-sickness-curing potion from a traveling saleslady.

We got ourselves back on track with renewed vigor to make it to the wedding. But then we got stuck behind a pickup truck that looked like it might be hiding an elephant underneath the cover.

That's okay, though, as it gave us a little more time to take in the beautiful scenery.

Finally we arrived! We missed the ceremony in the church, but we got there just in time for the Northern Thai-style ceremony to follow. Here's the groom walking to the bride's house now:

After that ceremony was finished, we walked a little ways to the next celebratory station: the lunch feast! By that time the rain had stopped and the sun's rays were beating down rather strongly, so it was good that we found ourselves protected under the cover of tent.

The meal was delicious, and we appreciated the moment we had to offer our congratulations, and moreover explain our tardiness, to the newlyweds.

As we finished up the meal, we briefly watched the presentation of traditional Thai dancing.

We left shortly after the dance and made our way back to Chiang Mai. I must say, the ride back was far less adventurous than the ride there. But I was okay with that.

Peace!

Eric