It was 9:09 am, and the second stage of the wedding ceremony was just about to begin. The monks had been chanting since 6am, but the guests had arrived at the old wooden house just before 9 o'clock on that Sunday morning. "9" is a very lucky number in Thailand, so it was only natural to plan a wedding around an auspicious time!
Pinky and I were guests at the wedding of two of our friends (a colleague of Pinky's and her fiance, who we traveled with to Kanchanaburi a few weeks back) way up in Chiang Rai, in Thailand's far north.
The early morning air was cool and surprisingly crisp. Compared to the muggy weather we had been having lately in Bangkok, it was downright pleasant! When we arrived, guests were lining up along a dirt path lined with tung flags. Then, a sort of parade came down the road on foot, the groom, his family, and his party in traditional northern dress. He headed into the house for a private part of the ceremony with family, while guests were free to enjoy the food!
It was all northern food, of course, and absolutely delicious! This is a type of rice cooked with blood that I was hesitant about (and Pinky too, since it's not a central Thai dish at all) but it just tasted like a slightly salty fried rice.
What I was really excited about was the sai ua, one of my favorite northern dishes, a sausage stuffed with herbs and spices. So aroi (delicious)!
And then, of course, there was the khao soi, a bowl of soft egg noodles, and stewed pork belly cooked in a slightly sweet orange-red curry broth and washed down with glasses of floral tea.
The bride and groom had asked all guests to dress in traditional northern-style outfits. I had a cotton shirt that I had bought at the Chiang Rai Night Bazaar in October, so I wore that, and Pinky borrowed a skirt from another colleague. I was the only foreigner at the wedding, and Pinky was one of the few non-northerners. "I can't understand a word they are saying", she confessed to me. Northern Thai is a totally different dialect, and when the people around us were speaking to one another, it was completely incomprehensible to Pinky.
But not everyone spoke Northern! The groom himself is from the east, near the Cambodian border. At one point, the bridesmaids held up a string as a gate, barring him from entry into the house until he told everyone (in his native Khmer) how much he loves his bride-to-be. They can all speak their home language, Thai, and English. It must be amazing to be trilingual.
At my friend James' central Thai wedding, the guests blessed the new couple by pouring a seashell full of holy water over the newlyweds clasped hands and giving them good wishes. In the north, instead of the seashell, we took apiece of white string, like the kind that monks tie around your wrist for a blessing, and bound the couple together at the wrist while giving them our good wishes for the future.
It was a really fun morning, and a beautiful day for it. Although we had to rush to get to and from Chiang Rai only to spend a day there, it was a nice change of pace from the normal weekend routine. I am so glad we got to go.
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