Keun Bahn Mai Pix

[Spee]

Just finished getting the pix posted from last week's house blessing ceremony, along with some updated pix of the new place:

http://www.thaivisa.com/gallery/

The whole party preparation, being the host of the party and being a central part of the formal ceremony was a lot of work with lot of nervous energy burned, though definitely one of the most memorable experiences in my life.

I would have never gotten through everything without the efforts of my fiancee's mother, the hours and hours of help from the people in the village, as well as all the guidance and moral support.

Thanks also to Random Chances for making the trek north with his wife and mum-in-law. RC, you really saved me when it came time to make some conversation with the local politicos. Cheers, mate!

Enjoy!

Edited January 11, 2005 by Spee

[Spee]

A few additional notes on costs, because I've had some posts on the subject in the past, and I know there have been some recent threads as well.

For all of the goodies below, all of the beverages basically got wiped out (go figure). But there was more than enough food for about 200 guests the night of the party, plus the monks and several dozen more guests the following morning, plus a lot of leftovers for family and close friends to take home.

Buffalo - 10,000 ThB (appx 250 USD) (that included the whole beast, fully butchered the same day, meat, bones, guts, head, the whole works)

Pig - 8,000 ThB (appx 200 USD) (same as above, fully butchered same day with all the piece parts, the Thai people don't waste a thing, they cook everything)

Fish - Forgot the exact amount paid, but I want to say about a couple thousand ThB, pretty inexpensive. There was a lot of fish as can be seen in the pictures. I think there was about 4 or 5 dozen fish, or roughly 1 to 2 per table.

Beverages - 10,000 ThB (this included everything, a couple cases of whiskey, 8 or 10 cases of beer both cans and large bottles, several cases of soft drinks, plus probably a couple hundred kilos of ice and 4 or 5 large coolers. Each table was given 1 bottle of whiskey, 1 or 2 large bottles of beer, 1 large bottle of soft drink, a couple small bottles of soda mixer, and all the drinking water they wanted.

Misc. Veggies and Spices - Forgot the total, but a very small percentage of the over all cost.

Village Helpers - Khun Mae gave all of the village friends who helped out a total of about 5,000 ThB. This was money well spent. It paid for about 15 people for about 1.5 days of work, including food prep, cooking, serving the guests and cleanup afterwards. They also each got a big chunk of leftover pig and buffalo meat to take home. Again they worked hard and deserved everything given and more.

Tents, Furniture and Karaoke - I think this was a package deal, but sorry I don't remember what the cost was.

Glasses, Bowls and Other Utensils - This was no added cost, as it came from the village supplies.

Monks - Khun Mae handled stuffing all the envelopes for the monks. Not exactly sure what she put in, but I think it was roughly a couple hundred ThB for the 6 lesser monks and about 500 ThB for the head monk. Maybe a little more or little less, just not sure. Each monk also received a prepackaged "bucket 'o goodies," like soap, toilet paper, snacks, etc.

As noted in the photo gallery, Khun Mae also went around collecting envelopes all night long, and several people came by the next morning with more. IIRC, the total haul was about 16,000 ThB, which was enough to offset quite a bit of the overall cost. This was a really cool and unexpected gesture that I did not know about beforehand. I think Khun Mae kept a few thousand for herself, but that didn't bother me in the least. She takes good care of me and she worked awfully hard to put this together.

I think my contribution was roughly about 35,000 ThB or about 850 USD, quite a bit less than the 40-50K ThB that I originally had in mind for the high end. It was enough to cover the basics like meat, drink, and setup. The contributions were enough to cover everything else.

Didn't get a chance to get wild and crazy, because my job was to play host, get everyone seated and served, and stop by and check in a couple of times to greet then during the night. Lots of work, but a really cool and worthwhile experience.

Edited January 12, 2005 by Spee

[Spee]

I would also like to add that this event easily moved in to my list of top 4 or 5 best things I've ever experienced in my life.

The family and friends in the village have treated me great since day one. But this time they really out-did themselves. Everyone worked really hard for several days to make this event happen. All I had to do was supply the startup capital and then play the good host. Everytime I tried to grab some ice or a bottle of beer or some food for a table, one of the village ladies beat me to it and told me not to worry about it. They took care of everything.

Same thing for the formal ceremony the morning after the party. I was really overwhelmed at being the center of attention, and having so many people come by and say so many kind things to me. Even the monks kind of smiled and joked a bit with my obvious awkwardness with the whole situation. All of this really helped to put me at ease and help get me through it.

It wasn't all fun and games. As can happen in Thailand, when the hooch comes out, sometimes the ugly side of things can show up. Part of this was with the men working the meat prep in the back. They brought a little hooch with them in the morning to get started. After they wiped that out, every five minutes someone was asking for more booze. It was a constant battle to tell them no most of the time, but give them a little bit every now and then to keep them from getting p*ssed off and walking away. My fiancee's brother helped me a lot with them.

Also, when the booze got flowing, I found out who the two main village drunks are and how obnoxious they can be. All they wanted constantly was either free booze, or to work for 15 or 20 minutes and then ask for 20 baht so they could go buy more booze. All of the little kids playing around were absolutely terrified of them, yet these guys wouldn't leave them alone. It was all we could do to keep them apart.

Despite these few problems, this was still a really cool thing to have happened in my life. Plus some good experience in dealing with drunken Thai males (even though this was just a couple morons out of probably 50-75 men who worked and came to the party).

[RamdomChances]

Yea it was'nt a bad night, sleep all the way back in the car, lucky I was'nt driving We get thai's all the time drinking at the shop, to be honest I get offered beer/whiskey more than I'm asked to buy any. The only problem I have is saying "no"

Cheers RC

[sbk]

I remember years back when my husband and I had our "house opening party". It was a small family affair, probably only 200 people or so . We had only the early morning monk's blessing and people over to eat, as my husband doesn't drink and neither does his father, they weren't particularly interested in having a drunken party. Fair enough, nobody expected it either

Couldn't tell you what it cost, certainly not that much (but then, it was over 15 years ago when it cost us only 150,000 baht to build our house in the first place!). But it was great fun and a really good introduction for me to meet the family. All of them.

[RamdomChances]

We did'nt have a house openig party, as the house was already here, we just "did it up", had a farm opening though, just the blessing in the morning, really small about 100 people and no booze, plenty of food though. I've been to some big house warming ones but usually its just the morning.