Monday, November 17, 2008

Latest news: Didi will also be attending our Thai Wedding!!

My/our dog Didi will now also attend our weding in Si Bun Ruang.
A dear friend of Kik, and a great doglover and breeder will take care of her while travelling with the bus from Phuket to Si Bun Ruang. So, Didi will be the 5th present at our wedding who was also at uour Dutch wedding in Delft!!
(The other 4? haha Kik, me, Els and Floor)
I hope that Didi will not cause too much problems while on the bus, but I could not let her suffer another trip by airplane if its not absolutly necessary!

Logistics, another detail of our Thai wedding ... or one of Kiks nightmares?

Once I arrive in Bangkok on the 18th I’ll be happily busy
There I’ll meet some of the friends from abroad coming to attend our Thai wedding.
Now do not think in large numbers, its a humble presence but a presence for which I am very gratefull!!
A dear old friend of my mother, Ferry, announced he would attend, he is now living in Bangkok since a good part of this year and will arrive in Udon by train on the 22d. Then we have a dear friend from Australia, Don, who announced his intention to attend and I will meet him in Bangkok on the 18th or 19th. Kik and I met him and his long time partner Mike at Club OneSeven last year as well as this year end March/April and enjoyed some really good time and friendship! He is saidly travelling alone because of al the financial uncertainties right now. But we are both gratefull for the effort to be present at our weddingceremony. As he said he would represent all our Australian friends!
And then we have two dear and long time friends from Holland, Floor and Els, who will arrive at Bangkoks International Airprort on the 20th. I will try to meet them at the airport myself and they will travell to Udon on the 21st by plane.

I myself will fly out to Udon on the 21st......
The collection of these friends when they start to arrive in Udon is something which needs co-ordination on Kiks part because he needs to direct the respectieve famillymembers and friends to drive out to the airport, which is a roughly 2 hours drive from his hometown.

People are travelling to Si Bun Ruang from all over Thailand and Laos as well for our wedding. But I only know more about those travelling from Phuket:
From Simon Cabaret a 9 person strong delegation of Kiks closest friends there will travell roughly 20 hours by buscoach from Phuket to Si Bun Ruang in North East Thailand. As I understood, more would have liked to come as well, but then the shows of Simon Cabaret might get compromissen and that is something not even considered for when the country is in national mourning!
They will be joined by the staff & friends of our bar(s) here in Patong Phuket and together they wil fill one busload of 24!

If one realises that this now one day affair requires the people from Phuket to take 5/6 days off from work, simply because of the time involved traveling up and donw the country in a buscoach! They will, by the way, also act as my family on our weddingday! Cool huh?!

Next to the Phuket delegation, also a delegation of 30 will come from Bangkok. Some I probably met in the last two years while being in Bangkok with Kik, but I will discover on the 22d/23d whom I met before, haha..... it wil be a colorfull event. Thats for sure!!
But all these people, and then I am not writing here about family and friends from Kik from Laos, because those are also coming, need a place to sleep, to eat before and after the weddingday itself... that all needs to be taken care off by Kik and his family.
So transportkation, sleepingaccomodations and food and drinks for I do not know howmany people need to be organised......
Watching all of this, I am simply happy that things are much more simple in Holland. And to think that Kik never expected to have to organise his own wedding, simply because that possibility never entered his mind before..... so never thought about it before!

Next to the transport challenge of all these guests, and their food, drinks and sleeping arrangement, there is ofcourse the day itself.......the 23d of November!

Kiks weddingjitters.....

Well, after my ‘ordeal’ before the 8th of October Dutch wedding, I now see how Kik is dealing with the preparations our Thai wedding! And I feel so sorry for him, specially because I can not support him because I am unaware of all the custos involved for a proper and correct organisator of the weddingceremony and party.
Like Kik didn’t want too much involvement with our Dutch weding because of lack of knowing what can and can not be done, I now take same position for same reason.
Ofcourse, like Kik, I now only try to support him as good as I can.

But what is planned sofar, as far as I know and understand from what Kik explained to me?
Originally the idear was to have a pre-weddingparty at Kiks hometown on the eve before the 23d, but, properly to Kiks relief, his Bhuddist Master in Bangkok adviced differently and so now we will have the weddingceremony on the 23d as planed and only a weddingparty afterwards on the same day.

Kik tried to keep it a somewhat ‘small’ affair for Thai standards, I know, but as far as I understood from him, he is quite unable to keep it ‘small’. Kik has ben surprissed about all the phonecalls he has been receiving since we returned to Thailand and even more when he came back from his retreat in Temple ( Monastry) in preparathion of our Thai wedding.
All this, combined with some post election troubles to take care off , made Kik deceide to return to his home town near Udon Thani on the 14th this month, after just having been home, here in Patong, for 3 days!
So he needed to go back to Si Bun Ruang to be able to fully focus on the weddingceremony and party.
Its also pretty hard to deal with a starting business and organising this wedding so we decided to split up again and Kik went back to Si Bun Ruang while I stay on in Patong Phuket and will follow on the 18th when I go to Bangkok to meet with weddingguests there, before I follow to Udon on the 21st!

When Kik arrived back to Patong bringing back a new set of weddingclothes, he also announced a total different set of clothes will be made for us for the weddingparty afterwards... so a little surprised I tried on my set , chanmpagne white Thai silk with delicate light blue accents, I realised thats just fro a couple of hours, haha. He also showed me the design for the weddingparty clothes, which wil be much more fantasy clothes because Kik enjoys showing his theater background. So I guess with time our clothes wil grow more extravagant on the 23d!

I also understood that tables will be set up for a minimum of 400 guests for drinks and food. And I learned that not everybody will be present same time... and that makes it maybe a little bit more easy for him.... or not?
Then all the guests need to get a small souvenir from our wedding..... He told me that he ordered around 700, believing that not verbod needed to get one, couples might do with one... well, am so curious to how all will go!!
Then there’s the music....

But most scared I am about what was announced by Kik just before our Dutch wedding, that I am supposed to sing something in Thai or any other langzame for these guests, well... once I start I hope they wil not run away... it has been a while since I last managed to sing a proper sounding song and could keep myself to the lyrics.... so I pray that I have eenoog inspiration and daring to produce something decent when the time is there to do my duty akkoorden to Isaan tradition!

Kik and I are now in daily contact with eachother and while talking on the phone I try to be as supportive as I can be........
And our new business, while they have to wait till after the wedding..... right now its closed anyway for 3 days due to a three day national mourning on the ocasion of the burial of the Kings elder sister in Bangkok, and it wil also be closed for 5/6 days due to our wedding.... so November will be a more or les lost month anyway from that point of view!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

A journey ‘with’ Didi (9th/10th of October)

I must say, the thing I had been most worried about preparing for Thailand and the the planeflight to it, was Didi, my dog. She was going with us and I had no idear how it would be for her, how she would manage, would she be safe, and all those worries.
I had bought an IATA approved dogkennel of a size good for Didi and put one of her more lightweighted covers and dogbench in it so she would have something of home with her in her kennel. And remeber, she never had been in such close convined quarters during her life with me, so I guess she never was in something like that ever!

Well, one thing for sure: how many dogs can say they spent their bosses weddingnight with them in one room, and come to it, when we woke up the next mornng, in one bed...guess not many, haha..... and I assure you, she likes to stretch out big time when she gets the chance to lie down with me/us on such a comfi bed!!

But we were simply to tired to be bothered with it, so we granted her the receptiën. When we arrived the precieus night at the Sheraton Hotel on Schiphol Airport, we first started to read all the wellwish cards we had received and opened up the smal gifts our friends still bought us and figuring out how to bring all of that with us to Thailand. And ofcourse we papil counted the money our guests had brought with them for us. We asked unsympathetically for money, because that would be the handiest to bring with us to Thailand and we promissed to buy from it a good and long lasting memory of our weddingday in Delft! And so we will and as soon as we have we will try to let eveybody know in gratitude what has become our weddingmemorie from our dear friends in Holland!

Okay..back to the subject at hand!
We managed to get our two very heavy and large suitcases with an overload of handluggage as early as possible to the check in counter of China Airlines..together with Didi in her IATA-kennel. We had given Didi special pills provided by Kevin, the ‘animaldocter’ and son of one of my wittnesses, Albert van Gaalen. I had hide the pills in a sausage and some meat taken from breakfast...they went in in a blink of an eye, hha..the poor girl, she must have wondered what had hit her! But how happy I was I had floret the advice of drugging her a bit!!
Okay, at the check-in counter we were confronted with a rather large overweight in bagage, excluding Didi in her kennel!!
The bill to pay for that extra weight was such that on the spot I decided to use the special offer to upgrade us to First Class, which, for the both of us, would just be 2/300 euro’s more expensive then our original seats plus overweight, haha..because flying first clas we were allowed totally 80 kilo’s instead of 60, and we had in total allmost 80.
Then I was talld that our suitcases would not be allowed to weight more then 32 kg each!! Kik by that time was not feeling to well (We had, yes yes, I know, not clever but hey it was our weddingnight, drunk ¾ bottle of champagne given to us by the Hotel management the night before. And that, combined with the short night sleep, made Kik not being on his best. I, for that matter would have liked to join him but could not allow that.... poor me, haha).... so I left Kik and rushed down to the HEMA store at the Airport to purchase an extra small suitcase to put our excess weight in and as such bring al our suitcases within the 32 kg limit. The check-in guy helped us grately and gracefully I have to admit and accompanied us after check-in with Didi in her Kennel to the special "drop off" of her so she would be attended to in the appropriate manner. And so Didi dissapeared in front of us in an elevator with a special handler..... looking at me like “what our you doing now, leaving me like this all on my own” O dear, I felt so bad!!

To make a long story a tiny bit shorter... we went on the plane a couple of hours later and Kik and I experienced our first First Class experience, and I must admit, it was something I allways wanted to experience and could not think of a better moment then on our ‘honeymoonflight’ to Thailand, the country where Kik and I are going to try to build a good life together!!
The space we enjoyed, the sleep we could have on a trough flat bed annec chair was wonderkuil. As well as the food and everything else! Haha, if this is what 50+ means and married again, well, you will not hear me complain, haha!!

After arriving in Bangkok, and cathing our connecting flight with Thai Airways, we arrived in time at Phuket Airport and collected Didi, who, by the way, was pretty drugged still when we got her out of her Kennel after she was released to enter the country without any probleem!!
By the way, booking Didi on the Thai Airways fligt costed us only 1250 bath, which is roughly betwen 25 and 30 euro’s ( roughly 1 euro per kg) and a lot, a lot cheaper then her faire for the long flight from Amsterdam, which was 30 euro’s per kg, including the kennel!! Very sympatheticaly we were not charged for any overweight on this Thai Airways flight, bless their souls!

The wedding and the camera’s... (8th of October)

The 8th of October will stay burned into my memory as one of the most warm days I ever had the pleasure to enjoy. Warm not in the sense of temperature but of spirit!!
Kik and I enjoyed the day more then we can say. Not only because contrarie to expectations it was a most beautifull and sunny Octoberday but also because of all the people who came to wittness us being married at Cityhal of Delft, The Netherlands!
For us it has been a most glorious day we will never forget.
All of my family was present, my and Kiks wittnesses as well as all our friends from all walks of life. I felt specially blessed and lucky to see my ex husband and his husband as well as other former boyfriends/lovers present and truly enjoying this day with me and for me!! We felt very very rich indeed on this day! We were very happy to see friends from my (Robs) Rijswijk-period, politically and socially, as well as from the Delft liberals and the regional Hiv Organisation, the Delft Gay Association DWH, the Saterdaymorning group as well as the saterday late afternoongroup (saterdays were allways very good and warm days in that respect!). But also all my Masonic friends from the two Delft Lodges, friends from all over the country and my oldest friendsgroup, the “dinnerclub”, who, till last month, got together at least once every three months for at least the last 28 years!!
We were esspeciay surprised to hear from the “bode” who assisted the Registrar who married Kik and me, that the weddingroom was not only totally full, but that the doors had to stay open to give everyone a change to wittness our weddingceremony.. she said that according to them there were roughly more then one hundred and twenty people present where officially max 80 were allowed to attend.
We never kissed so many people on one day, I can assure you that!!!

As soon as we left the house on Oude Delft 147, and actuele it started also a little bit before that, camera’s were klicking all the time till well in our ‘reception/afterparty’ at Bebob’s. Now we only were responsible ourselves for only two, who, on our request made a photographic and filmrecord of our wedding...but we were very surprised by al the other camera’s we have seen that day! And as such we would like to hear from every persoon who made picture or films of our day and that we are given the opportunist to enjoy the results of their labour!!

Sadly though my own camera was misplaced at Bebobs and is since then missing, including all the pics made with it!! If anyone who reads this could inform him or herself about the whereabouts of my canon camera, I would be so gratefull. It is very hard to start asking questions about its whereabouts from Thailand, so maybe one of you readers might be willing to do so!!

Goes without saying that we like to thank all who attended our weddingceremony as well as the ‘afterparty’ for making our most special day even more special and appreciated!! You all made us feel the most richest guys on the world that day and we are most gratefull for that feeling, it was the best gift that could be given to us for our wedding as well as to me for my 50th birthday!!

Special thanks goes to my Master of Ceremonies, my nephew and godson Jeroen, who not only had to take care off everything going akkoorden to plan but also had to handle me not to want to be in control al the time. He did a most splendid job and let me truly relax and enjoy this most magnificent day

As soon as it is possible I hope to place the available pictures of our wedding on my google picasso sight for all of you to enjoy. I wil give due notice when they are placed for viewing!!

Serious catching up is starting for all of you to follow

This entry is written but its placement on my weblog is somewhat delayed due to the fact that I have not been able to connect my laptop to the internet till the day this and folowing entries are actuele placed on the weerloos thaidutchmarriage or mpgsadventures. I can only hope that when it finally happens the reader won’t feel overwhelmed by all the reading overed at once at the moment of placement on either weblog. Only curious when it wil be though.......BUT when you read it I will have succeeded, haha!
AND SLOWLY WILL START DOING SOME SERIOUS CATCHING UP FOR YOU!