Two weddings and a holiday

In the five months I have been in Thailand I had not attended a wedding then in the space of one week I attended two.
The first was the wedding of an Australian teacher who married a Thai teacher who is the head of the foreign teachers at the school. In Thailand the majority of the guests are not invited to the actual wedding ceremony they are invited to the dinner which is quite similar to a reception for a wedding in the Western world.
As the wedding was held on a Monday we all attended school as per normal and I went to the dinner in a van with many of the other foreign teachers. I ate a meal and listened to a bit of karaoke, which is also very popular in Thailand. At about 9.30pm we all got back on the van to return home. It is also common in Thailand for people to leave parties, weddings included as soon as the food has finished being served.
Two days later I enjoyed yet another public holiday in Thailand. This time it was a Buddhist holiday for Mugha Puja Day. Buddhist Thais visit the temple in the morning then return again in the evening. I visited the Wat Sothon temple in the evening to see what takes place and there where thousands of people walking circles around the temple holding candles. Prior to visiting the temple Prang and I spent the morning at an old market in the outskirts of Chachoengsao.

The second wedding of the week was also held on a school day and was again two people from school. On Friday afternoon I attended another wedding and there were so many people there it took me almost five minutes to find my friend Tim. I asked the groom how many people went and he said 1500. Large weddings are quite common in Thailand. The whole ceremony part was all in Thai so I didn't really understand although I did enjoy the food and the experience. Invitations to weddings in Thailand are given in an envelope which when you arrive at the wedding you give back to the couple with money in it to help pay for the wedding.