100 Pipers And The Closet Genius

Last weekend, Nuch and I joined her cousin's wedding at the Bangkok Tobacco Factory where they have a number of banquet halls for staff to use for special occasions. I wasn't sure what to expect, having never met this part of the family, but when I saw the bottles of 100 Pipers (a cheap local whiskey) on the table, I knew it was a good thing that I had left my black tie at home.

We got there early, so we were able to get good seats - close enough to see the stage, but far enough back to lessen the blow of the ear-splitting speakers.


Here's Nuch's mother and her aunt (the last of her father's siblings). By the way, they were little to no help getting to the bottom of the 100 Pipers.


Here's the bride and groom with the bride's family. Her dream wedding...


Here's the bride and groom with the bride's maids. His dream wedding...

All in all a good time. Lots of music (very loud), lots of alcohol (very cheap), and one genius.

At some point during the night, I saw a girl at the table next to me fiddling with a Rubik's cube, spinning and twisting it while talking to her friends and family. I thought to myself - this is the oddest nervous twitch I have ever seen - until some point later in the evening when I looked over and saw that she had solved the cube!

After a fairly standard wedding, witnessing this genius at work (while not realizing it) made the whole evening all worthwhile. Not so much because she was able to solve Rubik's puzzle, but because from the moment I saw the bottles of cheap whiskey on each table, I was able to surmise (correctly) what the evening would have in store - loud music, dancers with short skirts, people talking so you can't hear the speeches and toasts, and a drunk guy who decides now is a good time to start learning English. Thailand can be so painfully predictable, but my assuming that this girl was simply a bumpkin with a strange nervous habit, and then to be proven wrong was a nice surprise - the kind of surprise that always seems to pop up just when you think you have everything figured out; the kind of surprise that keeps life in Thailand refreshing.

Here are a few more pictures. Enjoy