Although I have been a member of teak door since February last year, I have not posted much, mainly because it has taken me until now to force myself to learn how to post photos.

At this juncture I would like to thank Dirty Dog for putting me straight on this by way of a PM yesterday.

Now that I have mastered it I hope to contribute a bit more to the board although the photos seem to post very small and you need to click on them to view them properly. If anyone can help me resolve that I would be grateful.

I have posted this thread in 2 parts in the building in Thailand Section , primarily because the main point of the thread is focused upon the teak house I have had built in Chonabot, which is a small town 45 kms south of Khon Kaen, however as a lot of the posting includes my wedding at the house in question if somebody feels it , or part of it, should be posted in another section please feel free to move it.
To make sense of the thread, I would recommend that those that are interested first read the thread I posted when I first joined TD by following this link:https://teakdoor.com/construction-in-thailand/10698-how-much-to-build-wooden-house-2.html

Okay for those of you that are still interested I thought I would show you how my life and the house have evolved since April 2007.
My wife, Mam, christened the house Mickey Mouse House, simply because my name is Mick and she has adopted Mickey Mouse as a nickname for me. I believe it is more because she has seen my golf swing which we won’t go into here!

In April last year we were married Isaan style at the house which as you can see from photos in the previous thread was in a very basic state. Although not shown in the photos a smallshower room had been built behind the stairs which consists of a cold water shower, a toilet (sit down not squat) and a wash hand basin. I was told we had to have this as there were over 100 guests coming to the wedding. You can see the hong nam here:



At this point I had not seen the house and had relied initially on Mam’s mother and then Mam who travelled up in March, to oversee the construction. I knew it was a teak house but in my minds eye it was nowhere near as big or as impressive as what I discovered when I arrived to get hitched.

The wedding was arranged for a Saturday which happened to be the 2nd day of Songkran and all I was told to do was to turn up the day before and bring the cash to pay for the wedding and reception. “How much”? I hear you ask. I will get to that later.

I actually travelled up from Jomtien, where I live and work, on the Thursday and spent the first day of Songkran driving loads of kids around Chonabot in my (now) brother in law’s pickup. I had only ever experienced one Songkran before and that was in Pattaya, which I vowed never to do again, and I could not believe how wonderful Songkran was in rural Thailand.

I was of the mistaken impression that the catering for the wedding was going to be done by Mam’s family but on the Friday a truck pulled up at the house and some guys started erecting a large awning and putting out tables and chairs for the guests, meanwhile some other guys started constructing a small stage on the land adjoining the house. Here are some pics of those:









Details of the wedding were typically Thai, namely I hadn’t got a clue what was going on other than the fact I was told by Mam that it would start “about 10 in the morning”. She then told me that she was going to the beauty salon to get made up and dressed at 5am!!! When I queried why it was going to take 5 hours for this I discovered that “about 10” did in fact mean 8am!!

Mam had asked me to wear a European suit for the wedding rather than hire a silk outfit as she said that nobody in her town had seen a Falang in a suit. These girls obviously like to show off their prizes so I wasn’t about to argue.

So there I was all spruced up on the morning of the wedding but needless to say at 8am there was no sign of any guests or anybody who looked like they were going to conduct the ceremony. When I expressed my concern I was assured that everyone who had been invited would be coming as they didn’t want to miss out on the free food and drink!

Sure enough people started arriving, including a guy in a white suit who proceeded to greet everone and at around 8.30. I was made to sit very uncomfortably on the floor, whilst lots of chanting and string winding and tying went on. I was worried that this might take ages as my arse became numb in just a few minutes but thankfully the ceremony was over within about 30 minutes whereupon the local hi so’s were able to set about the food and drink!

Heres’s some pics of that stage of the proceedings.









For those of you have never been married Isaan style, before you get to sit down and have some food and drink of your own, you are expected to walk around amongst the guests and thank them for coming, in exchange for which they give you an envelope with money in it which is meant to go towards the cost of the proceedings. The amount they give is written on the envelope so that if you go to a wedding at their place you can at least match it or preferably better it! When I was told this I thought, hey this will reduce my expenditure somewhat. What I didn’t know was that my mother in law would be walking round with us and every envelope went into her handbag!

I didn’t mind really because she is a terrific lady who brought up 4 girls pretty much single handedly since her husband drank himself to death when Mam was quite young. Also the question of a sin sot never arose presumably because Mam had previously been married to a Thai guy who also drank himself to death, and also because I had bought the land and had the house built to enable Mam’s mother to escape from the wooden shack where she used to live before the bank repossessed what there was of it!

So after the food was consumed, the entertainment started which consisted of about 4 singers who took it in turns to sing to backing music and in no time at all the place was rocking with mainly drunken middle aged and older Thai women.



By this time,which incidentally was only about 10.30am, I had forced several Beer Leo’s and several Sang Som’s down my neck, and it was time for me to make a prat of myself by first of all singing a couple of Eagles numbers, and then get involved with the Thai dancing. As you can see from the following photo, it looks more like John Cleese’ ministry of silly walks!



As you can see, the guest list was varied!



 As it was Songkran, I abandoned the suit after a while and dressed more appropriately for some serious water chucking which got under way almost immediately. Most people had come dressed in their designer Hawaiian shirts, but even those in carefully tailored silk outfits were not spared a good dousing.





This guy is the builder who dismantled the house from its original location and rebuilt it on our land for a fee of 30,000 baht!



 At about 1pm people other than the real hardened drinkers started to drift away leaving a good few local lads to carry on depleting the copious supply of booze that had been stashed away by my ever thrifty wife.



Eating and drinking carried on right through the day and into the evening interspersed with water chucking and in my case a 1 hour booze induced sleep in a deckchair dressed in a pair of swimshorts which according to Mam gave the village elders a birds eye view of my meat and two veg as my legs had splayed apart. No pics of that you will be saddened to learn!

So at about 11pm the remaining guests staggered away and the day ended with me far too drunk to consummate my new nuptials despite my best efforts to kick start my libido by thinking about my new 18 year old sister in law.



So that is the first part of my Mickey Mouse House evolution story. Except to add that the cost of the wedding was around 30,000 baht which included everything from the caterers, music and singers and copious amounts of booze.

I will always remember the day as being one of the best experiences of my life. I have been lucky enough to travel quite a bit in my 57 years of life but I can’t think of many better days that I have had anywhere in the world.

As previously stated, if anyone thinks this part of my posting should be in another section please feel free to move it. I shall shortly be preparing part 2 which will show you how the house has changed and been improved since April last year.