5yh December: The Kings Birthday..a BBQ party with a tail ;-)

The birthday of the King is celebrated somewhat different as we are used to in Holland when we celebrate our Queens birthday on the 30th of april.
As I wrote before, in Thailand all sale of alcohol on that day is forbidden, though I discovered that that rule is applied lightly but nonetheles taken seriously and so al restaurants, bras, etc. closed for the day or served only non alcoholic drinks.

Result of al this is that specially those working in the entertainnmentindustry have a day off and so time to socialize among eachother...for which they normally have no 'normal' time, except in the middle of the nights.

So, Kik suggested we organise a BBQ party at the house, and so we did. No problems surving alcohol there on such a day I discovered.....but because Simon Cabaret is no bar or restaurant but a thetercompany, they were not closed for that evening and the non alcoholrule is at al not a problem for them, they hardly serve it anyway before a show starts, or afterwards.
So, preparations of the BBQ was done with during daytime and from 23.30 onwards.......
The guests arrived from midnight onwards.
The whole evening there was not much to do in the city centre of Patong, because most was shut down for the day......very weird, but the celebration of the Kings birthday is mainly a family affair here, blood family or chosen family, but its the families who get together and create a party of some sorts.

So after midnight the next bbq party started off and everybody being in good spirits. With some owners of some bars present, I gave a toast to the King of Thailand, and afterwards, ofcourse, as a dutch guy, also to our Queen...and then the attack on the food started which lasted several hours....
when the were all done eating, Kik's boss sugested a cardgame. Not knowing, I thought it fun to have them do just that.
My mother allways loved cardgames, so I enjoyed watching them playing their game "8 & 9", don't ask me how it goes, but ofcourse they needed to gamble a little bit so stakes were settled on 5, max 10 bath per person per game (roughly 50 bath in one euro).

Around 4/4.30 am I took the opportunity to withdraw upstairs for half an hour or so to take a bit of rest and enjoy some peace....after a while Kik came up to see how I was doing (he played in the game but left it for a moment to check up on me!) when we heard commotion outside.
Kik had a look, and rather quickly was back in the room again telling me the police just raided the downfloor area of our house and all the people who were playing cards were arrested.
Very surprised and rather upset and angry why something innocent as this cardgame warranted such action I went outide, were I tried to ask the police what was happening and why.
I was politly ignored by them. They simply tried their best to "not seeing me". Later I heard that if they aknowledged my presence the whole operation of them would have become far more complicated and les easy, as me being a 'farang' so insteas they just acted as if I didn't excist.
I must tell you that such is a rather weird experience...but with hinsight I was also rather happy the went about it that way!

To make a long story short. The ones who stayed behind were all laughing and thinking it all a big joke and said to me that they al would eturn within the hour and we should keep the BBQ going because they all would be hungry again after being released.......
nothing happened and in the end lot of people did not get any sleep that night and following day...Even the intervention of the big boss of Simon Cabaret could not get them released!
IN the end they had to pay a 12.000 bath fine. Kik's boss made a statement which took us from the hook, so the speak, as hosts. They also got a warning that if any of them would be arrested for the same in the next year, he or she would go to jail, they call it here the monkeyhouse, for 3 months.
And those of us who have gheard about the reputation of Thai jail, know that thats no fun at all...and hence it works a a beautiful warning which is taking very seriously by Thai.

Well, I placed some pics of the Kings birthday party on the website for pics from Mac, as you can find in the message about PICTURES written somewhat earlier ;-)

All in all it has been quite an experience and am happy that in the end all turned out relativly well and all took it in the best way possible without grudges to anyboy.
As I found out cardgames, for money at that, are specially a no go on the birthday of the King, more so then drinking alcohol, for which no punishments were given at all.....strange huh?
But who knows what they really wanted and howcome the happened to drop in on us so late at night at such a remote location......maybe an unknown person or persons hold a grudge against one or more of our guests, because it was not the first strange event happening to some of my new friends here in the past year.

Curious if that story will continue...I hope not, but it seems Thai can hold grudges like no other.
So more lesson learned here!

Cherio, and enjoy the winter or summer, depending on where you are staying :-))

Rob