Monday 29 August 2016

All you need is love, and sunshine, oh and daily massages

Between now and the 12th of September I have a four day vacation, a four day final working week topped off by a one week transition period. I can't help but wish  I had timed my resignation a little better, but with all things it comes down to timing and lets just saying timing is not one of my strong points. Irrespective, the point of this post is not to bitch about my unfavourable annual leave situation but to celebrate the wedding of one of my favourite Hong Kong couples. The August wedding was more of a formality as the couple had previously signed the papers to be married earlier this year (it was a Chinese Fortune teller who advised that the couple be wed in the year of the Sheep, not the year of the Monkey). In any case, who doesn't like a destination wedding?



We arrived into Bali, Ngurah Rai International Airport just after 2 am and due to some skilful inception somebody had managed to convince the group that we needed KFC to be our first meal. It probably should have come to no surprise that KFC was closed and we were forced to have Mc Donalds. The same McDonalds I have eaten at in all previous Bali visits.

The crowd in the restaurant was best described as Antipodean, it was as if I had been transported to George Street Sydney, "Maccas" on a Saturday night circa 12 am. A cacophony of "OHH YEAH" and "HOWZZIT GOING" bombarded our weary ears. It would take us 40 minutes to consume the food. The hot plate was not working and they weren't able to accommodate anything with a beef patty.  We switched our order to Mc Chickens and Mc Nuggets and reluctantly gobbled down the food . We arrived in Seseh just before 4 am and promptly drifted into sleep.

Clear skies and warm weather greeted us the next morning as did the bride. There was something different about her today, she was on crutches and each step winced her with discomfort. Those crutches are new, I thought to myself. Turns out she had (re) dislocated her knee and was now confined to limited movement. How would she walk down the isle? How, indeed...

The wedding had been setup in the main villa and family and guests were assigned adjacent villas. We had a nearby villa where breakfast was provided and our days consisted of swimming, chilling, massages, and the odd 1 hour car ride into Seminyak - Who would have thought sitting in an air conditioned car be so tiring?



So back to the wedding. Due to previous destination weddings held in sweltering heat, the bride and groom decided that suit and tie for men was not going to be very comfortable for anybody; Not for the guy sweating profusely, and not for the person talking to the guy sweating profusely. A large proportion of the guests had flown in from America and Europe and were not handling the warmer temps and higher humidity. Our wardrobe consisted of shorts and warmer weather attire and boy what a difference it made. So what happened to the bride? Well, it's obvious. She was "walked" down the isle on a Balinese Palanquin manned by four Balinese ushers.



Great weekend trip in South East Asia. Managed to avoid the mosquitos. Caught up with a lot of familiar faces. However the highlight was of course the beautiful wedding, punctuated by a touching wedding video, a fireworks display, a raucous after party and two dislocated knees. That's right, she dislocated the second knee later that night during the after party.


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