Right place, right time

Sometimes you just happen to be in the right place at the right time.  On Monday, Alan and I were sitting in a pub in Hua Hin, reading our books, when we heard a band starting to play.  As we watched from the veranda  of the pub, people came dancing along the road by the fishing pier.

A rather discordant brass band was playing, reminiscent of the music from Serbian director Emir Kusturica's films.

Having said that, the scene was probably more New Orleans.  The band was led by dancers, who were either drunk or high on the moment, and they all swung their merry way very slowly along the road.

On asking what was happening, we were told that the man in the lacy white robes was entering the priesthood, so everyone was celebrating.

There was some effort to hedge the dancers over so that some traffic could bypass them, but the dancers were having way too good a time to let traffic spoil their fun.  The traffic simple sat behind them.  I suppose it would be bad karma, to toot a monk out to the way.

The music was very jolly and noisy, and I soon found myself nodding and stomping along to it, as I leaned over the wall of the pub terrace.

There were some pretty drunk people in the crowd,and Alan and I couldn't help laughing as some of them danced with abandon.  It looked all the funnier because some of the people must have been from the fish market as they still had their little welly boots on.

The most bizarre part of this though was the monk, who looked so miserable.  Some of the time he was muttering what I suppose were prayers, though by the look on his face, he could have been asking for salvation from what he was about to undertake!
You guys really would have loved it.