GBO

My brother in law recently passed away,despite him being a foreigner he was given a very traditional Issan village funeral as he was well respected having lived in the village for the last 5 years. The funeral cost the family around 200,000 Baht. The cost is quite staggering considering it's a simple village funeral. The costs were.. Food..........I would say 30% of it was spent on feeding 100's of village folk(they also steal/take home uncooked meat and more than they eat) Booze..................... 30% beer and Whisky for all night drinking for bloody days There was a huge speaker arrangement with DJ The coffin and Fridge costs Table and chair hire Marquee/canopy hire The Monks 3 times a day @ 1,700 baht a pop The master of ceremonies The cremation costs at the Wat Flowers Gifts They did receive money from the village,via the head man as he collects it. I think it was 15,000 Baht The people attending gave money usually 20-40 baht per head. It's certainly not cheap to die up in the village. It was a very weird experience along with really strange and unusual traditions not to mention the Issan superstitions which are bordering on Witch craft. The worst thing for me was at late evening after the cremation we were ordered to go to the Wat and search through the ashes for the bones,not sure who got the gold teeth. I did a full report on this on another forum. I hope to post here more often as many of my friends seem to be here for very similar reasons to me now. Cheers G