Remember I told you
about the lovely yellow Indian wedding? Well it didn’t stop there. They had
their civil ceremony and then went off and had a shindig at another part of the
resort which we didn’t see and weren’t interested – in a nice way. The next day
however was even more extravagant than the first.
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| Painting the chapel red? These Indians don't do things by halves. How many times can you get married in a weekend - the answer is at least 3! |
Starting with a
ceremony on the lawns that included some traditional dress and the wedding
party sitting around on cushions lighting incense and throwing petals at each
other to the prayers in a language that made not sense to us – which I’m sure
was very nice. The best was yet to come.
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| There were dozens of these beautiful flower arrangements around which set the scene |
This time the stage
was decked out in red and as I went down to take my sticky nose tourist photos,
I learned that the groom was to be riding a horse up the walkway to meet his
bride. I must tell you that I’ve owned a horse and ridden lots years ago and
looking down the path where there were flappity flags and parasols all adored
in red scarves billowing in the wind, any horse I’ve ever known would have had
all four legs off the ground and have taken off up the beach. So I decided to
stick around as it might become interesting.
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| Everything flapping furiously in the wind and the horse is going to walk calmly down this path behind 30 yelling, dancing, cheering people... Right! |
Some time later,
sticky nose tourist me and my trusty Nikon Coolpix found the said horse and
handler. The horse, a grey fleabitten (colour) mare were standing there nice
and quiet but she must have been hot. She would have been about 14.3hh at best so not the tallest
girl to take a man for a pony ride. The adornment she was wearing was heavy
velvet all sequinned and tasselly and lovely but it was a hot day, it would
have weighed more than a winter rug and she was in the sun. Underneath this rug
and neck rug thing was obviously an all purpose saddle and the stirrups poked
through a hole in the rug so they could be used by the rider. The front part of
the headpiece was so wide that she wouldn’t have been able to see ahead, only
sideways which is also interesting.
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| more fancy decorations |
The handler hardly
spoke any English so I took my photos and left them alone. On the scheduled
time that the said groom would ride his ‘mount’ down to meet his bride I waited
as did Greg near the wedding chapel, hoping for a good view of the proceedings.
We weren’t the only ones. Many other partially sunburned and also partially
clad tourists staying at the resort were eager to see what went on as well. The
scene was set and so were several loud speakers along the groom’s path. The
wind was brisk and the sun was setting so it was also a bit chilly in the shade
waiting and waiting.
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| All set to deliver the groom to the bride. The horse standing quietly |
Eventually someone
found the music and all this Bollywood music boomed from the speakers. The
groom was on his horse, his supporters and family were before the horse all
dancing, cheering and calling out. Small children were holstered on their
father’s shoulders and everyone was having a bit of a grove – even us free
loading on lookers. It was quite exciting!...
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| The horse can't see and neither can the groom - she's getting a bit edgy already |
Especially for the
horse who had been half asleep and then this guy wants a pony ride which is
fine then WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING WITH THIS NOISE AND ALL THESE CRAZY
PEOPLE!!!! So she did a bit of a dance of her own which unnerved the handler
who gripped her bridle tighter and someone else jumped on the other side and
gripped the other side of her bridle – so now she couldn’t see whats in front
of her and men were holding her head so tight – poor girl. All she could do is
chew her bit furiously. She must have been very quiet in spite of all of this –
my horse would have been at Kuta Beach by now. The pace the dancers were going
was so slow she couldn’t even walk properly so she therefore got a bit uptight.
The groom was wearing this veil thing over his face so he couldn’t see properly
either.
I watched with ever
growing interest.
When the party and the
horse got near us, there were 2 tourists sitting in front of us on beach
chairs. It was here that the pony had had enough of all this noise - that had increased 10 fold since they
were close to the chapel. Lots more family and friends had joined in the
celebration, noisily, jumping up and down,. They also had parasols which they
enthusiastically pumped up and down in front of the horse. At this point she
started to put her haunches under her. Seeing this I quickly advised the folk
in front that the horse was about to go nuts and to get out of their chairs.
They did at once. The horse did a quarter rear and went backwards nearly
tripping over the chairs at which point the groom got off and then the horse
did a big poo right there.
Now when on holidays
was there ever such excitement?
A staff member was
quickly despatched with a dustpan and broom – (he needed a shovel) to get rid
of the mess. It was 5 seconds after he finished furiously sweeping that she did
a great big wee which flooded the path in a great big puddle!
We waited and waited
for the bride but we were cold and she didn’t seem in a hurry to meet her
groom. Greg said he would have given up by now and gone home. Anyway we did
give up and go back to our balcony where I could just see what was going on. In
any case the horse had gone and the sun was setting.
The wedding scene was so pretty as they had torches and
candles everywhere.
We settled in for a
happy hour with our own grog and started the discussion of where to go for dinner.
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