Best Meeting Ever??

The plan on Tuesday was a full-day meeting on Sustainable Tourism in the MaeTaeng District. It is a topic I"m really interested in, but I also knew it would be all in Thai, so I wasn't expecting anything exciting.... Turns out their definition of "meeting" here is quite different than the American version.....

We had a quick discussion on what the website should look like, then ate a fanatastic lunch together. After lunch, we took a long-boat ride to a floating house in the middle of a huge lake surrounded my mountains.

After another 30-minute conversation about nothing important, trays and trays of food came out and were placed in front of us. I was confused because we had just eaten lunch not even 2 hours ago... but the food kept coming. Then someone busted out 2 cases of Leo (a Thai beer) and another full case of whiskey.... This was all before 3pm.

After a little bit of eating and drinking, any more discussion of Sustainable Tourism was clearly closed. Someone turned on kareoke at the other end of the table, and then another round of food was brought out. It was like Thanksgiving.... but on an island-house in Thailand with government officials, pretending to have a meeting. The Nayok sitting by me took a liking to me and made sure there was always a Leo in my hand, clinking glasses with me every 5 minutes.

Here's a view from our table.

oH... and GUESS WHO'S A KAREOKE FIEND? MY BOSS.

Nayok Satyien... a friendly but distant man, usually found in a suit, talking on his cell phone or meeting with important people, was the first and last to kareoke at our s0-called meeting.

We drank and kareoked until dark, then took a long-boat ride back to mainland under the stars, and ... as if we hadn't drank and eaten enough that day.... Nayok took us to a bar to get snacks and more drinks. Needless to say... I love my job.