I got engaged twice last week in Thailand. The first time was on Friday and very western: I popped the question to Yui on the fourth floor of the Paragon mall in downtown Bangkok outside the Starbucks - I knelt down and gave her a ring that I had just bought near the Jim Thompson House. She said yes and that was it - we were engaged.

The second time was on Saturday and involved her entire family in Ratchaburi with the addition of nine Buddhist monks and took place at exactly 9:09 a.m. on the 19th of April. The whole event took half a day and seemed like a wedding. Twine was strung up around Yui's Grandmother's house to act as a kind of spiritual antenna. We celebrated Yui's ancestors and Songkran, the Thai new year. We ate some great food and downed a bottle of 10 year old Laphoaig. It was an awesome day.