72 Hours In an Isan Village, The Funeral, $15 Hotel, Everything Was Different There..

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hey, what's up guys? It's Greenie. I just got back from Isan from my girlfriend's dad's funeral. And uh she actually wanted me to make a video about it. So, we'll get into that. Uh take you guys with me to Isan, show you what a Thai funeral is like. We'll go all through that. Just a little channel update. I had been putting uh some of my police uh body cam reaction videos on this channel. Well, I I decided I'm splitting everything up. So, all those videos going forward will be on my other channel. The last rant, I will put a link in the description if you want to follow that channel, but I'm going to start putting them on that channel. I guess I got to keep things separated.

[00:00:41]It's I think the YouTube algorithm is just getting way too confused. Like, I I I just don't get it. But anyways, let's get into uh my trip to Esan and the funeral. At the end of the video, I'm going to lay out the costs and give you guys basically all the information about um a funeral of any today. I'll be having the breakfast of champions.

[00:01:06]Drives me nuts. I'm at Suanapun airport and when you're going domestic and you go through the security, there's no restaurants or anything. You got a couple little kiosks with little snacks, cheap machine coffee. Nothing good.

[00:01:23]Well, I'm heading on a little trip heading to Isan. Uh going to Cisette. My girlfriend's dad unfortunately passed away. I'm going to head out there for the funeral 3 days. I'm a little concerned because not many hotels or anything in the area there where this is. And she booked me uh something. It's uh she said 500 bot a night. She said it's really nice. A home stay. So this is the first time I've ever went to a hotel or stayed anywhere where I didn't book it myself where I haven't seen it.

[00:01:57]It's just there's not many choices there. So I'll show you guys I'll show you guys what's happening there.

[00:02:05][music] I've arrived in her village and uh literally this home stays right here in the village.

[00:02:27]Oh, this looks nice. Have uh Oh, wow.

[00:02:31]You stayed here before.

[00:02:33]>> You know why I haven't stay there? I have curl. Oh, is that your lot your property there or down street more?

[00:02:41]Huh?

[00:02:44]>> Give you guys a little tour of the place. 15 bucks a night. 500 bot. I would say this is probably the least expensive hotel I've ever stayed in. One other time I paid actually a little less than this. It was 400 bot a night to stay in a bamboo bungalow in Pie. But uh it's the only game in town. I got no other choice, you know, where I got to be this funeral. And I'll tell you guys about it. These funerals up here in Isan are quite different than other funerals in Thailand and definitely, you know, far different than a funeral in America or places like that. But and I'll tell you what they just did for me, like while Rooney was so worried that this bed is so hard. Like now I have like three layers of like I don't know pads and different type of blankets underneath there. But if you were to sleep just tie style on the mattress itself, it's a board. It's hard as a board. But they hooked me up with some extra cushion here. The room's super clean. I mean, it's a nice little room. The only thing that's kind of a little weird here is you don't flush the toilet here. You got to do it Tai style here. Take the water. I'll show you.

[00:04:01]And uh just flush the toilet like that.

[00:04:07]There's the shower. You get the heater in there.

[00:04:11]And this is the bathroom. Just a tiny little tiny little bungalow here. You guys uh ever stay in a room like this?

[00:04:19]The last hotel I just stayed in was uh a five-star hotel on Ko Chang. And uh now I'm staying in a local homestead.

[00:04:28]Quite different. Quite quite a bit different. But you know what? As long as I sleep good, the air conditioning feels real good. And hopefully I'll get some sleep. I mean, there's nothing going on here. Just uh two, three days at a funeral and that's it for me. So, we'll head over there. I'll tell you guys about that a little bit.

[00:04:50][laughter] Look at all this pork here.

[00:05:01]So, we got the ladies chopping some pork here.

[00:05:06]Not sure what's going on here.

[00:05:10]Giant walks. Every dog in the village has found its way over here.

[00:05:17]Okay.

[00:05:19]And then you got the guys chopping more pork over here. You got every dog over here. What are you doing on my way to the funeral and the funeral's at the house? Well, it starts at the house and then I think there's going to be some sort of parade taking Wun's dad to the temple, like a procession. I think we're going to be walking. Um, I'll tell you guys all about it, but I got to tell you one thing I really do like about how they do things here is just the community. I mean, the whole community comes together. It seems like the whole village is at the house for the funeral.

[00:06:09]And they do things a little differently here. Like they they have the first three days after a person dies, they they keep the body at the house. I'll tell you about that. I'll tell you how it kind of goes. It's kind of interesting. Um but I mean, I guess everybody chips in to help with the funeral. Whenever somebody dies in the village, everybody's kind of required, I guess, to chip in. And uh everybody comes at a full pig like uh over 400 lb for the over 400 lb uh pig at that waruni bought. I'll give you a breakdown of some of the prices and how much things cost for this type of thing. But uh I guess funerals are a lot different in Isan than they are in Bangkok and some other parts of Thailand. And >> [music] >> So, as I was saying, the whole village came together. You can see all these tents, chairs, everything like this.

[00:10:15]They have storage here in the village and whenever somebody has a funeral or something like that, they just go get the stuff and it doesn't cost anything.

[00:10:23]You just sign all the stuff up and people in the village help you transport it and put it together. And it was all the neighbors here at the funeral and uh just nothing like I'm used to from America as far as community. You know, community the places where I live just never come together. I mean, it's just transient. You know, you got people coming and going, moving in, moving out.

[00:10:45]But here, these people, these families have lived here for decades, decades.

[00:10:50]Everybody knows each other or knows each other's families, you know, and the kids always coming back. I mean, um, you know, like Wuni, she's just used to like Bangkok or Smupan, you know, kind of city living, but she tells me she would still just love to come back here and, you know, have a farm, raise chickens, and whatever. You know, it's just uh when you grow up this way, you know, and in a farm, nature, just the easy life, just just things are slow here. Things are very slow and uh it's nice. It definitely seems far less stressful than than, you know, the fast pace of a big city. Although I like the fast pace of a big city. Back in Bangkok after several days in Isan, what an experience. I've been there before for like a day or two, you know. I went we went for one day to visit her dad a long time ago and uh but I've never stayed there before and it was okay. You know, I could I could do that. You know, I wouldn't want to, but if I had to, I could I could live in an area like that.

[00:11:57]You know, it's a little different. It's rustic. It's rural, but uh whatever. You got to do whatever you got to do.

[00:12:05]So, just some final thoughts and uh some final information about the funeral. And initially, I wasn't going to make a video, but Rooney's like, "Are you going to make a video uh vlog my dad's uh funeral?" And I'm like, "I didn't plan on it." You know, I didn't know if that's something, you know, you make a video about, but she's like, "No, you should make a video. I want people to see, you know, our culture and what it's like." So, I'm like, "All right." So the way the funerals work there is when somebody passes away in Isan and she said it's similar in like Chiang Mai changing Rai they don't take the body to the temple at least in her village they keep it at the house so for three 3 days the body stays at the house and they give them this refrigerated or freezer I'm not I'm not sure if it was just refrigeration or freezer but the casket gets actually you know hooked up plugged in and and you know it's keeping the body cool. Unlike, you know, some cultures in balm, some cultures just bury the person right away, you know, within 24 hours. This one they keep it keep the body on ice for 3 days while they do ceremonies at the house. And every day the monks come and do the chanting and prayers uh for three days.

[00:13:21]Then on the fourth day, they take the body to the temple for the actual funeral. And it's this whole long uh like parade like a procession. But once they get to the temple, then they have a ceremony and then they burn the body. They cremate the body and and uh these fireworks that are going off here.

[00:13:43]That means that uh the body is being cremated at that time.

[00:14:10]So while they're doing this, one of the members of the family, like the son or grandson, they can be a monk, I guess, or I I'm not really I didn't get a good explanation, but while Rooney's son, he He wanted to do that. So he became a monk for a week. He stayed in the temple. He shaved his head. He wore the monk garb and uh you know sat with the monks and did everything that the monks did for the full ceremony. Apparently he wanted to do that to honor his uh his grandfather. Um now I had to leave. They were supposed to get the ashes back the next day and they made like this little house for the ashes and uh have the last day of tomb and then take the ashes to the the crypt or whatever at the cemetery. And uh uh they extend they ended up pushing this back a day. So it was past when my flight was. So I missed that part of it.

[00:15:04]Apparently for the tambouron the the ceremony that they do uh before they take the body. Uh while Rudy went and bought like new clothes, shoes, pants, a whole outfit, a bag for her dad to take all his belongings and they they put that with the uh ashes in this little house that they made. Now that doesn't go in the crypt with them. Um so overall, I think like 5 6 days the total thing was with the monks coming every day and uh a Thai funeral is much more costly than what I thought it was.

[00:15:35]an Nissan funeral. You know, I didn't think it would cost too much money at all, but um they uh I over 100,000 bot, you know, she had a they got a pig, like a 220 kilo pig or something and chopping up and they they cooked all the food for uh the 3-day um you know, morning period.

[00:15:58]Um that was about 13,000 bot to rent uh the refrigerated uh casket. That was 13,000 bot. So you're looking at 26 there. Every day they're giving gifts.

[00:16:10]They're giving money and envelopes to the monks for they call tambon like um like prayers um just charity to give to the monks. I'm not really I don't know how to explain it but they call it tambon. It's you know so it gets costly you know. Then they do the the the the um temple you got to give money for that. they give uh money to the cemetery to have the crypt. It could be anywhere between like four and 20,000 bot for that. Um so so the costs the costs go up and up and up, you know. It's uh it's not cheap. Now it's weird like people do give, you know, donations, you know. Um the the village, they all step up and and and put a pot together and and donate to everybody that has a funeral, everybody that dies in the village, they put money towards towards all this.

[00:17:01]Also, they have uh her dad had some life insurance. Now, it's nothing like what we would think of, like, you know, tens or hundreds of thousands, maybe a million. We're talking a couple thousand dollars maybe, you know. So, but it's crazy how they do money here. They always want to show the money in in the Thai culture. Like at the funeral, literally right there, they hand it like a giant check like it's publishers clearing house to Wun's mom or whatever.

[00:17:28]for like I think it said like 120,000 bot or something like that you know but you know usually like in western culture you like to keep your finances private everything here everything's public you know people they they love to ask how much do you make how much this you know it's it's it's weird um weird like that not to go off on a tangent but my friend Charles he was telling me that his his girlfriend started a new job and like co-employees all asking like well how much do you make what did they start you like you know I don't know Western western world they keep things private.

[00:18:00]I think she did too. I don't think she uh was comfortable with telling everybody your business. But just a little odd. But now going forward there will be times where they will take like snacks or drinks or different things to um the cry to to uh her father. Uh I think her mother will take things and and I don't know how long this will go on for maybe a year uh where they take offerings for uh her father. you know, different type of culture, different I know um you know, in the west they do uh you know, when my mom died, they had all these things uh cuz she was remarried and they did different things. I don't I just I'm a bad person. I don't I'm not too into religion or or traditions or um any of that type of stuff. So, I don't I don't I don't get involved with any of that. I just any type of traditions or that type of stuff. But anyways, all right. Just a little insight on a Thai funeral. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it.

[00:18:58]Uh, catch you guys in the next video.

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