/ 26 January 2006

Creepy couple plan on tying the knot on Valentine’s Day

It was love at first sight for Thailand’s Scorpion Queen and Centipede King.

The couple with a soft spot for creepy crawlers — and publicity stunts — are planning a Valentine’s Day’s wedding at a haunted house, and to consummate their vows in a coffin.

Kanchana Ketkaew (36) who set a world record in 2002 for spending 32 days in a glass cage with 3 000 scorpions, plans to wed 29-year-old Bunthawee Siengwong — who set a Thai record for enduring 28 days with 1 000 centipedes.

Kanchana’s world record was beaten in 2004.

The couple met while performing their respective stunts at a snake farm on the resort island of Koh Samui, said Somporn Naksuetrong, the general manager of the Thailand’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, which is sponsoring the wedding.

The couple will tie the knot on Februaury 14 in a group ceremony dubbed ”Til Death Do Us Part” at Ripley’s Haunted Adventure House, in the southern resort town of Pattaya, 80km south of Bangkok.

They will wear bloodstained wedding clothes and partake in a traditional Thai ceremony in which elders bless the couple with holy water, Somporn said. But instead of following Thai tradition and heading to a ”wedding room” after exchanging vows, the pair plan to climb into a coffin to consummate their union. – Sapa-AP