Just Another Dinner – November 2

On the second day of our Mekong River Tour, our guide just dropped us off at a hotel and told us peace, he was off to visit his girlfriend and he’d see us in the morning (at 6:30am). Armed with a map of restaurants that serve mice and hotel with a discothèque, we hit the town.

But then we had a group argument over whether we should eat western or Vietnamese food. The basis for the argument being that we’ve had a lot of Vietnamese food and it is not filling…and we knew we were going to the discotheque…so in smart, be prepared fashion we thought it’d be best to get a full meal beforehand.

But…you’re only in Vietnam once. Maybe. Or maybe you run away in Costa Rica and return to Vietnam. Who knows.

So we split up and four of us decided to go out for some more local cuisine, leaving the other four to enjoy a night of burgers and tex-mex. Which is right about when we heard 90s dance music blasting from a boat on the river. And noticed throngs of well dressed people crowding onto it. It looked inviting. Plus, I was travelling with two self-proclaimed dancers who just could not pass up the opportunity to bust out their moves and maybe get a few international phone numbers too. (If any girlfriends are reading this: Jonathan was very well behaved.)

The first challenge was the security guard, but we looked straight ahead and followed closely behind two people that looked like they knew what they were doing, so we got past that quite fine. The next challenge though, was overcoming how utterly, utterly out of place we were at…a Vietnamese wedding.

That’s right. Heli, Sheli, Michael, and Jonathan became international wedding crashers. We’re talking table cloths, free food and entertainment. Umm…mazeltof?

We quickly sat down at an unassuming, unoccupied corner table and pondered our situation. But before long, some delicious fried spring-rolls were dropped off at the table, we discovered why the table was unoccupied (right next to the deafeningly loud speakers), and the boat pulled away from the dock. So, cheers to that and two the two people getting married. If you’re reading this, your wedding was a blast. I certainly hope you stayed at the Honeymoon Hotel which was right across from ours.

Here you can fill in with your imagination what we did once we realized that our attendance was secured – unless they felt the need to go all “walk the plank” on us.

The entertainment was a mix of performers and karaoke – we really couldn’t tell. There was certainly no TV with words that singers were reading off of. But they weren’t that good and got up from the crowd to sing. This karaoke was followed by a magician…who had all the charm and moves of a magician…but slightly lacked the magic. Like…I’m pretty sure he just got everything out of the Klutz magician set.

The highlight of the night, I think, was when we were welcomed into the family. This was good for two reasons: it meant that we can now return to Vietnam at anytime to stay with Lihi and, although the food was free, the booze was starting to get expensive. It was nice to have our drinks paid for for the rest of the night.

The way Lihi welcomed us into the family was by having us pass around a chug a rum and coke. (My hangover thanks you, Lihi.) Once we were part of the family (we really failed our second challenge), we were allowed/forced to dance with them all. This got Jonathan and Michael all excited and left me running for cover. Unfortunately, I was the only girl in the group, so I guess that means I’m a pretty hot commodity, and I kept on being dragged back to go dance with somebody’s father.

All in all, a great adventure. And even though it wasn’t a competition, compared to the tex-mex group…we win.