The Wedding

I had slept at A Nongs place that night, but as wedding guests poured in, many of them family, of course, I moved in with Arno at the guest house. I had made the decision while already on the way there to pick him up for some breakfast and had left my bag at A Nongs place for the time being. She joined us, as we had a look around town a bit and then relaxed at the junction of the Mekong and Khan River. A little bar was set up on a cliff above the two rivers with relaxing chairs and a great view. Below, there was some young Lao fishing with a net and a long bamboo stick. One would lay the net, the other would beat the water to drive the fish towards the net. They didn't seem very successful and I got the impression, that fishing that river was not much lucrative. Maybe not anymore.






Late afternoon the celebrations were to start and I wanted to pick up my bag to really move in with Arno. That was a problem. A Nong had to go some other places and wasn't returning to her place at the moment. She had the key and so I was unable to get to my stuff. I agreed to meet an hour later at her place but I had a bad feeling about it. A good hour later, I called her and found, after she finally picked up that she was still not home.

A Nong had me wait another hour and then meet her at her place. Thoughtfully, I called her again, before going over there an hour later. She was just finishing to dress, she told me. Very well, I thought, she'd be home then and drove over to her house. Surprisingly, she wasn't there and noone knew, where she could be. Everyone told me to just call her, but she wouldn't pick up her phone. At least, Arno was having fun watching me hunt for my stuff. I might have enjoyed it myself, if it wouldn't have been so annoying.

Just as I was about to leave, she came walking down the driveway and first thing I did was make her get open her room so I could get to my bag. Then we went for some pizza and The Hive Cafe, supposedly recommended by Arno's Lonely Planet. The pizza wasn't that bad, but it wasn't good either and they were calling high prices. On the other hand, the place was well designed and just plain cool, a good place to chill for all those well-off white holiday makers the town had so plentyful of. I had to realize, how drastically my standards and views seemed to be different. They had been before in some ways, but since coming to Asia I had altered them even more. To me, this wasn't Laos, but there would be worse places to come.

After chilling at The Hive we went to look at the party at A Nongs house. It was a rather normal family gathering and we felt somewhat displaced. A band was playing and turned so loud, conversation was impossible. We sat out a curteousy period and then left. It was late and there was only one place left to go, the bowling alley. When we got there, we realized our mistake. We were just not up to meeting a bunch of drunkards. Everyone seemed to go over the top and I just couldn't relate. We had a drink, anyway, and then went to bed.

A Nong had told us the wedding family party would start around 8 am. Even though I couldn't believe it, we set the alarm to 7:30. It woke us and neither I nor Arno felt like getting up, so I gave A Nong a call to see if that was right. She was still asleep herself and we quickly agreed upon 10 am being a better time.

I called again, before we went to A Nong's house and now she was awaiting us already. We arrived there minutes later and found a lot of family sitting around an improvised party space in front of the house. A good number of garden tables and chairs had been prepared for the many guests expected, food and drinks were served plentiful and a band was playing awfully loud, Asian style. There was not a chance for conversation. A Nong was busy with the guests and Arno and I were more or less left to ourselves sitting next to some women we didn't really share any language with.


We managed somehow to stay until about 1 p.m. before we stole away to visit the National Museum, the former king's residence. We took our time and had no intention to return to the party quickly, so after we had seen the exhibition, we returned to our guest house. A Nong rang me a while later as she had seen the car parked in front of the guest house. I had her come over and we went for some fruitshakes on the river shore. After, Arno had some gift shopping to do, so we all went to the night market looking for a bargain before the girls left to get dressed for the official wedding party.

We had made a date with A Nong to pick her up, but as I had learned by now, it was best to call her. She wouldn't pick up. I wondered. Finally, we decided to go to her place to find her, but she wasn't there. Everyone had left already and we had no idea where the party location was. Our only clue was our invitation card, completely written in Lao, and a stamp "Batminton Club" on the front of the envelope. We decided to give it a shot to try and find it ourselves.

A 20 minute drive through town and lots of asking around we arrived at the location. There was no doubt we had found the place as soon as we saw it. Hundreds of guests were pouring in, waiting in front or trying to find a decent spot to park their vehicles. Fortunate as ever in that matter, I pulled into a spot nearby the entrance and went walking towards it still trying to get A Nong on the phone. A few steps later, I felt the ground beneath me disappear and found myself stuck in a gap in the sidewalk a moment later. I had disappeared completely up to the belt, one leg still sticking out with the knee that I had bumped rather hard. Arno was cracking up. I wasn't. Still, nothing serious had happend, the whole thing was really rather amusing.

We couldn't decide wether to go in on our own, yet. A Nong still didn't answer her phone and so we decided to just go for it. Just as we approached the entrance, my phone rang with A Nong on the line. She wondered were we were and was quite surprised we had found the place. She'd be over soon, so we stood waiting again. Fifteen minutes turned into half an hour before she came, but we had expected nothing else. We put our wedding gift into the envelope and went in. The newlyweds stood in line with their closest family leading from the front gate to the door to the big party room. We greeted them all with the traditional wai. Some of the men shook our hands western style somehow acknowledging our farang origin.

Once inside the room, we quickly melted into the huge crowd of guests and found a table quite close to the stage, where again the band was playing that had entertained the family party before. Each table had a set of food and drink and additionally Beerlao was served. Neither I nor Arno were much of a beer drinker, so we refused. I managed a bit later to have A Nong organize a bottle of Black Label for our table and enjoyed a drink or two after finishing off all the dried pork and pork filled omelette. Good food was sort of a scarcity in Lao, but these two dishes really did it for me. With drinking, eating, a lot of small talk and traditional Lao dancing, the evening was gone quickly. We left well after midnight to continue a little more private partying with the girls in our rooms.


We got up late in the morning and had a relaxed breakfast in town. Neither Arno nor I felt really good. I had a sore throat, Arno problems in the bathroom. It was about midday, when we finally checked out and drove off. A stop at the post office, to send Arno's post cards, took even more time, as it was closed and Arno went down the main street to find some stamps in the shops. After that, we were finally good to go and started down an everwinding road towards the route no. 7 that would lead to the Plain of Jars.