So whenever I head out with Tu, there is no telling what we will do, or what will happen. And Sunday night was no different. Tu asked us if Jenny and I would like to go to dinner with her. Of course we said yes. When she picked us up, we thought we knew where we were going, but sadly, and as usual in Thailand, we had no clue. We asked, and she started talking about Kanchanaburi. Huh? Then she began to talk about weddings and asked us how to say bride and groom in English. Was this another random conversation she wanted to have? Apparently not. We ended up pulling into this park that had lanterns and neon lights, and a large stage. Jenny and I were at a wedding of one of her former students.
Even though we protested as soon as we parked and got out of the car since we were no way near properly dressed for a wedding (I was in my tie-dye tshirt, a pair of jeans, and my sanuks), Tu and Ning, the other teacher we were with, insisted we were ok. And in we went. We were immediately taken to greet the bride and groom. We took pictures with them, and received wedding favors (an engraved cup with their names I didn't know). RIDICULOUSLY AWKWARD! We were then taken to a table where we sat with friends of Tu among at least a thousand individuals. There were that many round tables there. Good thing though we were not the only ones dressed casually. Phew…. So we sat at the table, drank some soda as Tu chatted in Thai. 15 minutes later we got up to leave. OMG!!! Jenny and I just crashed a Thai wedding. This is beyond hilarious. We got back into the car still laughing when we realized what we just did. After making an appearance at the wedding, I thought we were now going to dinner, but Tu was driving towards Kanchanaburi. Where were we going next? No idea of course.
An hour later we were at a really nice hotel and when I asked, we were going to another wedding. Seriously? Two weddings in one night? So we were crashing another, but this one we sat down and actually ate dinner as we listened to speeches from the mother and father of the bride (or so I think). This was another large wedding, but there was probably only 500 people (hotel occupancy regulation most likely). We met some nice people at our table, and one couple was actually able to speak to me in Cantonese, not Mandarin! Oh and dinner was delicious as they kept bringing us more and more food.
When we left, we learned that the actual wedding ceremony is held in a Buddhist temple, which is followed by a reception very similar to that of an American reception with toasts, speeches, cake cutting, and kids running around, later on for anyone and all to attend. I never thought I'd attend a Thai wedding least of all two in one night… it is definitely one of those randoms I am appreciating as I'm here…
After we left the second wedding, Tu said we were going to go see the bridge over the River Kwae. We attempted to explain that we had already seen it during orientation week and we didn’t really need to see it again, but we got the night tour of Kanchanaburi and ended up at the River Kwai bridge week celebration to see this "light and sound" thing. It was actually a big festival (of course it was) which celebrated the end of WWII in Thailand. The bridge was light up. There was live local bands and a huge market. We walked around, enjoyed the celebration, and didn't get home until bout midnight. Yay for outings with Tu!
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