(PICTURE: The newlywed.)
First off, a big congratulations to my friend and former Vietnamese teacher Linh on getting married. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to celebrate with her and here's why:
At some point around the second week of our trip, I sent Linh a message saying, "I'm going to be in your hometown soon. Can I say hi to your family?" Linh wrote me back saying, "I'm getting married in my hometown on April 26th. Can you come?" I texted Linh asking where exactly her wedding was going to be and she wrote back "in my hometown." I was 99% sure that Linh's hometown was Buon Ma Tuot which we weren't planning on being in until about April 30th. However, I didn't want to miss Linh's wedding so we altered our plans, did a little more driving every day and got to Buon Me Tuot on April 22nd. Great, right?! Yeah, not so much. When we were in Pleiku, the city before Buon Me Tuot, Linh sent me an email with the exact address of the wedding....which was in Pleiku, her real hometown.
I'm an absolute moron because I mixed up my two first Vietnamese friends, Linh and Hien's hometowns. This meant we were in Linh's hometown five days before her wedding. The problem now was we had just done a whirlwind tour of Pleiku and there was basically nothing left to see which meant five days of sitting around waiting for the wedding. Furthermore, I learned of my geography mistake about four hours after my MOST BIZARRE DAY IN VIETNAM had come to a close. The details of that day will be the subject of the next few blog entries.
Sadly we weren't gonna be able to join Linh's wedding. Instead, we went to her father's shop and dropped of a present. So here's a tip people: Find out exactly where your friends' weddings are before you drive like a madman to get to them!
