The Dinner By The River

We're Engaged!!! Okay, so we all knew it would happen sooner or later, but Vientiane provided the perfect setting. We are both very excited and have used our time in Vientiane to enjoy a little western spoiling and do some shopping. It is the Capital of Laos but still feels like a small town. Sejal's Story: A few days ago, I woke up feeling really ill. I was vomiting and having other stomach issues and didn't feel like leaving the toilet for the day. Joe, being the good nurse that he is, brought me some food and medicine and then took off again saying he needed to call his parents and check e-mail. Little did I know that he went all over Vientiane to all the jewelry stores shopping for a ring. He had been checking around behind my back the whole trip so he had a good idea what to look for. He also bought five hundred candles from the market and arranged food for the big night with a French chef. The next day, he told me he wanted to spoil me since I was sick and bring me to a nicer hotel where we can relax and watch movies in the evening. Something we have both been missing while traveling is watching western movies together. But normally, spoiling ourselves is staying at a $7/night room with TV and air-con. Instead, we packed up and left our $4/night room and moved to a five-star hotel with a swimming pool and a spa. We spent the day swimming in the pool and then before sunset, Joe said he had to leave once again and made more excuses for his departure. It took him two hours to return and I was shocked to see him dripping wet and covered with mud with a look of disappointment on his face. Here's Joe's story: Vientiane is set along the Mekong river and in the dry season a sandy island appears in the middle of the river. After leaving Sejal to enjoy the sauna, I went back to our guesthouse to retrieve the candles that they had hid for me. I took them to the riverfront and found a vendor who was willing to lend me a table and chairs for a few hours. Since they spoke little English it was not an easy request to explain. Then I took the table down the riverbank and waved over a fisherman who was setting his nets. He spoke no English so I used hand signals to ask him to bring me over to the island. I had to wait for about 40 minutes for him to finish setting his nets and then he picked me up with the table and chairs and brought me over. When we got there I explained that I wanted the canoe for the evening. It was very hard to explain what I wanted, but he seemed to agree. He had one last net to set so I asked him to return and pick me up when he finished...he nodded and left. I set up the table and chairs in a nice sandy part of the large island. Then I put on a table cloth and surrounded the table with candles. Nearby in the sand I wrote "Sejal, will you marry me?" in huge letters and lined them with 500 candles. Happy with my accomplishment I headed back to the riverside. When I got there the fisherman was nowhere in sight. It was dark by this time and I searched around the Island in hopes of finding my ride, but he was gone. I knew Sejal would be wondering where I was, so with my backpack on my head and balancing it with 1 hand I swam across the muddy water of the Mekong. On the way I managed to break my shoe and collected gobs of mud. Back on the mainland I looked around for another boat and found some tied to a dock nearby. I decided to go back for Sejal and "borrow" one of these. I walked up with riverbank and past the food vendor the I had borrowed the table from. As I passed she asked me where her table was and I explained about the fisherman. She was a little upset and yelled at me to go retrieve her table. I explained that I would be back in 30 min and would get it then and I jumped in a Tuk-Tuk to the hotel. Back to Sejal's story: When Joe returned to the hotel and I demanded to know what had happened to him, he explained to me his plan of a romantic night on the island leaving out the important details. Since we had no ride to the island, he had come up with another plan to "take" one of the half-sunken canoes from the dock, bail out the water and paddle to the island ourselves. I thought it was a crazy idea, but I was so flattered and I thought, hey, it will be an adventure. So we returned back to the riverside, slipping and sliding in thick mud down to the dock. When we got there, we found two people on their mopeds waiting there. We didn't want to look like we were stealing (even though we were), so we asked them if the canoes belonged to them and if we could take one to the island. They said no and showed us the canoes were all chained to the dock. There went plan B. But then a man approached us and asked us, "Table, table?" and pointed to the island. He then told us to follow him to another part of the riverbank where the street vendor lady was sitting with her table and chairs and a man in soaking wet clothes. The man in the wet clothes told us that he went swimming to fetch the table and chairs. We felt terrible about it, but the man looked amused about the whole situation. We offered to buy him a beer or dinner, anything to redeem ourselves, but he laughed and said no. All the street vendor requested was $2. We gratefully paid her $4. The rest of the night turned out nice. With no idea of Joe's true intentions, we picked up the pizza from the French chef and went back to the hotel and spent the evening watching movies and eating pizza. The next day on my request, we checked out of our hotel and went back to our $4 per night guest house. We hired bikes and rode around town and then in the evening, I had a craving for Lao food. During sunset, food vendors set up stalls and tables along the river so we decided to have a simple Laotian dinner by the river. The food was delicious. The setting was perfect...the stars were out at night and the river was so peaceful as we enjoyed our dinner by candle light. It was one of those simple and perfect moments that had made this trip so special. Joe took this perfect moment to get down on one knee. I was so happy and excited, and of course I said yes!!! So now we are engaged!!!

 

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