Get Some

For the weekend, I ended up going south with Ben and Huyen for a wedding. We got back last night, and again, I'm happy to just be alive. The road there wasn't to bad (although I ended up side-swiping some lady on a scooter as she stood in the middle of the busy street; the only damage done was her purse strap got busted, but she flat out refused any money from me) The road back was pretty nuts though; just when I thought traffic couldn't get any crazier, I drove on Vietnam's highways at night. I hate to keep writing about the traffic here, but it really is a big deal, partly because you feel like getting off a very long and very unsafe roller coaster ride when your done getting somewhere. I am feeling a lot more comfortable in it, but I'm still trying to keep my guard up when I'm on the road. Last night required me to be as focused as freaking humanly possible; just when I think I'm doing a great job of avoiding oncoming eighteen-wheelers, (who consideratly lay on their horns when they barrel through into the opposite lane, you know, for safety) unlit bicycles, random pedestrians wearing all black, and the occasional farm animal and mad-max vehicles, I ran over a fucking pair of boots and nearly lost control. It was then I think I started to laugh manically, screaming "Bring it on motherfuckers! Get some, get some!!!" or something like that.

The wedding was for Huyen's cousin, which took place about two hours outside of Hanoi. It was in a small city I think called called Nam Dinh. I have a little over a week left here, but I'm pretty sure nothing is going to top this. We drove in before noon, and immediately went into the home of Huyen's aunt and uncle, the parents of her cousin, which was filled with at least 50 or so people crammed into a relatively small space. After changing intonice clothes, we quickly were brought to a table, among a half dozen, and sat down with Huyen's father, sisters, and their respective husbands. They spoke about as much English as we did Vietnamese, but somehow, the whole thing was great, start to finish. There was a whole bunch of food in the middle, which was all amazing. Huyen and her sister Hoai(?) thought it was really funny if they kept piling food onto me and Ben's plate, since once it's there, it's considered rude in Vietnamese not to eat it. Since we neither know more than half dozen words in each other's language, I had to eventually motioned to Hoai that I'm full; without skipping a beat she replies, in English, "I don't think so!" During this period of about two hours, we ate more food than probably an entire Viet Cong regiment ever did in a year, all the while drinking beer after beer with different relatives, who Huyen admited knowing the names of only about two-thirds of. It really didn't matter, and several times, we would do this toast that basically was the Vietnamese equivalent of yelling "chug! chug!" Everyone raises their glasses, yell something like "Mo Tran, Fun Tran"(which translates into "100 perecnt" in Vietnamese," and then you have to slam an entire beer, lest you be judged as less of a man by everyone at the table, a fate assigned to one of Huyen's uncles who spent a good five minutes getting laughed at by the people next to us after he only finished half of his. By the way, women DO NOT drink alcohol here, or seldom do; so all these toasts and alcohol rituals involve men. The same, bizarrely, goes with tea as well. After somehow getting over the abject injustice and sexism of this, we went out to town for some coffee (iced, sweet, and ridiculously strong) then took part of a wedding parade through the city, which involved the couple getting their picture taken in front of a MASSIVE communist-style statue of some old Vietnamese King in a large square. It was after all this that the first half of the actual ceremony started back at Huyen's cousin's house, which was as confusing as it was great. Huyen's father skillfully shared MC duties with some other guy, both of whom talked very animatedly into a microphone that had this ridiculous echo effect on, making them sound like they were doing play-by-play at a monster truck rally. Oh, and all of this was done to a soundtrack of 90's Euro club music, which were remixes of American Christmas music, like Frosty the Snowman and that Boy George "Last Christmas" song. And Feliz Navidad too. Apperently, this is not done unknowingly. They love Christmas in Vietnam

So, a lot of people kinda seemed to go in and out of the whole ceremony, and Huyen kept saying "Oh, this is a very important part" about every two minutes, without much more explanation then that. It didn't seemed like it made much sense to ask exactly what was happening; I got the gist of it. Two people get married, everyone else gets drunk, some crazy shit happens with some kind of ceremony, and everyone is having an ungodly amount of fun. (Except for the groom, who looked pissed as all hell; it may have just been the nerves) Ben was assigned photography duty, since my camera's battery died, although I did get some good shots with my old Nikon film camera. (yeah, you heard right) They had the second half of the ceremony in another part of the city, in what I gathered was the groom's house, where it was another bizarre "echo-effects-and-Christmas-disco-happy-super-fantastic-fun-bash." (Ben joked that they were doing the starting line-up for the Lakers) They exchanged rings, with people barely paying attention, talking with each other more than anything. Next thing we know, boom, it's done, and we changed and went on our way home.

While we were there, we were able to get in some sights. Before we checked in at the Hotel, which was in a neighboring city of Ninh Dinh, we checked out the site of what will be the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia called Bai Dinh. To get there, you get off the main highway, and you drive through this brand spanking new four lane highway which has practically zero traffic, a welcome sight as well as an opportunity to see how fast the motor bikes can really go. (I got her up to about a whopping 75 kilometers an hour, about 47 mph; I stopped after two seconds, when it felt like she was about to fall apart) The road goes through probably some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, lush green flat land, covered in these massive limestone rock formations, which look like large, vertical, bubble like mountains, each separated from one another. The temple complex itself lays after about a twenty minute drive on this road, and was in the process of being constructed, so you basically were going up a dirt road along a hill, littered with construction supplies. One temple was mostly done, a huge building with three huge "gold" Buddhas. We left after it got dark, and headed to Ninh Binh, where we had a great zoo dinner of squid, frog, goat, and buffalo. I tried going later that night, after old man Ben August put in his old man hat and slippers and retired for the evening at about ten, but the only bar I was aware of was closed. I had a beer at the Hotel, next to a group of British tourists in their twenties. One of the people that worked at the Hotel (who seemed to do every staff position there) seemed to like them a lot and tried to talk to them and I think even got them free beer; They ignored him, and just kept talking about their favorite clubs back Liverpool.

Before the wedding, on Sunday, we went out to Tam Coc, which they called an "inland Halong Bay." Tam Coc essentially is those large limestone mountains, but with a large river-like grotto running through it. You travel through here via row boat, which are hired through an office. It takes about an hour and half for the whole tour, which goes through three massive caves, with just barely enough head room to sit up in the boat. Some rowers (unfortunately not ours) row with their feet, which frees up their hands to do things like smoke a cigarette or whittle something up out of a wooden stick with a bowie knife. After that, wedding, then after that we headed out to Huyen's family home, which was in a small village called Ha Nam. There, we ate dinner with her parents, brother, one of her sisters and her fiance. Again, barely an understood word between us, but they were very hospitable and nice, and I had a great time nonetheless. After that, the two hour maddening hell-nightmare road trip back to Hanoi, where I had to unwind with a bottle of beer and a bucket of snails next to Ben house.