Finally got internet access after an amazing five day journey that encompassed Ben's wedding. We left Hanoi early on the 18th to go to Phu Ly, a city about an hour south, where we stayed one night. Our last day in Hanoi, the 17th was just OK. Me and Mark had decided to find a shampoo massage place, which I'm told is the thing to do here. It's supposed to be an elaborate process that involves a face massage and a couple of people, and lasts about a half hour. The place we got just had one guy washing my hair for a couple minutes, while his buddy kept saying I have pretty hair. After that, we met up with Ben and a whole contingent of people that included some of his family, and we had dinner at a place called Quan An Ngon, where me and Mark coincidentally had lunch earlier. Great place, upscale, but not expensive, it's seemed to be almost entirely filled with Hanoi yuppies rather than tourists. After that, we had drinks at the hidden cafe; I never remember the name of it, but it's the place where you have to go through an alley or clothing shop to get to. I had some brilliant idea of drinking a ton of coffee that day, and got sick at the end of the night and had to go back to the hotel, but my Mom went out with Mark and her friend Jonathan for karaoke, and apparently then to some scummy gay-ish bar located in a barge on the river, which I'm sure Jonathan and Mark were absolutely thrilled to accompany my mom in.
So now the good stuff. Early on the 18th, me, my mom and Mark met with Ben and all his guests that flew in for the wedding for lunch, and afterwards boarded a rented tourist bus to Phu Ly, a small city south of Hanoi. Never felt more like a tourist in my life, sitting pretty aboard a gigantic fuck-all bus haulin' ass down roads flanked by ceaselessly staring locals. The bus became an organism unto itself, a cross between the PT boat in Apocalypse Now and a Carnival cruise ship, a traveling fortress allowing a tiny slice of the United States of America to safely cut through once hostile territory, harboring it's riders from the surrounding thicket of third world.
Our first stop was our hotel, which obviously also housed a jewelry store, karaoke bar and pool hall. After checking in, we then got back on the bus and headed to a nearby village that Huyen either once grew up in, or her parents lived in now. There we had a kind of pre-wedding reception, which included a series of pivotal Vietnamese ceremonies. The first involved me and four other of Ben's single male friends, and we had to exchange gifts and "lucky" money with five of Huyen's single female friends. The gifts were bought for us to give, and they included traditional Vietnamese items like booze, candy, and cartons of cigarettes. They in turn gave us "lucky" money, which we have to keep and never spend for our entire lives, or else we'll get bad luck with relationships. I'm assuming the reason my love life has been such shit for the last 32 years has been because I never got my lucky money, and am kinda pissed at Ben for not holding this wedding waaaay sooner. Thank god that's all in the past now! After our exchange, there was something that involved Ben asking Huyen's father for permission to marry his daughter, and since this was less than 24 hours before the already planned and paid for wedding, Ben was obviously fairly concerned what would happen if he said no. Luckily, Huyen's dad agreed, (he's a really cool guy) and then we had an amazing dinner on the roof of the house where the wedding took place, all of which was washed down with shot after shot of homemade rice wine. Huyen's dad assured us we would not get a hang over because it contained ginseng, which many of Ben's guests seemed to be unfortunately immune from the next morning. That was followed by the traditional Vietnamese super-happy-dance-funtime-techno-karaoke-disco ceremony, which seemed to be completely taken over by the American guests. While the white folk were singing "I Just Called to Say I Love You," the Vietnamese were out back no more than 20 feet away slaughtering chickens for tomorrow's wedding lunch. Somehow, Mark Morgan got roped into plucking feathers off of them. Later that night, we got back to the hotel and went to the karaoke bar below with Mark and my mom, and followed that up with some late night street pho and grilled chicken feet.
Ben and many of the guests in the hotel were hoping to get in some sleep that night before the wedding, but we found out the hard way that just outside our windows was a loudspeaker attached to a telephone pole that conveniently doled out loud Communist propaganda slogans (or something) in Vietnamese. Ben's cousin later claimed that Ben screamed "Ho Chi Minh, shut the fuck up!" from his room, but it seemed that this was information, regardless if true or not, that's best kept hush hush around the locals. The wedding itself took place in the same house as before, but the fact that it started at 10 in the morning didn't mean we had go easy on the rice wine. It definitely had that moonshine taste, but it was still pretty damn good, and since I miraculously didn't have a hang over, (maybe there's something to that ginseng) I definitely threw back a few with some of Huyen's side of the family. The wedding ceremony apparently more Westernized than usual, although Ben and Huyen's parents still used the traditional method of speaking at a Vietnamese wedding, which was through a microphone plugged into a karaoke machine with the monster-truck echo effect on. And while Ben and Huyen engaged in the Jewish tradition of breaking a glass on the floor to end the wedding, the ceremony started with the Vietnamese tradition of kick-ass entrance music, with Huyen and Ben walking down the aisle to a blaring song that sounded almost exactly like the Final Countdown, except more techno-y . It's crazy how unintentionally hip Vietnam can be, since I'm sure there was a wedding in Silverlake happening at the same time that probably did the same exact thing.
Soon after Ben and Huyen officially ceased their unholy life in unmarried sin, we began the next leg of the wedding, a 3 day trek to a remote Vietnamese village. After some shuffling of guests, we finally boarded our tourist bus and headed out again. At 32, I can say I saw my very first legit dead body on the street, a guy who had obviously just been in a horrific motorbike accident. At a distance, he looked like he was just laying in the road, but the look of horror on the faces of onlooking residents, and the fact he wasn't moving at all, made it clear this wasn't pretty. Ben had tried to calmly tell everyone not to look, advise I kinda wished I listened to. His head was flattened like pancake, and brains were spread all about the road, looking like dusty ground pork. Later that night, someone mentioned him, and to cleanse the palate, everyone decided to raise a glass to "that guy." The way the Vietnamese drive, I'm shocked you don't see more accidents like that, and you hope people here start to make changes in the way they look at safety.
We stayed at a hotel in Nimh Binh, a city west of Hanoi. We first checked out Hoa Lu, the remains of the ancient capital of Vietnam. Not much to see, it was filled with extremely aggressive locals hawking crap. One of the mainstays of most tourist spots in Vietnam is this army of locals who carry around low end Nikon DSLR cameras, and try to sell you poorly framed photos of yourself. Most will not bother if they see that you have a camera, but some think, hey, what's the harm in trying. The whole tourist hawking industry seems to hold the adage that there is no behavior too annoying, and that closer you hold a product to someone's face, the more likely they will buy it. At Hao Lu, an Australian couple, Simon and Claire, decided to buy a water from a woman selling various things she carried on her in a small bag. Big mistake, as this suddenly attracted about a half dozen other middle age women, all squealing at them to buy water and peanuts and whatever they happened to be holding in their hands at that time. When Claire took out her wallet and began to count out money for the water, three woman just dove their hands in there and started grabbing at bills. Her husband Simon and Justin, Ben's cousin, started to pull the woman away, and Simon, who looks almost exactly like Colin Firth in A Single Man started to get loud. The whole scene was pretty hairy, but luckily no one lost any Dong, and Claire got her water (I think)
The hotel in Nimh Binh was pretty swanky. They had four stars on their sign, but not quite sure if that was an official rating, or just a nice decorative touch. Either way, it was called the Legend Hotel, brand new, big and empty, just the way I like 'em. We spent a night on the town having goat hot-pot, or lau de, and washed that down with some Tiger beers. The next morning we headed out to an area near Tam Cac, which is where I went last year. This place was I think was called Ho Dong Chuong. It recently opened, and seemed better than Tam Cac, with the same premise; a giant inland lake with massive round cliffs poking out; the whole area being dubbed an inland Halong Bay. Unlike the last time we went, the guy rowing our boat used his feet to work the oars, and even let my Friend J.R. take the reins. With him rowing in the back, and me and mom using auxiliary oars we found at our feet, we got nowhere fast, and our Vietnamese guide had to take over to get us going. We were winded after about 15 minutes, while this motherfucker rowed for two hours without breaking a sweat, although to be fair, he was able to change up to feet or hands when he wanted. After that, we headed to this giant series of Buddhist Poagadas that was in the process of being built called Bai Dinh. It got a little hairy when Ben's mom had decided that we got lost for some reason, and did what any sensible person would do when lost in a foreign country and visiting a holy site, started yelling "Help!" at the top of her lungs. (*Update; I based this story on hearsay, and it may not have actually happened) Ironically, me, my mom and Justin ended separating from the pack later and did get lost, but I found that this gave us advantage of being able to take in some of the architecture and landscape without a barrage of talking that goes with any large tour group. This was especially true in Ho Dong Chuong, where falling behind when J.R. tried to row allowed us briefly take in the whole area, alone, with sounds of nature echoing throughout the jungle-ed hills.
Our first stop was our hotel, which obviously also housed a jewelry store, karaoke bar and pool hall. After checking in, we then got back on the bus and headed to a nearby village that Huyen either once grew up in, or her parents lived in now. There we had a kind of pre-wedding reception, which included a series of pivotal Vietnamese ceremonies. The first involved me and four other of Ben's single male friends, and we had to exchange gifts and "lucky" money with five of Huyen's single female friends. The gifts were bought for us to give, and they included traditional Vietnamese items like booze, candy, and cartons of cigarettes. They in turn gave us "lucky" money, which we have to keep and never spend for our entire lives, or else we'll get bad luck with relationships. I'm assuming the reason my love life has been such shit for the last 32 years has been because I never got my lucky money, and am kinda pissed at Ben for not holding this wedding waaaay sooner. Thank god that's all in the past now! After our exchange, there was something that involved Ben asking Huyen's father for permission to marry his daughter, and since this was less than 24 hours before the already planned and paid for wedding, Ben was obviously fairly concerned what would happen if he said no. Luckily, Huyen's dad agreed, (he's a really cool guy) and then we had an amazing dinner on the roof of the house where the wedding took place, all of which was washed down with shot after shot of homemade rice wine. Huyen's dad assured us we would not get a hang over because it contained ginseng, which many of Ben's guests seemed to be unfortunately immune from the next morning. That was followed by the traditional Vietnamese super-happy-dance-funtime-techno-karaoke-disco ceremony, which seemed to be completely taken over by the American guests. While the white folk were singing "I Just Called to Say I Love You," the Vietnamese were out back no more than 20 feet away slaughtering chickens for tomorrow's wedding lunch. Somehow, Mark Morgan got roped into plucking feathers off of them. Later that night, we got back to the hotel and went to the karaoke bar below with Mark and my mom, and followed that up with some late night street pho and grilled chicken feet.
Ben and many of the guests in the hotel were hoping to get in some sleep that night before the wedding, but we found out the hard way that just outside our windows was a loudspeaker attached to a telephone pole that conveniently doled out loud Communist propaganda slogans (or something) in Vietnamese. Ben's cousin later claimed that Ben screamed "Ho Chi Minh, shut the fuck up!" from his room, but it seemed that this was information, regardless if true or not, that's best kept hush hush around the locals. The wedding itself took place in the same house as before, but the fact that it started at 10 in the morning didn't mean we had go easy on the rice wine. It definitely had that moonshine taste, but it was still pretty damn good, and since I miraculously didn't have a hang over, (maybe there's something to that ginseng) I definitely threw back a few with some of Huyen's side of the family. The wedding ceremony apparently more Westernized than usual, although Ben and Huyen's parents still used the traditional method of speaking at a Vietnamese wedding, which was through a microphone plugged into a karaoke machine with the monster-truck echo effect on. And while Ben and Huyen engaged in the Jewish tradition of breaking a glass on the floor to end the wedding, the ceremony started with the Vietnamese tradition of kick-ass entrance music, with Huyen and Ben walking down the aisle to a blaring song that sounded almost exactly like the Final Countdown, except more techno-y . It's crazy how unintentionally hip Vietnam can be, since I'm sure there was a wedding in Silverlake happening at the same time that probably did the same exact thing.
Soon after Ben and Huyen officially ceased their unholy life in unmarried sin, we began the next leg of the wedding, a 3 day trek to a remote Vietnamese village. After some shuffling of guests, we finally boarded our tourist bus and headed out again. At 32, I can say I saw my very first legit dead body on the street, a guy who had obviously just been in a horrific motorbike accident. At a distance, he looked like he was just laying in the road, but the look of horror on the faces of onlooking residents, and the fact he wasn't moving at all, made it clear this wasn't pretty. Ben had tried to calmly tell everyone not to look, advise I kinda wished I listened to. His head was flattened like pancake, and brains were spread all about the road, looking like dusty ground pork. Later that night, someone mentioned him, and to cleanse the palate, everyone decided to raise a glass to "that guy." The way the Vietnamese drive, I'm shocked you don't see more accidents like that, and you hope people here start to make changes in the way they look at safety.
We stayed at a hotel in Nimh Binh, a city west of Hanoi. We first checked out Hoa Lu, the remains of the ancient capital of Vietnam. Not much to see, it was filled with extremely aggressive locals hawking crap. One of the mainstays of most tourist spots in Vietnam is this army of locals who carry around low end Nikon DSLR cameras, and try to sell you poorly framed photos of yourself. Most will not bother if they see that you have a camera, but some think, hey, what's the harm in trying. The whole tourist hawking industry seems to hold the adage that there is no behavior too annoying, and that closer you hold a product to someone's face, the more likely they will buy it. At Hao Lu, an Australian couple, Simon and Claire, decided to buy a water from a woman selling various things she carried on her in a small bag. Big mistake, as this suddenly attracted about a half dozen other middle age women, all squealing at them to buy water and peanuts and whatever they happened to be holding in their hands at that time. When Claire took out her wallet and began to count out money for the water, three woman just dove their hands in there and started grabbing at bills. Her husband Simon and Justin, Ben's cousin, started to pull the woman away, and Simon, who looks almost exactly like Colin Firth in A Single Man started to get loud. The whole scene was pretty hairy, but luckily no one lost any Dong, and Claire got her water (I think)
The hotel in Nimh Binh was pretty swanky. They had four stars on their sign, but not quite sure if that was an official rating, or just a nice decorative touch. Either way, it was called the Legend Hotel, brand new, big and empty, just the way I like 'em. We spent a night on the town having goat hot-pot, or lau de, and washed that down with some Tiger beers. The next morning we headed out to an area near Tam Cac, which is where I went last year. This place was I think was called Ho Dong Chuong. It recently opened, and seemed better than Tam Cac, with the same premise; a giant inland lake with massive round cliffs poking out; the whole area being dubbed an inland Halong Bay. Unlike the last time we went, the guy rowing our boat used his feet to work the oars, and even let my Friend J.R. take the reins. With him rowing in the back, and me and mom using auxiliary oars we found at our feet, we got nowhere fast, and our Vietnamese guide had to take over to get us going. We were winded after about 15 minutes, while this motherfucker rowed for two hours without breaking a sweat, although to be fair, he was able to change up to feet or hands when he wanted. After that, we headed to this giant series of Buddhist Poagadas that was in the process of being built called Bai Dinh. It got a little hairy when Ben's mom had decided that we got lost for some reason, and did what any sensible person would do when lost in a foreign country and visiting a holy site, started yelling "Help!" at the top of her lungs. (*Update; I based this story on hearsay, and it may not have actually happened) Ironically, me, my mom and Justin ended separating from the pack later and did get lost, but I found that this gave us advantage of being able to take in some of the architecture and landscape without a barrage of talking that goes with any large tour group. This was especially true in Ho Dong Chuong, where falling behind when J.R. tried to row allowed us briefly take in the whole area, alone, with sounds of nature echoing throughout the jungle-ed hills.
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