Part 2: The Ninh Binh Wedding

Ninh Binh is a smaller city 90 km south of Hanoi, and quite frankly I loved it. It had great culture to offer and, most importantly, less people. The Aussie crew all met in Hanoi and jumped on a hired bus.

Myself, Karen, and her partner Matt

The two and half hour trip was a time to meet up with the other guests, most of which I hadn’t met. Luckily though high school chum Karen was there with her partner Matt. They intrigued me with stories of their two/three year trip through Europe. Upon arrival at Ninh Binh we checked into a hotel then grabbed a taxi down towards a river and Tam Coc. Tam Coc means three caves, and essentially I saw three caves.

Someone actually lives in countryside like this

It was fun. You get a small boat with two rowers (I shared with one of Anna’s friends from Melbourne). The two rowers we scored were championship paddle wielders, quickly we shot ahead of our friends. No place in Vietnam would be pure if it did not contain hawkers. Sure enough we’d drifted through the first cave a lovely local bumped up beside us in a boat of her own; chock full have water, softdrink, chips, snacks, and anything else you may want. Steadfastly refusing to buy anything (even for our poor thirsty rowers) the hawker left in disgust allowing us to enjoy the incredible scenery and the goats.

Look, Goats!

The next day was the wedding – an event I was extremely excited about. At about midday the groom arrived at the hotel, with his family in tow, to collect his blushing bride.

Khang and his family arrive

They jumped in a car, we jumped on a bus and off we went to the groom’s house for the ceremony/feast.

The guests arrive at the houseAnna's Warm Welcome

Khang and his family, Anna and hers

Unlike our weddings, there is no ceremony as such. The bride is introduced to her new family’s ancestors, everyone eats dinner,

All these people (80+) were fed. the day before the family immediate and extended prepared the food. All the males were outside butchering, cleaning, cutting and cooking the meat with most of the females inside preparng the rest of the food such as salads, spring rolls and sauces. It was a massive undertaking and would have cost a small fortune.

and afterwards they’re married.In Vietnamese custom she is now legally part of his family, and no longer holds ties to her previous family. Of course she spat on that custom by moving back to Australia with Khang

Oh, and the bride has to serve everyone.

This was by far my favourite custom. She is supposed to ensure the teapots are always full and get us beer to entire time. She also served the food. After the day was over she was absolutly buggered. We also dropped everything we could on the ground.

I took sadistic pleasure in forcing my childhood friend to pour my drinks on her very special day. She also had to clean up the following day, so everyone enjoyed making as big a mess as possible (flick up a couple of photos and have a look at the confetti on the ground. Poor, poor Anna).

Dinner was a feast! The main dish was duck, which we had been introduced to the night before (they were swimming merrily in a pond).

This was my table about 40 minutes after dinner was served - we barely put a dent in the food. Look at all those prawns...

The main entertainment was drinking games and rice wine. There were some communication barriers, in that I don’t speak Vietnamese and they don’t speak English.

Matt, Eric and myself. Eric lives in Vietnam but isn't vietnamese (could be Aussie, I can't remember). Apparently great at Karaoke, but we won't know for sure until Hanoi the Second.

As a result I didn’t understand anything that was going on, but I decided the most important rules to these games were to:

Drink and laugh.
Repeat everything they said (in Vietnamese)
When I wanted to speak say it loudly and slowly
Draw pictures in my book (universal language).

It was about this time that I decided an awesome to get lots of photographs of all these people I didn't know whilst expended as little energy as possible would be to give my camera to the gaggle of children running around. This was the result...

The end of the night is a bit hazy, but everyone was splendidly drunk.

While I'd love to tell you his name I still don't know which is his first and which is his last. We drank a lot of beer and a lot of rice wine

My newly made friends insisted I didn’t walk to the bus and for some reason persisted in trying to carry me, however this endeavour was hilariously unsuccessful. They finally succeeded and I was picked up and deposited into my bus seat amid lots of laughter.
The next day the Aussies returned to Hanoi and there we parted ways (never fear, they will return in Part 5 - Hanoi the Second). I wandered to my travel agent ready for my next adventure – trekking in Sapa.

Myself, Anna and Karen. Just like High School - except I'm in a collar, Karen's in a dress, and Anna's married.