Prank

I've written in the past how my cousins are notorious for falling asleep at Thanksgiving meals. Really though, they're notorious for falling asleep everywhere and anywhere. To show that they haven't lost a step, both Justin and Dana passed out at our bonfire in Mai Chau. They were dreaming away for a solid twenty minutes before someone had the genius idea of pulling a prank on them.

We all started to get up when our movements woke Dana. Naturally we pretended that we were gonna wake her up anyway and only pull the prank on Justin. We quickly gathered our stuff and executed the plan: We would all hide about a hundred feet away, behind a tree, and yell, "JUSTIN!!!". Justin, half asleep, would wake up in the middle of a field in Vietnam and wonder what the hell had happened.

When we started to sneak away, my amazingly brilliant wife thought of the perfect element to the plan to make it over-the-top hilarious -- Huyen asked a local villager who was nearby to go wake up Justin. So let me summarize the prank set-up: an old-ish village lady was about to wake up my cousin who was passed out all alone on a field in the middle of nowhere in Vietnam. Sure, it was probably a had to be there moment but I still find this video to be funny...despite not really being able to see anything on the video:



NOTE: The flashing light at the end is Justin shining his flashlight at us once he knew what the deal was.

Bonfire

On the bus ride into Mai Chau, we gave everyone two choices:

Choice 1: A bonfire with karaoke.

Choice 2: A bonfire with villagers singing traditional songs and playing games with us.

Thank goodness everyone picked choice 2. However, we ended up getting a taste of both as the only other tourists in Mai Chau decided to do karaoke right near us:


(PICTURE: The locals singing and dancing for us...while Vietnamese tourists sing karaoke in the background.)

After about seven White Thai traditional hits, the locals had us all grab hands and dance in a circle while singing, "Nhu Co Bac Ho Trong Ngay Vui Dai Thang", a song about Ho Chi Minh. I had promised everyone a horah and this ended up being pretty darn close. You know, minus the lack of lifting people in chairs and the addition of singing about Ho Chi Minh.

(PICTURE: Dancing in a circle. Eventually we all linked hands and alternated people between White Thai and non White Thai.)

Anyone who knows me knows that I love camping. My experiences in Mai Chau have always been the closest to camping I've come in Vietnam. We had a great bonfire that night and ended up playing a hopscotch type game that Justin and I had played two years earlier at the same exact spot. After a couple of days of craziness, it was a great evening of relaxing in an open field with friends, locals and a little bit of local wine:

(PICTURE: Dana and Hannah making the local wine; a very elaborate process which has one pour water into fermented rice.)


(PICTURE: Everyone drank the wine out of long straws made of bamboo.)

The Road To Mai Chau

(PICTURE: My mom in front of the stilt house where we ate lunch on the way to Mai Chau.)

After our relaxing boat ride, we headed for the White Thai village of Mai Chau. The way we were going was not the road 99% of tourists takes since most people go to Mai Chau from Hanoi and not from Ninh Binh. In a perfect world, getting to Mai Chau should have taken about three hours. However it took double that. The road was covered with pot holes which had us traveling at around 10MPH for a solid two hours which meant a few more bathroom breaks than we had on the original schedule. At one point we stopped at a roadside quick-e-mart (which in Vietnam means a woman with a table of snacks and a small freezer in front of her house).
(PICTURE: My parents with the big pink bus.)

You can imagine the woman's surprise when 24 foreigners got off a large pink bus and asked to use her bathroom. The woman obliged and we all bought a bunch of drinks and snacks from her. Clearly this was the first time anything like this had happened in this area because everyone quickly meandered out of their house and stared at our big pink bus. After a 20+ minute rest stop, we got back on the bus and continued our journey. Unfortunately were were behind schedule which meant the sun set before we arrived in Mai Chau. The problem with this was:
1. I wanted everyone to see the beautiful views from the mountain pass that leads to the village.
2. Not only couldn't we see the views, but the fog on the mountain had a visibility of about ten feet. This meant that not only could our driver barely see in front of our bus as we inched along a very high, narrow mountain BUT it also meant the big trucks coming down the mountain at us couldn't see us. I can tell you, there were a lot of nervous people on the pink bus for about forty five minutes.


(PICTURE: The view from the mountain pass a few days later. This was about 1,000,000 times clearer than when we first took the pass.)

Honeymoon Romance

What could be more romantic on one's honeymoon than to take a private boat ride through majestic limestone karsts?

(PICTURE: This is more romantic than a gondola ride in Venice.)

Well the answer is that the only thing more romantic could be to do it with all your friends and family:

(PICTURE: Showing off our rings...and the four boats of wedding guests. There was another boat behind us too.)

On the morning after our wedding, we took everyone to Trang An in Ninh Binh. We had been to Tam Coc which is nearby and called the "Inland Halong Bay." Before planning the trip, I asked some of my students from Ninh Binh which was the better place to go to. It was unanimous, that Trang An was better. Now having been to both, I can agree. Here's the cooler aspects of Trang An:

1. Nobody was there except us. I'm sure this isn't always the case but it was on this day.
2. There were six caves that we went through. Some were very long and narrow. At Tam Coc there's only three caves which aren't nearly as cool.
3. At Trang An you go in a big circle versus in Tam Coc where you have to go back the exact way you came...which makes going back quite boring.

Here are some pictures from that morning:

(PICTURE: Our captain. That's Sebastian, JR and Urszula behind us.)


(PICTURE: My father and the Lichtmans wondering what that strange smell is.)


(PICTURE: The Salter family taking in the views.)


(PICTURE: My Aunt Ronny with a pagoda behind her.)


(PICTURE: A cool overexposed shot.)

Awesome Shirts!

One of the best wedding presents we got were these totally awesome shirts that my parents gave us:

(PICTURE: The shirts say "Just Married" in case you don't want to click on the picture.)

As fun as it was to wear the shirts the day after getting married, personally I can't wait for us to wear them all the time when we travel. I mean, you gotta figure if you wear them enough once in a while someone will send over drinks and/or buy your dinner. Am I right or what?!

Utterly Exhausted

(PICTURE: Dining on goat udder on our wedding night.)

At the end of our wedding day, I was certain of two things:

1. I was 100% married.
2. I was 100% exhausted.

Starting on December 1st, when our first friend arrived in Hanoi, I had been averaging less than five hours sleep per night. I'm positive that even when I was younger, I couldn't have handled a sleep schedule like that for nearly three weeks. The symptoms of a lack of sleep were creeping up on me. The most obvious was that I was losing my voice and constantly being told by my wife to shut up (is that a bad sign for starting a marriage?). On my wedding night, I only wanted to do one thing -- sleep!

However before I could count sheep, I had to eat goat. You see, Ninh Binh is famous for its goat and, well, I freaking love goat. Huyen and I had told everyone about the local delicacy but only the under 35-year-olds (I can't say young people anymore because Heather yelled at me after an earlier post) and the Salter parents were up for leaving the hotel. We had the bus driver bring us to his favorite goat restaurant where we all dined on goat prepared in a variety of ways. Following dinner, Huyen and I decided it was time to stop playing host and headed back to the hotel.

The hotel, named Legend Hotel, was immaculate. The four star hotel looked like nobody had ever stayed there before and well, I'm pretty sure not too many people had since it was brand spanking new. Huyen and I couldn't have asked for a better honeymoon suite as it was equipped with a giant bath and a humongous bed. Seriously, the bed was like two California kings stuck together. I kid you not, a dozen Vietnamese people could have easily lied side by side on this mattress. However, being as tired as I was, I'm pretty sure I could have slept on a wooden crate (you know, the bed I usually sleep on at Huyen's house) and slept like a baby. I can't think of a time when I had a deeper sleep then the night of my wedding.

Things One Might Not Want To Do On Their Wedding Day

(PICTURE: Ba Dinh Pagoda.)

After visiting the ancient capital of Hoa Lu, the giant pink bus headed toward the largest pagoda in southeast Asia -- Ba Dinh Pagoda.


(PICTURE: Various members of the honeymoon part at the temple.)

For you long time readers, you might recall that my cousin and I stumbled on to this place in 2008. When we came then, there wasn't even a paved road out to the pagoda.
(PICTURE: Justin with two people we met at the temple in 2008.)

I went again a year later with Huyen and Sebastian, and the place was still only half built.
(PICTURE: One of the many awesome photos Sebastian took in 2009.)

I had been told that the pagoda would finally be finished this year as part of the 1,000th anniversary of Hanoi. I should have realized that that didn't really make sense since the pagoda isn't in Hanoi but heck, I chalked it up to Vietnamese logic. Yeah, the pagoda wasn't even close to being finished.

On our wedding itinerary, we had written that we would make it to the pagoda in time to see sunset. Sticking to our schedule, we arrived about thirty minutes before the sun was scheduled to go down. However, there was a slight hiccup when we arrived at the pagoda; at the gate, a bunch of totally unofficial guys told us that our bus could not drive up to the top of the pagoda...at least not without their help. Basically, because it was a construction site, there was no way for our bus to drive up the road. However, these fine young gentleman told us that they would guide us on a back road to the top of the pagoda for a mere 350,000 VND. That's $17.50 or as they say in Vietnam -- highway robbery.

Some people might say that something you might not want to do on your wedding day is to follow a stranger on a back dirt road. However, I would say hogwash. Despite the road being a little too narrow and a lot too scary for some of my guests, we arrived at the top of the pagoda in about ten minutes. Everyone debarked from the bus and walked towards the pagoda. The reaction from everyone was just as I hoped it would be -- they were amazed at the vastness and beauty of the pagoda.

After taking in the highest temple on the mountain, we presented everyone with two options:
Option 1: We could take the bus down at that moment.
Option 2: We could walk down the mountain and meet the bus at the bottom.

Despite the sun setting, we chose Option 2...which led to a few fun memories:

Fun memory #1: As we began to descend the mountain, we quickly realized that there were no finished stairs. I'll never forget my mother and some other above 35s not willing to walk down a very slight dirt incline. This lead to to Huyen and someone else venturing off like Louise and Clark to find an acceptable path down the mountain.

Fun memory #2: Watching Huyen and ___ (I forget who else helped my mom and don't have a picture. This space will be filled in when Sebastian emails me the honeymoon pictures) help my mom down the half built stairs.

Fun memory #3: The look on a construction workers face as we made our way down the mountain. His face basically said, "Um, what the hell are you idiots doing?"

Fun memory #4: Somehow our group got separated into three groups. I was in the middle group and about halfway down the mountain when my phone rang. Here's the basic conversation:
BEN: Hello.
SEBASTIAN: Hey, uh, we're kind of lost. Where are you?
BEN: We're about halfway down the mountain to the right of the stairs on the left hand side.
HERB (who was standing next to me): Actually, they aren't called stairs. They're called ____ (my apparent lack of vocabulary is so bad I still don't know what the term is).
BEN: Okay, Sebastian we're next to the _____.
SEBASTIAN: What the fuck is ______.
BEN: They're the stairs. We're to the right of the ones on the left hand side.

Fun Memory #5: After it was officially totally dark out, my mother, Huyen, Hannah, Mark and some others got to the bottom of the mountain but couldn't find an exit door. Apparently my mother started to panic at the prospect of sleeping inside a pagoda all night and asked, "Should we start yelling for help?" My sister assured my mother that wasn't necessary and they soon found their way out.

Eventually we all boarded the bus and headed to Ninh Binh, the place we would spend our wedding night...and more importantly the moment I could finally get out of my wedding suit!