Back from Vietnam
-----------------

I spend the last two weeks with my wife and son in vietnam
visiting the in-laws, eating interesting and great food,
trying not to get killed on a motorcycle and ... well
... marrying my wife a second time.

So, where do i start? Well, we had planned this trip since
forever, but every single time something prevented it from
happening, may it be a global pandemic, work shedule, the
birth of our son or a ton of other things. But this year
we made it happen even if right before the start the
universe again tried to throw sticks between our legs...

My wife flew three weeks before me to spend a bit more time
with her family and to give me time to sort the problems
out on this side of the planet. But after all was done i
took my flight with Vietnam Airlines and landed after an 11
hour flight at Hanoi Noi Bai airport. I was greeted by my
wife and our son and we took our taxi ride to the house of
her parents. The traffic in vietnam is surely something
special: It leaves the impression of a complete chaotic
mess, but somehow it seems to follow some rules, even if
this rules only seldom seem to converge with the ones
written down in law books.

After leaving the inner city and taking an abrupt turn from
the highway to a small dirt road we reached quickly the
village where my in-laws live. While the term village is
used by the locals, it is now more of a suburban area of
hanoi and in the process of being swallowed by the ever
expanding city. Its really an interesting experience: At one
moment you are in a modern city, in the next you see water
buffaloes grasing on a town square and chicken are running
freely around.

As this was my first trip to vietnam i had to take an
"Introduction tour" around the various relatives of my
wife. Over the first couple of days i visited around 60
households, shook hands, drank tea and various spirits with
the relatives. This was also the time where my wife made a
little confession to me: While we had planned to throw a
party for the relatives who could not attend our wedding in
germany, this seemed not enough: In some circles of the
relatives our wedding in germany is not seen as entirely
legitimate so we had to marry again now here in
vietnam. Well, helpfull as the relatives are, they had
already planned everything out and our wedding was appointed
about 7 days after my arrival. Well... at least this will
get interesting was my first thought after hearing that.

The days to the appointed date were somewhat blurred together
in family gatherings, visits of far away living relatives,
suicidal motorcycle rides through narrow streets of the
nearby villages, great food we ate at some of the shadiest
looking food stands i had ever seen and alcohol, oh so much
alcohol...

The vietnamese i had met are surely a special breed: I would
have never imagined the amount of moonshine some of those
very lightly build people could stomach... and nor would i
had imagined the amount of food they can consume (and
expect you to match them). I should have known better: Even
my wife who is neither tall nor big can easily eat as much
as i (magically without gaining weight), but those people
there... that was just another level. Whatever... the food
was always great, and while its sometimes better not to ask
WHAT you are eating at the moment, i never encountered
anything that was not absolutely delicious.

My wife and i had decided that, well, if the relatives want
it traditional, we would take it to 11 and marry in full on
traditional garment. My inlaws (who thought the relatives
who did not see our marriage as legitimate were a bit crazy)
liked the idea very much, and surprisingly it was very easy
to find clothes that fitted my 1,87 of height.

As the date of our second wedding approached we had one
final thing to do: We had to take some "official" family
portraits at the studio of an local photographer who was
extremely motivated and did an absolutely phantastic job
pushing, shoving and manhandling us in such a position that
resulted in some very good portraits.

The evening before the wedding there was a "small" gathering
of the inner family (around 180 people) where i had to toast
to every table, again, shake hands in a defined order, say a
few word which were translated by my brother in law and,
again, drink with every relevant male person of the
family. Thankfully, my father and brother in law took it on
them to shield me a bit from the attempts of some members of
the family who seemingly set themself the goal to drink me
under the table. Alas... the evening went and we somehow
managed it all to leave only semi-hammered.

Well, there it was now, the big day. My wife and i dressed
up, the house filled ever more with family and neighbours,
up until the sheduled h-hour of 09:00 when everything
started moving. It began with a short stop by the ancestor
shrine of the family of my wife (they said it is no problem
that i didn't share the same believes... its more a sign of
respect than religion), then we moved to the already
decorated celebration tent that was already filled to the
brim with people. We waited at the entrance and greeted new
coming guests, there were tons of photos taken with us,
shaking hands, smiling, nodding... until at some point we
got the signal to get up on the stage. There, with extremely
loud speakers in our back blaring  live-music we again
nodded, smiled and said a few thanking words to the crowd,
nodded, smiled, cut the wedding cake, nodded, smiled and
later we went down to toast with each of the 80 tables.

I am not really sure how long the whole thing lasted and
what we all did during this but at the end we were both
totally exhausted, had very happy relatives, and it seems
everybody was very much statisfied eith the whole act.

In the evening the celebration continued in a more casual
fashion, but with more alcohol and food.

The next days were all a bit mushy and everybody seemed to
have a more or less severe hangover. My wife and i used this
time to do soming sightseeing and doing "tourist stuff" in
this part of hanoi where you rarely see any european
faces. In fact, in my whole two weeks there i can only
remeber seeing two other european looking people outside of
the airport.

A great thing i could experience in this time was the
absolutely child friendly nature of the people we
encountered. There was always some aunt or cousin, some old
lady or young girl that took the flock of children of the
whole present families under her wings to play with them,
teach them or spimply hang around. Even more funny: While we
were sitting at some day at supper out of nowhere there were
two children nobody of us knew who simply were curious of the
foreigner marrying into the family, so they just walked
through the always open front door and just a blink of an
eye later sat with us and ate supper. It seems that
the concept of "stranger danger" is - at least with the
people i encountered - a completely alien concept.

The days up to our flight back to germany went in some sort
of timeless state where we spend the days walking around the
villages, chatting with the locals, taking a moped or taxi
to some nice location sat in the still not to warm sun and
simply enjoyed life.

It was a really nice time and - following various
invitations - we will come back to vietnam for the Tet
festival next year.