Day 7 - River-trekking to the Wedding

Yes yes, I know I'm a little behind on entries.. but that's because soo much has been happening in the last couple of days leaving me with less free time and a lot more stuff to post. Yesterday was the first wedding held at Chi Tim's home. In the Vietnamese culture, the groom and his family and friend's go to bride's home and asks her parents permission to marry her with the bribe gifts mentioned in the last post.

We woke up early in the morning and prepared for the wedding. The only way to get to her house is an hour long trek by boat on the rivers of Vietnam.

This video is sooo interesting. It shows us from our preparation to the boat ride to her home.. just watch *added footage!* (9/20/08)

Once we arrived, the party was pretty much coming to an end. Her family actually started partying the night before all the way till our arrival! So the band played for like 18 hours nonstop.

We weren't able to see the bride until the proper ceremonial introductions and gifts were given. Left side is our part of the family while the right side was hers.

My mom got her a Necklace, Earrings, a Bracelet, and a pair of rings. All Diamond!
For a majority of her life, she lived with her aunt in Saigon and only came back to her house on the riverbank to visit her parents. That's her aunt.

This is Chi Tim's Grandma, Mom and Dad (he was crying) :'(

And finally, the unveiling of the bride.

Remember how i said her house had full on dirt floors? well i was wrong. Because of the rain, it turned into MUD floors!! Our heels sand into the ground with every step and our cloths got dirty... But it was all in good fun!

You can kinda see the texture of the floors from this picture.

On our way back home on the boat, the boys got drunk while finishing off the pig head.

My drunk uncle was karaoke-ing (?) into the pigs foot. It was quite amusing.

All in all, the trip was quite exhausting.. everyone slept on the 8 hours bus ride home to Saigon.

Tomorrow is the 2nd wedding held here in Saigon. It's gonna be in a nice clean restaurant with hard wood floors (thank goodness!)