vietnam - first time asia
vietnam | travelled in 2004 | posted on feb 25, 2017
sitting in the plane heading towards indonesia, i realize how much me and asia in a way have become sort of a love affair. so i think, now is a good moment to look back how it all began.
long before i started to travel, i was already very much fascinated by japanese culture, and so already at that time, i had been dreaming of travelling there one day. but in fact, my first trip to asia in 2004 was not to japan, but - and as you might guess from the title of this post - to vietnam.
to be accurate, hong kong, a three day stop-over on the way to vietnam, was my first contact with asia. from there i went to vietnam where i travelled almost the whole country from south to north.
hong kong had already been so overwhelming. but as chaotic as it might be, it is still extremely organized compared ho chi minh city (aka saigon). i still remember standing at a major street in the city centre: an endless and never-stopping stream of cars and millions of motorcycles and scooters (ok, now i might exaggerate a little bit). i had no idea how it could be possible to get to the other side. well, there was a traffic light, but this was no more than a funny, flashing decoration that everybody ignored. so i had to learn crossing the street vietnamese style: just walk slowly into the flow. all the drivers see you (hopefully) and try not to hit you (hopefully, even more). so, the worst thing you can do at that moment is stopping or suddenly changing your direction. just walk...
a good idea when doing this for the first time is sticking to local people when they are crossing the street. and if you choose their side in a way that they are between you and the aproaching vehicles, then this even gives you the feeling of a protection shield. but only until you reach the middle of the road 😀
but very fast, i got used to this and started to love all these amazing experiences that i had in these four weeks. so, nina and i decided that we wanted to return to asia the year after. the idea was to visit one of vietnam's neighbouring countries, on the grounds that they might be somewhat similar. what a false assumption! in 2005, we travelled to laos. somehow similar? no, not at all, not the tiniest bit.
but again, it was just amazing. but this is another story for another post on this blog sometime in the future.
oh, and in the meantime, also the dream about visiting japan has already become reality.
