The war is over.

It’s been ten days now that I’m taking in Vietnamese cities, sights, sceneries and situations. Ten days amongst the most positive and friendly locals I have ever experienced on a trip. Always helpful, talkative, eager to learn and happy to practice their knowledge of Shakespeare’s language.

There’s only one subject about which I feel avoidance. A topic not taboo but suppressed. Not forgotten but ignored. Important but not anymore.
The Vietnamese war killed hundreds of thousands of people. Millions of lives were destroyed by agent orange, the deadly dioxin sprayed over vast areas by US airplanes. Even today children are born, missing limps or suffering from serious aberrations. Yet nobody speaks a word.

Visiting the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, I asked an eighteen year old girl if her parents and grandparents told her stories about that era. Did she get first hand information from her relatives? The girl left me devastated and speechless when she told me her grandfather was killed and her grandmother raped and murdered by US troops. Her parents’ village was set to fire and only a handful of people, including her daddy and his wife, managed to escape.

Chatting with a university student later that night I repeated my question. The answer was as simple as clear: “It’s the past. We talk about school. About boyfriends and girlfriends. About soccer and badminton. About dresses and shoes, but not about the war.”
Let bygones be bygones.

Vân and Húòng

The scent of exhaust fumes burns my nose when I find myself sitting on the back of a motorbike, driven by a young lady that I just met two hours before.
I’m in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, and this is by far the most crazy traffic I have ever witnessed. Thousands and thousands of motorbikes and mopeds rule the streets. Thousands and thousands of young people are claiming their spot. Thousands and thousands of girls, boys, man and woman are zigzagging and criss-crossing each other in a constant zooming noise. I close my eyes and hear a million giant killerbees.

Vân has done this before, that is very obvious. She makes her way through this ants nest like you and I would step into an elevator. Vân is a gorgeous girl and a very good friend of my last couchsurfer. Law student, intelligent and funny. Very talkative too, constantly informing me about the building that we’re passing or the square that we’re crossing.
Our escort on the motorbike next to us is also a friend of that same couchsurfer. Húòng is different. Calmer. A little bit more carefull. Less talkative too, but when she says something, she hits the nail on the head. She’s very eager to tell me about her city and her country, and that makes her the best guide I can dream of. She has a natural interest in the history of Vietnam, and she wants to share it. The fact that she can do that while using her English vocabulary makes her even more enthusiastic.

I feel blessed to have met these girls. They’re the best friends one can dream of, and their generosity is hard to describe.
The way they treated me last night left me speechless. I can never thank them enough for the experience they brought to me. I got to know Hanoi and the spirit of Vietnamese people from the inside. That is beyond everything I expected before I stepped out of the airplane.

Spring rolls.

I can’t think of everything, can I?
Yesterday evening, I was sitting in the lobby of the place that I stay at, waiting for my host to come home from work, when I got my eyes on a magazine.

My Thai language knowledge hasn’t reached the 100% mark yet, so all I can do is go through it and have a look at photos and pictures.
I come across an advertisement for spring rolls. Hmmm, delicious. I still had some of those in my freezer when I left home. Whom did I give those to? I’ve emptied my fridge on departure day and gave the content of it to my mother. But that freezer, hmm, I must have overlooked it.

Spring rolls, a filet of Alaskan pollak, a slice of salmon, and half a bag of  curry rice with chicken will be defrosted by now. They will have transformed into the ideal host and residence for all sorts of little creatures.
I’m almost sure that the scent in my apartment has slightly changed since I left.
The salmon may have grown paws and reached the pond of the nature reserve across the street.

I have two options left: either I report this gently in an email, or I send a text message to Belgium, where it ‘s about 6 pm at that moment.
I decide for option number two, and immediately get a reply: “Just did it, and it started to smell nice”

Aaah, mom’s are the best!

Midair feelings.

So here I am, on day one of my trip around our globe. It’s been quite a week, with all kinds of last minute arrangements, a birthday to celebrate and a Vietnamese couchsurfer staying at my place. But all the pieces of the puzzle came nicely together and I am now midair on my way to Doha in Qatar for a stopover and a connecting flight to Bangkok, Thailand.

Am I feeling delighted? Hm, not really. Am I sad? Not at all! It’s something in between, a feeling hard to express in words. I somehow feel similar to other trips I’ve made. The only difference is the duration, right? Am I really on my way for eight months? I just can’t grab it.

All of a sudden, the lack of routine and not having a tight schedule is getting to me. I have no clue what I will be doing tomorrow, except for making my way to my first host.
“We ‘ll see” is a phrase that I use quite often, but this time it is brutal reality and I am somehow afraid of it. The unknown and the unforeseen are awaiting me and I can only hope that those two characters will not hit me too hard.

I am having trouble already to adapt to the right timezone. I guess a direct flight would have been better to set my mind and body in the right zone right away. Well, it’s a low budget thing after all, isn’t it?

As a PS to my previous post, I can officially announce that drunken promises are not kept. At least not by two of my friends…

Ready? Set. Go!

Those are the three words that precede every athletics race. I feel like I just started my own competition, although I am playing this in my own league and according to my own rules. This one is not about winning nor about being as fast as possible.

 

Ready?
Yes. This is my race in a true Olympic spirit: taking part is more important than anything else. I’ve been preparing myself and my environment for two years, and I’m pretty sure that we’re all ready for take-off. Except maybe for one person, but hey, is a mother ever ready to be separated from her child for eight months?

 

Set.
Yes. My legs are itching to start moving and my feet are  ready to take me wherever my heart wants me to go. I’ve set my mind on this trip a long time ago, and I’ve come to the point of no return.
My eyes are overlooking the track ahead and my heads nods approvingly.

 

Go!
Yes. My backpack is ready. Destinations are chosen. Tickets are printed. Today is the big day. A final lunch at my mom’s, and my sister and brother in law will pick me up and drive me to the airport. Let’s go!

 

I can’t help but wonder if those two crazy friends of mine will keep their drunken promise of waving me goodbye at the airport…