Vietnam:: One of my all time favourite country

Is it the coffee or the people?

Both.

Just like you never really leave Brazil or Nepal, you don’t really ever leave Vietnam neither. It’s just one of those countries that grows on you… The people are unparalled in terms of generosity and happiness. It feels so much different than Singapore, Malaysia and China.

The Vietnamese people have that thing in time – the grit. That extra UMPH. The French couldn’t win them; the USA neither. They are warriors to the core, in the sense that they love freedom more than anything else. They love their family, their coffees, their time fishing on the mekong delta.

The Vietnamese people are proud, just like Brazilian and Bolivian. You really feel that extra.. je-ne-sais-quoi from them.

Ho Chi Minh City is just so buzzing with activity and creativity. Just like the young people in Hong-Kong, the youth in HCMC want to make things happen. It’s fast pace as fast pace gets. Just look at HCMC from 2006 to 2019: it went from 0 to 100 in 13 years. There are no words to describe just how quick and insane everything got build.

Vietnamese never ceased to amaze me, for despite their history of wars and coloniziation, they still smile atforeginers! They have all the reasons to hate gringos (like in Honduras…tough place to be white-skin) – but they do not– they choose the path of forgiveness. A Vietnamese friend is a friend for life, with a loyalty that is unknown to us in the Western world. I miss Vietnam everyday, just like Brazil and Nepal.

Sometimes I wonder if I should just drop there for a while… My sister had a blast last year, and I thing that we would absolutely have an insane good of a time if we would go in 2020.

I have quite a few readers in Vietnam… Stay tuned – I might drop to HCMC sooner than expected!

And to anyone wondering where to fly for the 2019 holidays… There’s never a boring day in Saigon or Hanoi. Go in Hue, Da Nang, and enjoy getting lost in the culture. One of the most fun in a date was with a vietnamese woman: we couldn’t communicate together for her english was minimum, and my vietnamese was very limited, and so we had Google Translator on our smartphones on the table (in Singapore, mind you) and trying to understand each other. I never laughed so much in a date. We never stayed in touch, but that spirited of "easiness and nothing is ever too serious” is addicting. Everybody would learn a thing or two by having a vietnamese friend, that’s for sure.

Thanks,

JP