My best friend from uni, who left Vietnam over twenty years ago, made his first return last month to spend time with me and become reacquainted with his old home. For 23 days he and I enjoyed socializing with my friends and sightseeing in Hanoi, Can Tho, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, and Ha Long Bay. I’ve managed to process and upload a number of photos taken with my hand-held camera and will soon do the same with photos taken by my phone’s camera.
Pictures and writing may indicate otherwise, but I’m a terribly lazy traveler. I move slowly and the idea of bouncing from city to city in tour mode is to say the least appalling. Nevertheless, my best mate and I had to make the most of our short time together in Vietnam and I’m happy with the amount of fun we were able to have while negotiating my work schedule against his visit.
I’ve been in Vietnam for more than a little while. I don’t want to say I take the place for granted but I definitely do not notice things the way that I used to when I first arrived. The traffic, Vietnamese quirks, tipping etiquette, both passive-aggressiveness and pushiness, encrypted speech, and social hierarchy are all very humdrum to me now. Having a friend from outside bring all of that uncertainty and confusion back into view was, for lack of a better word, cool.
Sometimes I miss it, the first high in Vietnam. I’ll never be able to get it back but having visitors lets me at least touch it again through glass.
In February another friend from home will visit; in mid-March my grandmother will make her second trip to Vietnam; and in late March yet another friend will make the trip to Hanoi. I’m looking forward to taking more photographs.
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