I love traveling to Vietnam.
I traveled there with a friend and actually had a lot of fun, but I was still lost when I went out on my own. My friend was a night owl so that meant when he was sleeping all day, I was stranded. I was locked up in a 2 sided, 3 story small condo, when I say locked up I mean locked up.
It’s not uncommon for most houses to have high walls with spear tipped bars, barred window, pull down metal door, etc. That’s what I mean “locked up”.
I’ll explain more later.
Back to my story. I went to Ho Chi Minh on my second trip there without my friend and was fortunate to have his sister take me around and translate everything for me, get me my motorbike and car license, my tourist visa, my internet, the best “hole in the wall” restaurants, off the beaten path touring, factory exploring, and night clubbing. Now that kind of experiences will have you falling in love with Vietnam too.
Ok. Getting back to the prison like (Painted Pink, by the way) condo dwelling. Everything is small, small kitchen, small toilet, small bath, cold water, sit down bathing with a hose, small stairwell leading up 3 levels and I of course was on the 3rd floor with all of my luggage and stuff.
The funny thing about it… I have come to love every bit of that experience and if you give it a chance you could end up like me.
Today my goal is to retire there and hop back and forth between Vietnam, Thailand, maybe Hong Kong, Singapore, and anywhere else within an hours flight.
I speak very little of the language which is Romanized but tonal so it’s still difficult but I don’t plan on giving up, I’ve got to spend more time with my Rosetta Stone software which is awesome.
My favorite things about Vietnam: The currency exchange rate, the cost of living, riding a moped through crazy traffic but doing it better than they do even though I was terrified at first, FOOD, FOOD, FOOD, coffee shops, great coffee, beautiful women, beautiful beaches, Seafood, the country side, train rides, the proximity to other major Southeast Asian cities, and friends.
I often invite my friends to visit and about 3 of them took me up on that, but I wasn’t there at the time. But, they had a great time on their own. I just recommended my favorite getaway: Nha Trang.
I’ll post some photos soon. Hope you get some insight to Vietnam by reading these posts.
