Thinking back over where I’ve spent my past birthdays, I don’t think I ever could have predicted where I am today: on a junk in Ha Long Bay in Viet Nam.
As a birthday gift, my mother came out to Asia to take me on a special trip to Viet Nam. I’ve been looking forward this for weeks, and especially since I was so drained from teaching the workshop, I really needed this mini-vacation. As a funny coincidence, I realized that former Fellow JG was here with her mother at exactly the same time last year… But unlike Julia, I have no personal connection or family history tied to this country and my mother and I have been discovering it for the first time together.
We started the trip in Ho Chi Minh City, still commonly referred to as Saigon. The city was reminiscent of Bangkok in its heat and chaotic motorcycle traffic, but Saigon is far less developed and thus much more pleasant. The architecture maintains the elegant French-colonial flavor and the large boulevards and city squares are lined with stately trees. After a city tour, we drove out to the Mekong Delta and spent a lazy afternoon observing the traffic on this massive commercial river and floating along some of its small tributaries.
Moving up North, we visited the capital Hanoi, the grey capital city perched on the banks of the Red River. Hanoi felt cleaner and more cosmopolitan than Saigon, and it seamlessly blends its various Vietnamese, European, and Chinese influences—though I suspect that I may just have liked it better because its cooler climate is a refreshing change from the Southern heat and humidity.
And today I sit on the deck of a junk, floating between the striking karsts of Ha Long Bay. At this time of year, there aren’t many tourists. The bay is misty and calm, not quite serene, bordering on haunting… Certainly a unique and unusual place to celebrate my 24th birthday…
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