I haven’t been writing lately. I haven’t been taking as many photographs or focusing on the journey. I’ve been too busy living. Sometimes, the world is better seen through an unobstructed view. I have seen some beautiful places, and yes, I took some pictures in my last week in Vietnam. I will find the time to share that part of my story with you, but for now, I feel the need to tell a different story. The story of how a place, a time, and a people changed me forever. My last few days in Vietnam were a very unexpected experience for me. It began to build emotions within me that I honestly wasn’t prepared for.
Just three weeks ago, I was wide-eyed and overwhelmed by her foreignness, her unusual characteristics, her completely alien way of life, at least compared to back home. Last night, I hopped on a motorbike cab across town to meet up with some friends for dinner. It is incredible how quickly one can adjust and settle into a life so incredibly different from whence you came, how you can go from needing someone to escort you across the street to walking around the city to get coffee or go to the market on your own, how her wild streets, crazy markets, endless alleys, and side roads can eventually draw you in and become comforting and familiar. How even with language barriers and the common misunderstandings, you become attached to those that have become a daily part of your life. I was no longer a stranger in a strange land.
Though I am incredibly foreign to this place, there is something fundamentally familiar. I can not read the simplest of text in this strange and foreign place, though some things are becoming easier to navigate with time. Unlike Europe and her heavily influenced daughter nations, Asia has a very different core. Most alphabets are either unrecognizable or altered beyond familiarity, a culture so absolutely alien, a way of life so foreign and different, yet at the same time strangely familiar. It seems the basic human experience that exists just beneath the surface is unchanged. That common ground one must find will find if one only looks. We all live to eat, eat to live, work to accomplish our goals, fall in love, get married, have children, and ceremoniously deal with the deceased. We all are part of the human experience. Yet, we experience it across the globe In very different ways. Like rain in a grassless field, the subtleties of culture and tradition erode their own landscapes of life in parts of the world distant from each other.
Our past often times dictates our future, our actions, and our perceptive state of being, particularly in the eyes of others. When you step out, vulnerable and “naked” into a foreign land, you become reacquainted with the purity of your own innocence and existence. the shackles of history fall away as leaves on autumn trees. You are nothing more than then and there, at the moment, here and now. Now is all there is, the rest melts away. Yesterday holds no weight in the eyes of today. The unfamiliar scents and sounds. The realization that you know nothing. The acceleration of your heart, the tingle on your skin, the liberation that comes with a rebirth of sorts. The world is not as big as it once was, but it’s still big enough to get lost. To learn new things about yourself, experience things that take you back to that feeling. That feeling of looking at the world with a new pair of eyes. To become a child again in the reality of this life.
I spent my last day in Vietnam doing what I had learned to do best, zipping around on the back of Diễm’s motorbike just hanging out. We drank coffee, ate a lot, ran errands for the family, and I could tell that my mind was trying to hold on to my last day as long as it could. The setting sun has never been my enemy more so than at that moment in time. We rode to the beach, and I rolled my pants legs up and strolled its shores for what seemed like hours. I watched the shadows of the palm trees stretch further and further out towards the water as the sailboats rolled in the waves far into the distance. It happened to be the clearest day since I had been in Da Nang, and for the first time, I could see the mountainous islands far in the distance. Across the bay to the north was the beautiful Lady Buddha, ever watchful over her sea.
I stood with my feet in the crystal clear waters while the breeze of the South China Sea cooled my face. As the wet, dying breath of the Indochina sun warmed me, I stared at the majestic lady keeping watch on her harbor. I wondered if this moment in time was as monumental to her as it was to me. The home was out there, somewhere across the seemingly endless Pacific, and tomorrow I would be there. Over thirty hours either on a plane or in an airport. The most challenging part of my amazing journey would begin in just a few hours. You have no idea how much you can learn about yourself from more than twenty-four hours of total travel time, but the impending flight was not where my mind was now. Still holding on to the present, I was content to let the future handle itself.
The lady who owned the Apartment building had allowed me to store my luggage. When I could wait no longer, Diễm and I headed to collect my things. I ordered an additional Moto Taxi, and between the two motorbikes, my belongings were all balanced, and off we went. We were headed to meet up with the rest of my companions and ultimately to the airport. We navigated the streets, luggage in tow, and I crossed the Dragon Bridge over the Han River for the last time.
The Dragon Bridge was a huge presence in the skyline near my apartment, and it was one of the things I would miss. I crossed over it several times a day and it had become a big part of my life there. The Han River split Da Nang In two. There are seven bridges that connect the two halves of the city. This gave the city its official nickname, the City of Bridges. Each was unique and beautiful, but the Dragon bridge was the most impressive. It was often listed as one of the top ten most beautiful and impressive bridges in the world and the architectural icon of Da Nang. On Friday and Saturday nights, the bridge would breathe fire and spew water from its mouth, giving the already impressive bridge a powerful presence.
On the east side of the river was the long strip that was the newer section of the city. It had the beaches and was also the side of the river my apartment was on. On the west side was the old city. Street after street of food stalls, corner stores, markets, coffee shops, and pretty much anything else you would need. It is where I spent most of my time when I wasn’t on the beach.
We arrived at the hotel and gathered everyone’s belongings. We moved everything to the front and ordered a few taxis. All the family that was in Da Nang escorted us to the airport to see us off. The matriarch of the family was coming home to Atlanta with us, and the gravity of the moment made it difficult to breathe. She hadn’t been home to see many of her children and grandchildren in over a decade, and some she had seen for the first time. Given her age and health, she will probably never see them again. I am thankful, so incredibly thankful to be an American. Not because I think it makes me better than anyone but because it means my children will never have to make such great sacrifices to provide a better future for themselves or their families. Home is a powerful place. No matter where you are from, treasure it. You only have one. I had the privilege to see just how precious home can be in the eyes of those who aren’t allowed to take it for granted.
This is one of many things that changed me in Vietnam. We are afforded a privilege many in the world are not. When it is her time to leave this world, save for her family in America, no one will be able to come and say goodbye. There are no easy routes to come to America for those in Vietnam, not even for the funeral of your mother. My Grandmother is a 2-minute walk away. Though I see her at least once a week, I think maybe I should start taking more advantage of her proximity.
Most of my time in the Da Nang Airport had been uneventful. Easy in, easy out. Today was a different scene. It was the first Monday after the holiday had ended, and it looked like everyone in central Vietnam had descended onto the international terminal of Da Nang Airport. It took us over three hours to check in, but I didn’t mind. I stood in line with the family, and I took the time to talk to Diễm and express how amazing my time had been in Vietnam and how instrumental she was in making that so.
It was bittersweet saying goodbye, but it was now time to go. We had finally made it to security with only an hour left till the gates closed. I kept my eyes back on the checkpoint as Diễm and the rest of the family stood and never moved until we were through security and ultimately swallowed up by the crowded airport. It was time finally to board the plane and head home.
I knew that there was a part of me that wasn’t going, couldn’t go, and the part of me that was leaving would never be the same. A part of me will forever be in Vietnam, and it will always call me back. It’s hard to explain the things I’ve seen, the Beauty I’ve experienced, the ones I’ve grown to love, the people I’ll never forget. Part of me will sit in perpetuity in the street stalls of DaNang and Hanoi, eating Mien, pho, or a simply perfect banh mi. Diễm will be there with me, her friends and family, who all took care of me, and some fellow Westerners I met along the way. There’s a seat forever at that table, temporarily empty, waiting ever patiently for my return.
AWESOME!