(Anna)dventure

I moved to Viet Nam three months ago in the hopes of finding adventure.

Graham Green had enchanted me with writings of beautiful women in silken dresses wafting across the Opera House square in Saigon. I dreamed of exotic food, a city shimmering in the midday day only to be cooled by the great rains. I was moving to a land of the exotic and the oriental. I was moving to Vietnam.

I arrived and found sweat. Lots of it and all the time. I found chaos and unbearable heat. I found public spitting, obscene traffic, air pollution, street pollution, noise pollution. I found a dirty, crowded, hot place filled with colour and noise and people. It was terrifying. I was completely defeated by my new surroundings. I wanted to go leave, immediately.

I responded to my culture shock with reverting to all things Western. I sought refuge in the obscenely priced Western cafe's. I bought imported muesli and refused to sit in the little plastic chairs at the street stalls. In short, I behaved in the worst possible way possible: I was the Tourist, not the Traveller.


Travelling to a country infinitely foreign to ones own is a daunting and tremendous experience. Not everyone does it correctly. The tourist arrives and projects preconceived ideas on to the people and city which he or she encounters. The tourist is disappointed by the reality of the country and write scathing post cards back home about how much the country sucks.

This was me. When I went to Paris, I ate macaroons and it was glorious. In Morocco I wandered through the souks and marvelled at the little, dancing monkeys. When Vietnam did not deliver the pleasantries I expected, I got angry.

And then, whilst I was not looking, she gently taught me how to be a traveller.

Vietnam has humbled me. I came here in search of a mystical spirituality in the form of peace and quiet. Instead I found it in the process of learning to merge in to the roaring traffic on my little Yamaha scooter. I wanted to find personal growth and have my mind expanded by Buddhist monks and women in straw hats. Instead I found it in mastering the art of eating mystery meat and haggling with the man who sells me fruit every morning.

What lesson could be more valuable than this? I will never fully understand this country (why do the men have such long finger nails?), but I will always value my time here.

In my future encounters with the world, I will arrive as a traveller, naked in my expectations and open to what I discover.