Saigon, Vietnam

01/03/2005

At last, I was home!!

I arrived at Saigon airport around 1am in the morning, and took a taxi back home. It has been only two years since my first trip back home, and there were so many changes happened or going on. I chated with the taxi driver a bit, although I tried to make believe that I were not home just for a short time, but I couldn't hide it long. I couldn't recognize the way home any more. The big streets seemed like they were larger while the small roads got narrower. More houses, more people, more Honda, Suzuki motorcycles, more taxi, and public buses!!..

Knocking on the door, called out "mom, mom", "who is that?", " it's me, Thao", "Thao?, what are you doing here?" "yeah, I am bored living with uncle :)". Mom looks a bit older now, but sexy :-)

We talked until 5 in the morning with grandma, and my youngest uncle still did not know that I was back. So, I told mom I would also surprise him in the morning. But in the morning, grandmom already told him, and his wife was running into mom' house, "where are you?, dont try to hide" :-)

I went to visit the War Ramnant museum, i felt overwhelmed, why is there always a war? The torture, the use of chemical agent that kill many people and the worse was to see many fetuses died young or having two heads or a woman with her body heavily burn, I remained speechless the whole day, and many French turned to me "how could they do that?"...

I took the public bus to go downtown to buy cheap new DVDs instead of taking my motorcycle there because I was so horrified. I felt others just running to me.

My aunt from Vancouver was back two days after me, and we had so much fun, every day we went out eating, shopping during the day, and in the evening I went out with my friends who were from the same South East Asia studies when I was learning Chinese with them before I came to Belgium. They are not married yet (yehh!), well most of them are very ambitiuos and having a good life. All of them speak Chinese fluently, I was impressed.

Many of them told me not to marry a western guy, "they don't speak our language, how can they understand you, and they are so stingy. I worked in the hotel, they stole wines, and we had to take them to the polices". Ai, oh, well, not all of them are that bad, I said. " You girl, lost your VNese blood" :-).

I also saw two best friends from high school, well, actually I think if I did not make way to come to Belgium, I would have been married to one. We are always good friends, he went to visit my mom almost every New Year. He was trying to convince to come back soon forever, "there are a lot of opportunities now here, you should go back"...

My mom, grandmom and friends pampered me with so many good foods, crabs, lobters, fishes, fondues with vegetable, I gained 4 kilos since my last measure in Langham hotel, HK. Even my friends were completely stunned when they saw me eating :-) Everything they ate, I ate double, not one bowl of noodle soup but two :-) plus plenty of snacks. They said "you told me you did not eat a lot in Belgium, how could you live there?" LOL

I felt I was so home, and I left VN with sadness, hard to leave...:-(

12/03/2005

My flight back to Amsterdam in HK airport was at 12pm, and I flew from Saigon from the afternoon, arrived at 9pm. I met an Aussie, who was even earlier than me, he had arrived in HK airport at 3pm :-), So he told me he went to the city a bit, then come back there, waiting, he was pretty happy when we finally boarded.

There were some turbulences with my flight, but it went fine, I slept all the way, only awoke for foods :-)

13/03/2005

I had a hard time in Gare Central to bring up my suitcase, it was overweight, plus I had my big backpack when I travelled in China...always managed to shop, no matter what :-)