Viet Nam

Vietnam, or as the Vietnamese people write it, Viet Nam, the Viet people from the south. Where to begin? I have a lot of cliched phrases in my head...land of many contrasts, a thriving destination, multitude of colour and natural beauty. All these things are true.

Before I left for my first foray into south-east Asia, I was asked what I expected. And to be honest, I didn't really have expectations for Vietnam. I surprisingly hung expectation on a hook in the hall cupboard and had a sense of wanting Vietnam or my experience of it to be revealed to me as it happened. I wanted to discover and see and smell and taste. When I thought of Vietnam before going, I did imagine all the clichés...a lot of colour and an assailing of the senses. And perhaps that's what I expected...that my senses would be assailed in a way they hadn't been before.

I knew it would be a whirlwind with just over in a day at each stop. A lot of places beginning with H and one that begins with S.

Ho Chi Minh City, still referred to as Saigon, by its inhabitants
Hoi An
Hue
Halong Bay
Hanoi
Sapa

From the moment I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City two and a bit weeks ago, I had the impression of a sensory overload. Overload has negative connotations, so it is not so much that my senses were overloaded, but that each sense was appealed to, expanded, challenged, confronted and stroked.

I felt, tasted, heard, saw and breathed in Vietnam during every moment of my trip.