As the record shows, I did not write anything last month. The first half of January I spent in a post-Christmas food coma and the second half I had the privilege to experience authentic Vietnamese Lunar New Year in Ho Chi Minh City. I’ve previously written short stories depicting my experiences in China during my exchange year, so I already had some idea what East Asian cultures are like. Vietnam and her people are very similar to my experiences, but, on the other hand, totally different. This time around I would like to share my fresh experiences of staying in Vietnam for the holidays.

The thing is, I’m Finnish. My ancestors are Finnish. Therefore, centuries of living in the freezing snow and half-year long darkness have given me a genetic Dungeons&Dragons-like +50% resistance to cold. However, it has in no way prepared me for temperatures above 24 Celsius. So, from the moment I stepped out of the plane until I got back on it two weeks later, I was sweating like a pig, day and night. I felt like a beached whale except that instead of moisture I had a severe lack of coolness that I had to sustain with cold brews and ice. Speaking of which, cold brew as a concept was a bit of a culture shock for me. I am a regular consumer of coffee but never in my life had I had an urge to drink that stuff cold. After getting over my initial shock I discovered that it wasn’t that bad. Like my East German cohorts I grew fond of it, incidentally.

Speaking of a culture clash, I quickly discovered another aspect of Vietnamese culture that clashed with my Finnish worldview like a six-lane pileup. As I said, I already had some similar experiences in China so it did not come as such big a shock to me, and I knew that the more south and hotter you get the worse it gets, but the pollution was mind-boggling. As a Finn I’ve grown to appreciate nature, environmental cleanliness and fresh air, but it seems that the good Vietnamese people have other ideals. Trash on the street, in the rivers, even in the nature preservation area that I visited. I don’t think I need to mention the smog or the lack of recycling opportunities.

However, I don’t want to be the stereotypical European who travels in your country just to complain how everything is not how Charlemagne imagined it. There is a lot I love about Vietnam; the people are talkative, friendly and welcoming. The food is amazing. The nature, the aforementioned pollution problem not withstanding, is magnificent. As I walked down the streets little children came up to me and said “Hello” in English. In a high contrast to the usual potatoes I eat back home, the people there have approximately five million different noodle variants and twice as many sauces, each more delicious than the last. For the first time in my life I saw an Asian elephant in a zoo and traveled to a nature preservation area where I saw monkeys, crocodiles and other exotic animals in their natural habitat. It was all such an amazing experience!

It would have been wonderful to stay there for longer. I could only scratch the surface on what the country has to offer for a tourist like me; it is impossible to take all that in in just two weeks. I visited the Gucci Tunnels, the underground tunnel network that the Viet Cong used during the war. I visited the HCMC Zoo, and the Independence Palace and the Museum of History, where I learned a lot about the rich history of the country. The city was vibrant lovely and full of things to marvel. Honestly, it would be wonderful to stay there for a year or two.

I will definitely return there one day, and ever since I left China my dream has been to return to East Asia and live there. After my trip I can confidently say that the goal of my dreams is Vietnam, and I will figure out how to get back there. It is very difficult for a foreigner like me to get a residence permit, let alone own property there. Hopefully in the future I do figure it out. Until then, I will continue writing down my thoughts one post at a time.