vaga #1/19 Why Vietnam
Today we are accompanied by the colours, photos that I have taken, and created new images from them
Part XIX
original photo of a boat, Java, January 2019
Thanks to Fernando, a Mexican passenger who pushed me to use Google photo and here I am. I took the right attitude, investigated and overcame the frustrations that technology gives me. It is a basic program, the premium one must be paid for, which I refuse to do and with the minimum I can make infinite compositions. I have about a thousand photos for this, and I can spend half a year on each one creating multiple possibilities, that is, 500 years could be in this. The original photo is not edited, I work on it as it was taken, I keep the colours, they are only sets of compositions on the same theme.
If I talk about Vietnam and why Vietnam was my full gateway to my wandering, without knowing it.
I go on to narrate how I started with trips and what my base was, my confidence in knowing myself and that I was capable for these busy, complicated days. At the age of 17 I went to Colombia and Peru for an award that I obtained in the municipality of Santiago. I went with Mariana, we both received the award, then we started for Bogotá, at one point I went alone to Santa Marta in the Caribbean. Yes, at the age of 17 this thing about the travelling began. The Santa Marta experience was intensely full of anecdotes, with many obstacles, which did not discourage me, instead I learned to overcome them, without apprehension. First experience and I spend it narrating my comings and goings without a tone of adversity. Then at 21 I left for Europe without a return ticket, those are things of destiny and a week before leaving Chile I found myself on the street with a distant friend, talking with her, she would also go to Europe and had coordinated with a friend of hers to visit it. Short story we travelled for 6 months in a VW Minivan. I had the opportunity to see almost all of Europe by land. Tere and Pancha returned to Chile from Spain where we said goodbye and I left with the minivan to Paris, it was January, winter and snowing, I lived frozen in the car for a short time until I settled in Paris for about 8 months. With less studying and more working, on my holidays, I went to Egypt, Turkey and Israel, to end up harvesting apples in Switzerland. My parents visited me, and we toured the Nordic countries, With my budget I would never have been able to do it on my own. I returned to Chile for family matters. A few months later I returned to live in Florence for another 7 months with 'Pollo' (Alberto), my boyfriend. We returned to Chile with the intention of going to the United States. That stop was longer than we expected, waiting for a "green card" official residence document for the US. In the meantime we got married. In 1988, we left to go to the States, after some time came the separation. I was there for 9 years, I returned to Chile with my new family, with a baby and a gringo husband. The holidays with the children were trips in tents, we travelled much of Chile and Peru with many adventures. In 2017, with the parenting tasks finished plus the sum of life's complexities gave me the push, I left for Mexico, I ran away after 4 days due to the earthquake to Costa Rica and then to Guatemala for a couple of months. I went back for Peter's graduation and closed what few things I had left to do in two weeks. I recognise that the travel bug was my father's seed, When I was 12 years old, we went to Cuzco in a pickup truck with my bunch of brothers and our last adventure was to Kilimanjaro, he was 75 years old, he was my mentor. I tell you this to show that travelling is not unknown to me, I am not urged by things I do not know, but on the contrary it produces a great curiosity in me.
In December 2017, I went to spend Christmas in San Francisco with my daughter Sofía, she lived there. We went to Japan, she was on holiday and was going back to San Francisco, I would keep going on alone. For the Japanese visa they require an exit ticket from the country… hummm to where? I asked myself, Sofia suggested Australia or New Zealand ... that's when the penny dropped ..... what she said was enough to make it very clear to me that that was exactly what I didn't want, more of the same. I realised that I was looking for something different, unknown, cultures never heard by me ……. The diverse awakens my soul, and it was half asleep as well as my senses, plus my curiosity that is almost insatiable. The day I stop being curious, I will check out.
Tossing the coin made my decision, Vietnam, Vietnam I said to Sofia, it was the closest one that interested me, therefore the cheapest plane ticket. Sofía was speechless or worried, after a long pause she asked me what are you going to do there? ...... ..no idea ...... I told her in all honesty.
Vietnam taught me to learn to move, ask questions, accept hundreds of misunderstandings, start eating off other menus, to know the code of each country, know how to keep the antennas on 24 hours a day. The day after my arrival in Hanoi I had planned to go to Halong Bay, which is two hours away to a "resort", I arrived drained from the cold and with a very meagre accommodation and meals regime because of how expensive it was. Between buses, quasi-boats and minibuses I arrived at Cat Bac, the resort cost half of a basic place in Japan. !!!! what joy, what luxury !!!! with calm and tranquility I began to orient myself in the country; money, ATMs which are a nightmare at first, with 6 mixed languages on the screen. Wonderful islands, like all Halong Bay, it was small.
Vietnam made its mark on me, it was like entering a white cloud, meaning I was in an uncertain space, not being scared of facing incomprehensible languages, getting a master's degree in gesticulations, widening my palate, staying quiet with unusual transport etc. As a mental draft I believed that in 6 months I would travel all of Southeast Asia, now I tell myself that I was ignorant, six months in Southeast Asia !!!!!! They gave me a 3-month visa…. PLOP the rest of the world is given a month. I don't know where the three months disappeared to and I only got to know the north and some of the centre. I passed through Vietnam flawlessly in the many new aspects that I had to integrate, it is better to say that everything is new on a daily basis. The slowest part was knowing how to use the cell phone, and I am still in the process of mastering it. Open-minded, absorbing everything, being surprised every so often, vivacious for remote cultures. Before for me it was a whole mass of countries with a tropical climate, rice fields and conical hats ... PLOP that ignorance once again. I always do the explanation when tourists know that I am from Chile, !!!! ah, Latin! America !!!! They see it as a mass of equal countries, even more so, almost all of us speak Spanish and have the same religion in general terms, meaning the same thing, I try to explain how Chile and Bolivia are two different worlds, or Argentina and Nicaragua and that's how I explain the differences that lie in those who are in the southern cone of America, they are 96% European immigrants, but they do not understand it, everything is the same, well that was what it was like for me, a mass of Asians, but worse each country here has absolutely different languages and writings; with balls, stripes and semi balls, with very diverse religions and histories, those that were colonies, as well as those that were not, add up and go on.
I arrived in Hanoi, at first I did not even know where it was and vaguely which country it belonged to, only when I bought the plane ticket. I had never dreamed or fantasised about this for my "golden age", I had already fulfilled my quota of trips in life and was totally satisfied. So I was not previously dreaming and looking for countries to go to, EVER. That is why the lack of preparation, such as learning to use the cell phone, even the geography. By passing Vietnam, as a test it gave me the certainty that I would pass the others.
and so the Vagabond began to walk ………