.Here is a little piece I wrote for InsideAsia who arranged my trip! Let me know if you are interested in travel pieces as I have a few up my sleeve.
I am sitting in a roof bar above Hanoi, watching the full moon rise over the lake. The DJ is remixing the Pet Shop Boys. The waiter brings me a gin and tonic. The young couple next to me ask if I will take some photos of them and immediately start posing. She is in a tiny puffy skirt with thigh-high boots, he is in a shiny suit and has produced an enormous bouquet of flowers. Is it a proposal?
We take loads of selfies, which is what everyone here appears to do all the time. I now seem to be part of the proceedings.
It’s pretty much perfect, though not at all how I imagined Vietnam. Challenging your own preconceptions: isn’t that what travel is for?
Tip 1: be brave, be open
Staying curious is the best anti-aging strategy in the book, and travel is the best way to keep that curiosity muscle exercised. Vietnam had been calling me for some time, for many different reasons, so I jumped at the chance to go – even though I knew I was hitting the tail-end of rainy season and this would be a solo trip.
I love travelling with my family, whom I have dragged all over the world, and I love being with my friends. But wanderlust never really leaves a person, and there is something about taking off on one’s own that is the ultimate freedom. There’s no waiting for the others in the group, no traipsing around the compulsory sights, no settling for restaurants or bars that you haven’t chosen. You are free to do exactly as you please.
What a luxury! No wonder more and more of us middle-aged women are striking out on our own. We have paid our family dues. It’s our time now.
I started to acclimatise on my Vietnam Airlines flight by watching Tran Anh Hung’s The Scent of Green Papaya, a slow, arty and beautiful film. Then I drifted off reading The Quiet American, Graham Greene’s prescient account of his time in Vietnam, a country he clearly loved.
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