Your travel experiences

Dear Friends,

Please feel free to tell us your memorable travel experiences. This time I’m telling you about my trips to London.

Hi Alan,

I see that you live in the sticks, just 20 miles from London. You must know this city perfectly well. Then I’d like to tell you my experience I got in London since I’m lucky enough to have been there once. I still remember the day when I was so excited at the UK embassy to get my visa, it was July 7th. As soon as I got out of the embassy, I heard that the terorists atttacked London. What a joke ! I had to do so many things in order to get the visa, and had also the honour of beeing waited for by terorists ?! It’s incredible, but what to do now that everything was arranged ? I left my fear and worries on the doorstep and flied to London.

It’s a huge city, even bigger than Milan, but I liked it. I visited many museums and was so happy that they were all free of charge. I visited Buckingham Palace, had long walks along the Thame river bank and all the parks and wonderful gardens. I shared a house in Shepherd’s Bush, hoping to make friends with people who spoke English. But then I found out that my room mates are all from Italy, how happy I was I pretended not to know Italian language and just kept talking in English. Unfortunately, their English was not so good that they spent so much time to look words up in dictionaries, I lost my patience and often anticipated their answer (since I heard them speak in Italian!) I finished to be considered a stunning genius. I kept pulling their leg and started to say some Italian slang words and simple phrases, telling them that after a week listening to them I already learnt those stuffs. Italian language is easy, isn’t it ! I remember how astonished they were.

One day I went to Shepursh Bush station to catch metro and go to city central, it was more crowded than ever and I heard the announcement that the train would arrive 30 minutes late. So bored of waiting, I went out and catch a bus instead. On the way back home later in the evening, I found nearly 500 policemen around the station and many streets were closed. I didn’t know what way to take to get home, then asked a policeman what had happened. He put a hand on my shoulder and said quitely " Honey, go home this way ! Nothing has happened at all".

I managed to arrive home on foot. And all the night long I heard a couple of helicopters flying around and around above our roof. My friendly Italian room mates were so frightened that they gave me a big hug but couldn’t tell me even a word in English. We had dinner together and, as you can easily guess, non of them could stop telling in Italian what they had seen and heard that day, when a bomb was found underground on Shepherd’s Bush station.

Huong.

Hi…HuongItaly…

Nice to read your stunning experience with the Worlds’ Most Classical Capital…London…! It is my dream to visit this large city at least once in my life time…Also I had a wish to step in to the Queendom (feminine of Kingdom…?) which had ruled our beloved India for around 200 years…

Many thanks to your guidance in writing the travelogue about London…

Hi Sahid,

Thanks for your message. Life is long and I’m sure you will soon realize your dreams.
Yeah, you are right : the Britain is reigned by a Queen and not a King, and many times between friends we say the United Queendom instead. It’s nice, isn’t it ?

Sorry for some typing mistakes in my writing text (eg. terrorists, Shepherd’s Bush) and…my voice wasn’t so clear yesterday !

If you have travel experiences to share, it would be nice to listen to you here.

Have a nice day,

Huong.

Hi Huong,

I hope you don´t mind me the following question, but I´d like to know what way Italy differs from Vietnam in your opinion?

For explanation: I have been to Vietnam last spring and must say I liked it a lot. Even more I was surperised about the very European style. I mean, I spend the maintime in HCMC and had some guidance through that city. Kind Hoa showed me the Opera the Post Office and some more things which are build in French colonial style. He also claimed that a huge amount of Vietnamese citizens are catholics and hence there is just one Buddhist temple in HCMC. We visited it , too, and I had the fortune to see some Buddhist Priests doing their prayers.

We also visited the musuem of war, which was very oppressing albeit not really big. I enjoyed the noodle soup at Phóe 24 :smiley: the same like a shopping aftenoon in Benh Thanh market. Of course, to people who rather enjoy lower temperatures the weather isn´t really pleasant. But in almost every pub [color=red]naughty boy Hoa :lol: led me some [color=green]very nice native girls came and offered us refreshments.

Unfortunately, I wasn´t able to visit the swimming market in Mekong Delta :frowning: But had a dinner on a Sai Gon river boat. Really, albeit it was a business journey I experienced very pleasant and amazing 2 weeks. Also I haven´t been to Nha Trang and Hué but we had dates in several Northern Vietnamese cities like Hai Phong, Thai Binh, Viét Tri… .

Like I mentioned I enjoyed that journey a lot. I only missed a bit an Asian style, or at least, what I expected to be Asian style. Not even the horn blowing traffic ( nice horns btw) or the impatient moto bikers (starting 3 seconds before the signals changed from red to green) looked rather strange to me. And since you´re in Italy I imagine you must have felt pretty homelike soon, haven´t you?

However, enjoy

Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for sharing your travel experience in Vietnam. You could ask me any question you wanted, of course. Your first question is, what way Italy differs from Vietnam… My answer is, they are absolutely 2 different worlds. Different cultures, lifestypes, habits, mentalities…You might also find individual people think the same way you think, appreciate the same values as you do, of course, but the society tendencies diverse.

I’m a girl born and raised in the countryside of Hai Duong province (near Thai Binh & Hai Phong). I’m not a city girl, even if I have studied and lived for 4 years in Ha Noi. The philosophy of the youth here at my hometown is “study, study and work”. There are no discos, no trendy pubs of European style. People are still genuine down-to-earth, sincere, simple…Between neighbours we still give vegetables, fruits to each other and elder people still take care of children of other families for free…

HCM city in fact, is the biggest city in Vietnam, the most modern & Occidentalized, industrialized , many things were imported through the American war (religion included). 60% of Vietnamese people are Buddhist, but in HCMC it was hard for you to find a Buddhist temple. There you can find quite whatever you look for. It’s very lively, day and night. It offers many things, many opportunities. But if you look for something typical Vietnamese, I’m afraid HCM is not the right place :slight_smile:

Have you ever visited Kon Tum - Dak Lak, Phan Rang - Phan Thiet, Mai Chau, Ca Mau, Lai Chau, Son La, Sapa, or whatever dead end villages of Vietnam ? I think it’s enough just to walk away from cities and visit some surrounding places, you will see that many traditions are still alive there, where the real Vietnamese /Asian lifestype is evident. A couple of Italian friends of mine wanted to go with me to Vietnam this summer on holiday, I acted as their “personal” tourist guide spending time with them and together with some relatives of mine we went to Ha Long bay, Ha noi, Sapa, without looking for things addressed to Occidental tourists. They enjoyed themselves so much to eat what we eat here - the way we do here (we used chopsticks and bows of course). They saw how my Mom & my brother-in-law killed chicken (not a nice view eh…but otherwise we should go to buy already-killed chicken at supermarket…), how my cousin caught fishes from his ponds and they personally participated to fishing too…They ate banana, stary fruit, mango directly from their plants…It was a kind of Reality show for them, lived in person but far from footlights. They repeatedly told me that it’s another world, that they found nothing similar in Italy at all !

So Michael, I still believe that there are many many differences between Vietnam and Italy /Europe. Hope that our traditions and culture will not fade away as long as the standard of life improves. It would be really a pity.

Should you plan to go back to Vietnam another time, don’t go to big cities and trendy places just suitable for Occidental tourist…there you would see the same European lifestype…As far as I understand, it’s not what you looked for in Vietnam.

If I could be of some help, don’t hesitate to come back to me for some simple suggestions.

Huong.

Can you guess the name of the place ?

Hi Huong,

that must be “The heaven”. Very nice and also impressive view. Is it Northern VN? Unfortunately, I seem to have been to the wrong places in your country ( only industrial areas ) and having had only a few sights on your really nice country.

Michael

Hi Michael,

It seems to be the Heaven especially with such a beautiful rainbow. The name of this “heaven” is Sapa, you are right, it’s a mountanous area in the North of Vietnam, famous for the Fan-xi-pan peak and its mountain chain. I visited Sapa the last early September and had a wonderful stay there. My thought is that…I hope to go back there in the future, and bring my parents with me!
Here below I attach a photo taken by myself !
It’s a pity…they were too large and I had to minify them.

If you regret you have visited only some industrial areas in Vietnam…this means you’d have another occasion to go back and discover other sides (more natural and characteristic) of my homecountry :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Huong.