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kilometres before peeling off with a wave and a grin.
Leaving the urban area, the road began to stretch and breathe again. Towns came and went, each with its own subtle variations but the same underlying sense of community. In one, I was invited to join a family for dinner, the table quickly expanding to accommodate one more. Dishes appeared in abundance, each one offered with a smile and a nod of encouragement.
We sat on the floor, passing plates, sharing food, laughter filling the gaps where language fell short. At one point, the grandfather of the family, his face deeply lined, raised a small glass of rice wine and spoke. The room quieted. Though I couldn’ t understand the words, the tone was unmistakable, gratitude, welcome, a recognition of the moment. He drank, then gestured for me to do the same.
Further north, in the ancient city of Hue, history feels closer to the surface. The scars of the past are more visible here, the echoes louder. But even here, life moves forward with a kind of quiet determination.
Speaking with a young woman, her English excellent, our conversation flowed easily. She told me about her grandparents, about their experiences during the war, about the stories that had shaped her understanding of her country.
“ We learn it,” she said,“ but we don’ t live in it.”
She smiled as she said it, as though aware of the weight of her words.“ We have now,” she added, gesturing around the café, at the people, at the life unfolding in real time.“ Now is good.”
It’ s a sentiment you hear often in Vietnam, expressed in different ways but always carrying the same essence. The past is acknowledged, respected, but it does not anchor the present. There is a forward motion, a collective willingness to embrace what is rather than dwell on what was.
As the road carried me further north, into the mountains and the cooler air, the interactions became, if anything, even more intimate. In smaller villages, the arrival of a foreign rider, now part of a larger group, was still something of an event. People emerged from homes, from fields, from shops, drawn by curiosity and the simple desire to connect.
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