The travels of amazing miss Brown (Vietnam)

Look who we have here. This person looks familiar.

She is talking about solo travels in India and has the audience enthralled with her travel hacks and funny stories.

Back in 2011, I was in Singapore preparing for an education conference. I lost the keys to my rented apartment. The landlord was in China and he said he needed a couple of days to ship the duplicate keys to me. I figured that it would be cheaper to buy a return ticket to Saigon and stay in an inexpensive place compared to renting a hotel in Singapore. The other useful thing about Vietnam is they have many cafes with wifi. I found a quiet cafe to do my work and I used to spend hours at a time in that cafe.

A young girl who worked at the cafe often came by to talk to me. She introduced herself as Brown. Brown said she was from Dalat and she had moved to Saigon to study. Like many other young people, she worked part-time. I was surprised when she remarked that she wants to learn Hindi. She said she wants to visit India sometime in the near future. I assumed that the girl was just curious or perhaps she was just trying to make a customer happy by talking about their homeland. I myself used this strategy in my travels. People get nostalgic when you talk about their home town and they befriend you easily.

We kept in touch with occasional online chats. Once when I was visiting Dalat, Brown happened to be visiting her home too. We met in one of the picturesque cafes in the city. I presented her a book about India written by a Vietnamese author.

In 2013, I was in Phnom Penh for the FOSS Asia. I got a message from Brown that she was coming to Phnom Penh too. She said she had just finished university and she was planning to travel. Later that afternoon,. Brown had even more surprising news for me. Her final destination was New Delhi. Her circuitous route (a bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh, another bus from Phnom Penh to Bangkok, and finally a cheap flight from Bangkok to India) was because of her limited budget.

Over the years, I have met many young Vietnamese travellers, surprisingly most of them are young women. They sometimes remind me of myself a decade back (though I always tease them by stating that I was cuter). They have a strong desire to learn more about the world and make connections with people in a faraway land. And I realize that they have already heard lectures from their loved ones and friends about the dangers of travelling alone to a place that may be dangerous or unpredictable. I try not to discourage them.  I share some travel hacks, some contact at their destination, and wish them luck.

In the case of Brown too, it turned out well. She ended up finding a job in India and followed up with a couple of more stints of travels across India and South East Asia. Now she sometimes shows up at our meets and inspires others to embrace the world.

I have observed that many young Vietnamese, who move from a smaller town to a big city for school or work, tend to be more gritty and street smart. They have lived in the city away from their family and go through the process of navigating life. This gives them the confidence to go to a new place and connect with new people.