Goodbye Vietnam

It's Sunday morning and last night, I couldn't sleep at all. Vietnam is such an experience, what's Hong Kong gonna be like? Driving to the airport to leave Vietnam wistful feelings come over me. Someone suggested travel comes in stages. In the beginning you're euphoric then the high wears off and you crave the familiar and just when you get too homesick something happens to make you fall in love again with your new surroundings. My love came from reuniting with old friends from Green Dragon over a humid outdoor lunch, a Friday afternoon yoga class on the top floor of a colonial building as warm tropical breezes helped us loosen our bodies naturally, a graceful teacher who led us in English and Vietnamese and the steam and sauna afterwards. The teacher and I promise to stay in touch and meet up in India next year to study together with an elder teacher who taught us both, she in Thailand and me in L.A. My last day in Vietnam is a sweet blur-we speed through the roundabout--also known as circles--to pick up a traditional Vietnamese dress, rush to the rooftop of a European hotel to watch the sun set, back to the Animation Studio just to be sure we've covered ev'thing and then out for dinner and a night of club hopping at all of the new hot spots for Vietnamese and foreigners to party together and discover each other's (fingers gesture) "cultures." I savor these last few moments.