BACKPACKING WITH 3OKG – In four weeks through Vietnam

A long story short:

Four weeks. Alone. Not totally alone, it was more a giant bag and me. 10 stations: Phu Quoc, Mekong Delta, Ho Chi Minh City, Mui Né, Da Lat, Hoi An, Hue, Halong Bay, Sapa and Hanoi. From the very deep down South up to the peaks of the North. Across the country. Countless night buses and so many adventures in a row like never before. If there was an adventure ranking, Vietnam would receive the award! Also super inexpensive. Great backpacker scene. Hostel-Life. Exciting country. Sometimes communication problems, but wonderful people. Favorite food: Bánh Mi, a sandwich that can be bought everywhere on the street. Otherwise not very easy for vegetarians, if one is limited in time and often has to choose from what there is at the moment, where one is in unselected places at the moment, an aspect that travelling by bus brings with it. Because here one likes to eat meat with meat, otherwise vegetable/fried rice remains. All in all: both thumbs up! Vietnam, my friend, I like you. Ergo: I’ll come back, because there is a small list of things I haven’t managed to experience or just want to experience again.

The whole story:

Four weeks in Vietnam. Solo Travelling. Backpacking. Just without backpack, but therefore with a bag as heavy as 3 backpacker backpacks. We’re talking about 30kg, the mean backpacker has an average of 11! Ha! Yes! Exactly! Not wrong read, rightly scared. Man hey, you get used to everything. That doesn’t make it more beautiful, no, you just get used to it. Much too difficult remains much too difficult. Therefore I had EVERYTHING in it – like eeeeverything needed with me. Vietnam is huge like very big in size, so long in it´s length that it covers several climate zones. Well… I was prepared with my all-round luggage and could cover super hot to really cold just really well. The towing must have some advantage, right… I also had to constantly talk about the abnormal weight and size of this bag… So at some point you are creating funny sayings on repetitive questions like “What is in there?” just to not get bored or bothered by it. My created answer has been: “My little brother!” When people laughed I sometimes macabre topped it with “Maybe also your little brother, who knows ;-)” Everyone always found it funny. The reason why I always had a little laugh about it, a thing which is actually really funny because the situation itself wasn´t. No matter how, without a helping hand I was thrown out. Self-caused, I said to myself and grit my teeth together. No problem, just a challenge… was what I was telling to myself while clenching my teeth even stronger together. Yes, the struggle was real, doubtless, but this perspective helped me to stay stable with the massive weight and to think solution-oriented instead of suffering oriented. Briefly: Me and and the biggest bag ever seen… I think you got it… the heaviest backpacking rucksack ever seen in whole Southeastasia, I would even risk a bet saying: the heaviest worldwide! Who´s in?? Message me later [hello@adventureandyou.de], proving your ones is heavier and I´ll own you a border crossing where I´ll carry your big bag or you own me a drink, a big one! the biggest one. But back to the main story first:

So I came from Cambodia by bus across the border. That means the bus stops at the border crossing on the Cambodian side. One gets out, crosses the border on foot, gets the visa (per car entry only 2 weeks possible, therefore the extension also only possible for 2 weeks. If you arrive by plane, you get 4 weeks, which you can extend for another 4 weeks… A logic that isn´t one, even the Vietnamese that I´ve asked about it to understand it didn´t do either). On the Vietnamese side you get on the bus again. If I hadn’t had my really charming two Parisian girls joining, I probably would have just buried myself under my bag. My rollless North Face behemoth was so big and heavy that I didn’t even have to put it on the screening tape when crossing the border. So I could have smuggled everything into the country, including your little brother. An insider that runs through the story.

MOONCHILDS FROM PARIS. Cool kids. Wild hearts. Creative souls. NELLY & LILA. We met on Koh Rong Samloem, a beautiful island in the south of Cambodia. [Our Moments] White sandy beach, crystal clear water, the paradise par excellence! Creativity and art brought us together as well as a guesthouse called Octo. And just as your vibe constellates your tribe, Nelly and Lila decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve with me in the jungle of Cambodia rather than going to Bangkok. Instead of being in this crowded and noisy big city jungle of Thailand´s capital -which has been the original plan- they prefered to join me on a rave in the middle of a cambodian jungle, where I´ve already celebrated before leaving for paradise and before getting ready for the night of the nights. Why I´ve chosen this one? Well, imagine: You enter over a bridge. First thing you see is a ferris wheel, yes! a ferris wheel in the middle of the jungle! [check out: Our cambodian adventure]. So we formed a travel group, experienced the new year together and decided to cross the border together too. Next destination: Puh Quoc! A Vietnamese island (the largest btw) off the coast of Cambodia, in the Gulf of Thailand.

We started our island happiness in a small fishing village called Ham Ninh, which seemed more idyllic than it really was. A lot of trash and full of plastic… You don’t have to see it! But cycling through the village, that´s fun, aswell as visiting the waterfalls. Recommendable!

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Afterwards we moved right into the centre of the island: Duong Dong. The night market of the city was great, but we lived right next to it in the middle of a day market full of fresh fish and meat from dead animals. Imagine the smell and the pictures every day… But well, those who are late in booking their accommodation have to see where they are staying. The disadvantage of “Go with the flow”. Moreover, there was neither a reception nor room cleaning, and it was already unclean when we moved in. Nevertheless we stayed almost a week, it seemed as if we would not get anything adequate in price. At least we had sea view, even if in the distance, a refrigerator and an AC, …better than nothing.

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The Epizode Festival was our playground. An area that couldn’t have been more beautiful. Three nights long Epizode Festival with one day regeneration followed on each one of celebration, resulted in six island days. My absolute pleasure to celebrate artists directly at the sea, which I already booked myself back in the business days and to come across this concentrated program of High Quality Sound in electronic music, I mean this combination of setting and booking in Asia, CHAPEAU! It was perfect. My creative gang and I had wonderful days together. Then we parted ways. I send you kisses to Paris (or better to Madagascar where you are right now) and scream an EQUILIBRE out into the universe, you beautiful souls. A heart that laughs when it thinks of you. One Vibe. One Tribe. One Vietnam-Part-One-Travel-Gang.

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My last night on the island I stayed alone in our accommodation and… what happened?… I had to hide from the police, literally under my blanket. My neighbour – a young vietnamese guy – knocked and said that the cops were coming, “Don’t open the door and turn off the lights!” There was no time for the question: “Why?” And ZACK he had disappeared again. I had no idea so I did what he said. The officers were stubborn, knocked long, hard, loud and tried to open the door several times via the door handle… I didn’t move an inch and survived the strange situation. In the aftermath I learned that it was a question of checking that the ban on prostitution was being observed. Ahh, alright!

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I didn´t make it to Bai Sao beach but I left the island with a big smile, a touched heart and a 30kg trekking bag full of memories. Well and finally a new credit card in my pocket but that´s a different story. Back to this one: I grabbed a boat and travelled to the mainland. 2nd station: Mekong Delta.

…to be continued.