The beginnings...of VietFran

Well here it goes. I've finally submitted to starting a blog. How long will I sustain it for? That is the million dollar question. The objective is for me to have a personal archive of what I'll experience on my year abroad. And a chance to share my experiences with my friends, family and maybe an odd troller or two like myself. Either way I do know I'll always have one loyal reader, My Mum. (happy Mothers day for Sunday) She always did encourage me to start a blog.

Tomorrow will be my three month anniversary from leaving Sydney (home/family/friends/hot chips with chicken salt/work and life as I knew it) and as much as I miss the comforts of home, it's been a fun and exhilarating experience. And I guess the natural way to start my first entry would be from the beginning...

Tuan and I had been in a LDR (loooong distance relationship) for 7 years when we finally started talking about going abroad.  At the time we really had no plan, initially Europe, London etc... I was willing to wing it, ready for a change and confident I'd be able to find a job anywhere or happy to take some time off to travel and volunteer. On the other hand, Tuan wanted a job set up before leaving New York and with Europe's current economic situation we were finding it quite difficult. Months flew by with no progress of our big idea to travel the world! That's when we decided to open our options to Asia and low and behold, Tuan got a job offer in Vietnam. I still remember the conversation when Tuan told me he got a call back from a job he had applied for in Saigon.

"Saigon?" "Yes." "in China?" "No, Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City!" "ohhh..."

It took a moment to sink in, plus I was getting over my shameful naiveness. Saigon, of course I knew where Saigon was, I grew up in Cabramatta! It's just that Vietnam had not crossed any of our conversations....at all.

So totally out of the box and quite quickly, we agreed to Vietnam, out of it came an opportunity for me to take a year off to travel and volunteer. Where as moving to Europe I would have jumped straight into a typical 9-5 job with short, gastronomic, train hopping, European weekends away (which actually doesn't sound too bad).

But here we are, 3 months in and I've come to enjoy this country (for the record I still have a lot more embracing to do) and there's plenty I'd like to share just from my first 3 months away, but who know's what I decide to write about next.

Join me as I learn to embrace this vibrant country, Vietnam and it's surrounding countries.

The front cover of the super awesome farewell card my work mates made for me just before I left.