At the age of 24, I believe that there are a lot of people like me struggling with too many choices. By taking a long trip away, beyond the comfort zone, hopefully, I will find myself somewhere and realize clearly without any doubt about the things I desire to do, the life I'd love to live.
--Hangbe's Diary of March 08, 2018. Lima, Peru--
The longest journey ever
Throughout 2 months of preparing, whenever I told anyone that I would travel South America, no one believed me. They didn't even surprise or ask me anything about my plan. Since they thought I was insane and it was a foolish joke. Of course, they must think like that. Is there any Vietnamese who is willing to go halfway around the world to travel South America. There isn't even any nonstop flight from Vietnam to South America.
Since I booked the flight ticket, I already knew that it would be a halfway around the planet trip, it would be almost 20000 km, 30 hour-flight and twice of transit. But I was never able to imagine that it would be as long as like that.
The longest journey ever.
- Depart from Noi Bai international airport, after 4 hour-flight, landed in Shanghai, China. The first transit, layover 8 hours in the airport.
- From Shanghai airport, after 13 hour-flight, landed in Toronto, Canada. The second transit, layover 23 hours in the airport.
- From Toronto airport, after 11 hour-flight, landed in Lima, Peru - the first destination of my journey.
Almost 30 hour-flight, 2,5 days total.
And one day before that departure time, I had to rush to Saigon from Hanoi to take transit visa from Consulate General of Canada in order to finish the last step to be able to start traveling.
So it made me felt even more longer.
Somethings I never forget
I will never forget the feeling that no matter how long I slept in the airplane when I woke up, it was still hovering over the Pacific Ocean.
Even though I saw both sunrise and sunset in the airplane already, It hadn't landed yet.
That is the feeling that being on the plane but felt like the time machine to travel back in time 12 hours, from GMT +7 to GMT -5.
The feeling that it's such long enough to get to know the one who sat right beside, and even enough time to disembosom long stories. The lucky money given by the Chinese Canadian man who sat next to me on the plane to go Canada, made me realized that actually, people in the world out there were not as cold as I thought before.
The long trip away was really tired, but the excitement and delight remained the same, weren't reduced even just a little bit.
