It is quite often that I get to think about how different our lives are when you meet people from other countries far away, and see how their everyday life looks comperes to our lives, and yet we are so alike we have the same basic needs, same dreams, laughing and crying and are curious about things that are new to us. And we share the same feeling that it is greener on the other side of the fence. Here people live in a temperature that rarely or never goes under 25 degrees, and they love coldness, while we rarely or never have a temperature above 25 ... and love the sun and the heat.
I am also astonished at their relaxing ways of looking at food and Fresh products, there are big meat pieces in the front of the sun in markets that do not smell bad, it does not look bad in any way, fish and seafood as well.
When it's dinner, endless of dishes and pots are put on the table, and they sit for hours and eat from meat and other things.
While we, when we get home from the store, can not quickly enough get our food in the fridge and freezer for fear of being destroyed in our "heat" .. not to mention when it's summertime ?! And as soon as the last chew is taken by the Christmas table or the midsummer herring, the plates quickly get plastic wraps on and sent into the fridge. And dare that fly that comes close. How could it be possible that it works here and not with us in the cold north?
Yesterday morning we had made a plan how to spend our day, but at breakfast the daughter in the house showed up wondering if we wanted to accompany her and her friends on a trip, they would go fishing and living on the beach for three days.
It sounded as a really funny and nice idea to hang out with them, so we said yes for a trip, but not to spend the night on the beach, as we suffered from a ”Western Denguefeber phobia”. So we were six motorbikes who went off (12people) to an for us unknown goal and with only one who spoke English.
It took a ride of about 45km where we stayed at a house that lay by the road. In the house there lived a crowd of people who gladly welcomed us and offered icetea and fruit, everyone started a frenetic cooking,
someone went away and bought / collected alive crabs and a bag of mussels. It was boiling and Bbq everywhere around the house and in no time everything were ready
Everything was put on a blanket on the floor, everyone of us and those who lived in the house sat down, they soft and smooth with their legs crossed ... and we stiff like rococo furniture.
It was offered beer, icetea and some kind of porridge-like rice soup spiced with black pepper and then freshly cooked crabs, and cooked and grilled mussels of course ... there was also some meatlike stuff that I tried to eat but failed to get my teeth through and honestly it did not looked so delicius either.
It was loud and cheerful and although we did not speak the same language, it became a fun and enjoyable dinner, but Rickard was happy to drink beer and eat the porridge-like rice soup, seafood is not really his thing.
After dinner, it was time for our group to go further to the beach where they would spend three nights. Our plan was to join them just to see where they were going. It was a short drive with the motorbikes out on a grassy sandbank where we would never have dared us out on unless they were with us,
we came down to a really dirty beach and We went to a house / shed that lay far out on the piles with a long bridge which we walked out on, there were also a few people there before us, and although the little house barely hold together with the construction of old Wood from the sea, there was a little guy watching a flat screen television set hanging on one of the wall. Yes, yes, you never stop being surprised with how we love and priorities when it comes to technology and the needs of the media in every way.
Here we said goodbye to our friends and started our long journey home to our safe homestay.
the evening and the night I spent the ”little room”, Rickard felt more and more satisfied with his choice, rice soup... while I think you have to sacrifice something and someone must show gratitude and eat what's offered as well, and take one for the team simply as that ha ha😄
Tomorrow we will leave Phu Quoc and Vietnam after two weeks and return ”home” to Thailand. And I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised, we had many prejudices and warning words with us in our luggage when we went here, calling dishonesty and thiefs, and certainly one should always be careful about their belongings no matter where you are , I think not that it's worse here than anywhere else.
The people we met have been incredibly friendly, generous and hospitable.
It's easier for us to be in Thailand where we know the money, know what things will "cost" and we can enough words in Thai so we can handle non English-speaking areas, so yes it's easier, but sometimes it's exciting to do that which is a little more difficult.
The pictures in the Phu Quoc vacationpapers may not be what the reality offers, the beaches are not so many and very few are cleaned, some of the water is in some places are like the water in a bathtub and the beaches are really white but they are surprisingly few. They are building enormous hotel complexes on the island that will be ready shortly, but we wonder in what ways the beaches can swallow all these people.
But We like Vietnam, and its inhabitants special! ... So Thank you Vietnam for a lovely experience❤️☮️🌺