Saigon and beyond

I was distracted from the hustle and bustle of Saigon briefly today to think about my blog. I've neglected it something terrible. I have pretty much disregarded it completely for all of Vietnam. I need to document it. It's been such an amazing country to explore.

I've been to: Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang, Dalat, Mui Ne, Saigon and the Cu Chi tunnels. Hoi An was such a gem, it's a little town I fell very badly for. I miss it deeply, but I know I'll be back one day.

Rich, Mark and I said goodbye to each other, and to the city in style tonight. We went to a little restaurant called the Temple club and spent more on one meal between us than we did a group of 10! Dessert seemed average there, so we found a little bakery, indulging in desserts while navigating the crazy streets of Saigon. We headed up to the top of the Sheraton Hotel and tried to ignore the cocktail prices while enjoying the amazing view. I like Saigon as a city much more than I expected.

Tomorrow is the first time I am alone since the beginning of my trip - since Phuket. I am going to be very lost without the lads, but I know being alone is going to give me more of an opportunity to have the experience I came here for. I want to learn a little of the language, I want to help, I want to stay with locals and I want to have a budget more in line with what the locals would spend (no more roof top bars for me!). I'm probably going to have to start looking at maps now too.

I can feel something inside me shifting. It's hard to describe, but I'd say it's similar to having two paper hearts. At the moment they're lining up to be on top of each other, to be one... they're not quite there, so there is a lot of overlap, but I can feel everything falling into place. I can feel the person I want to be aligning with the person I am. It's a really bizarre feeling, but it's beautiful.


I've decided that this year is all about doing what I want to do. Screw making sense. Screw being sensible. I'm just going to live and feed my soul.

New Year Resolutions

I'm perhaps the worst travel blogger in the entire world. But that's okay, we'll move past that. Today I need to rant about life. About dreams. About religion... Anyone else get the picture that I read "Eat Pray Love" recently?

This trip for me was all about exploring somewhere new. I'd hoped to find some kind of clarity. Maybe I'd get to know myself a little better. I'd hoped to find whatever was missing from my life. I wanted to be really happy.

I've learned a lot. Happiness isn't something that happens by chance: it has nothing to do with luck. It's not something that you stumble across. Happiness is pure, and it's raw and it's made with your own two hands. I've learned that there are really two types of events in the world:

1) Those you can't control
2) Those that you can control

It's easy in life to be frustrated by both of those type of events when they don't go how you planned: how you dreamed they might. There's no point being upset about things you can't control, that's a given. But I've learned there's no point being upset about those things that you can control, because you could invest that energy into positive change. Happiness is made with our own two hands, but it also starts in our minds. You can craft your thoughts to be positive, genuine, hopeful and inspiring. I've learned that being letting yourself be unhappy (it is a choice) is very taxing on your soul, and the souls of those who are close to you. Not only are you doing yourself a huge disservice by being unhappy, but you are negatively impacting the world too.

I'm choosing to be the kind of girl who impacts the world in a positive way. I want to be the girl who can make the person she's speaking with feel like they are the most important person in the world. That's one of my new year's resolutions.

When I was at Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai I felt overwhelmed to pray. I'm not sure why, I'm not a hugely religious person. I don't really have a God I was praying to. I think maybe I was just sending out a little message to the universe. I lit an incense stick and stuck it in the offering to Buddha and I kneeled before it. I cleared my head of all thoughts, and asked myself what I wanted most to learn... "I want to find happiness in silly places" - I didn't mean happiness in the usual sense. I want to be able to laugh at my own misfortunes, I want to stop and smell the roses, I want to study the stars from as many places on earth as I can and feel so overwhelmed by it all. I want to take deep breaths and really breathe in life. I want to find beauty in the places you sometimes forget to look.

I think I am doing all of that now and it feels amazing :)

I've also decided that the relationships that don't work out, are there to take you closer to where you need to be in life. My most recent relationship made a passion for photography resonate within me. I've learned so much from him and I can't wait to take it further. I don't believe everything happens for a reason, but I think maybe there is a path that I'm supposed to be on. At the moment I feel like I'm exactly where I should be.

Two weeks until I have to be out of Vietnam!

I have a few more resolutions, but I'll post them as they come to heart. xx