Goodbye and good luck

So it's time to say goodbye... I've always hated goodbye's and this one really hurts.
It's been an amazing ride. During the last 6 months I've met some really nice people, led a very comfortable life, travelled in Asia and gotten to know Vietnam better. In short I've been happy living in Vietnam.

It'll be quite an adjustment to cross a street without 100s of motos coming right at me, to do my own laundry, cook and clean again, to enjoy the sound of silence, to study, to be exposed to temperatures under 15c and to pay 13 USD for mojito! I'm not quite sure I'm actually ready to leave, but nonetheless I am leaving.

I've seen how Vietnam's rapid development is changing everyday life in Hanoi. New shops pop up by the day, traffick is getting worse (as more people can afford a moto), KFC has opened two "restaurants" in Hanoi and soon you'll probably see McD, Starbukcs and Pizza Hut opening. It's globalisation people say, it's the way development works, when it works! Maybe they're right. I hope the development strategy will included preserving Vietnamese culture and traditions. I hope Hanoi doesn't turn into Singapore, which in my view has lost so much of its' Asian spirit. I hope the distribuation of the new wealth is not as unequal as it in China. I hope Vietnam is able to cope with the development.

I don't know whether I'll blog from my next destination, but I can reveal I'm going back to Scandinavia, but I'm not going home. If I do decide to do another blog on my Northern adventures I'll be sure to put a link on this one. It's going to be my 4th country besides Denmark since the summer of 2002 and I'm slowly beginning to feel more like a world citizen, which is good I suppose. One of my friends asked me whether I thought moving around from country to country in the pace I've done is hard - I don't think moving to a new country or adjusting to its' pace is that hard, but saying goodbye always is...
But it is the life that I've chosen to lead at the moment (some say once you're on the track you never get off it again), and I feel very privileged that I'm able to live this way.

I'd like to say thanks to the 15 somewhat readers a day that actually have tuned into this discount version of my blog (the Danish one getting the funny stories and the best pics). I hope you've enjoyed my Vietnam adventure as much as I have.

Goodbye Vietnam, I hope I'll recognize you when I see you again