It’s been one year since we returned from our 3 week vacation to South East Asia. As with many things, time can dull the memories. Since it was such an incredible trip and I don’t want the memories to fade, I dug out some writing from when I got back.  

We just returned from an exhausting, exhilarating, educational, exciting and challenging three weeks in Southeast Asia.  Everything, everyday was out of my typical frame of reference, so my mind was constantly recording, checking and absorbing new impressions.  By the end of the first day I was having trouble keeping track of what had happened, so I started and kept a journal to try and hold onto some of the sensations.  I was ready to come home, but I would go again in a second.

We visited Hong Kong, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.  A few impressions:

• People everywhere were friendly, helpful and welcoming.  Whether we were in incredibly busy Hong Kong or a remote village up the Mekong River in Northern Laos, people went out of their way to help us.
• The area is growing phenomenally.  There is construction going on everywhere – residential, tourist, commercial.
• The population is young and people are looking to better themselves – we met a lot of entrepreneurs – from the children selling postcards to the boatmen, taxi drivers and shopkeepers.  Statistics we saw said that 40 to 50% of the populations in these countries (Hong Kong excepted) are teenagers or younger.
• There is an incredible mix of the old and the new.  Inagine a man on a motorbike driving down a city street with a fully grown, dead pig on the back.
• There can’t be any place in the world with a greater variety of women’s shoes than Hanoi.

I returned with a deep sense of gratitude for the incredible blessings we enjoy, not the least of which is our team.  They made sure our clients were helped and all the minutiae of running a business were dealt with.  In fact, they did so well – where are we going next?