I arrive in old Saigon, present Ho Chi Minh City, and make my way through customs, baggage claim, and luggage inspection. It’s taken me four cups of coffee, two flights, one long layover, and all my energy to get here. I push my un-steerable cart into the last air-conditioned area of the airport, waiting for everyone else to catch up. My dad and I stand and take a deep breath. I look out through the glass doors and see the familiar, but not so familiar, eyes I’ve seen before always greeting me back into Vietnam. There hasn’t been a time when hundreds of friendly faces haven’t embraced me back, even though I know none of them- it just makes me feel like a big family gathering back home in Maryland. In fact, I see a face that looks uncannily like my aunt who had raised me as an infant. She was always someone very special to me. I finally get a chance to catch up with my thoughts, except I spoke too soon, and everyone is ready and pushing their way through. As I walk through the sliding glass doors a tidal wave of moisture, humidity, and heat rushes over me. All I can do is laugh and smile. I glance over at my dad and he’s doing the exact same- I can’t help but wonder if we were thinking the same thing. Running through my head was: “Thank God I love a place so much that I can get over this heat!” As we walk further out, the smells start to override my senses, but to tell you the truth it’s nothing too distinct. To me it’s just a smell that I associate with Vietnam, a comforting smell, a smell I once thought of as gross and dirty; now thought of as a warm and consoling smell.
As we load and begin to ride on our over-sized bus, that is only seating eleven people, it’s now eleven at night on a Monday… or is it Sunday? Everyone has their own row, and takes up whatever they can of the city; seeing as though we’ve been traveling for what seems like days. It’s dark and late, but they get a small glimpse into what is to come. Most people really take notice to the number of scooters and someone on the bus says: “Scooters here are the equivalent to cars in the U.S.” Little do they know they’ve seen nothing yet.

Miranda Lu Dang
June 8 at 1:00 am