on Travel

Sitting amidst the crowded, jostling din of a train station in Vietnam many years ago, I realized that several Vietnamese were looking over at me with curious eyes. Feeling a bit self-conscious, I yanked a paperback out of my pack and started reading.

From a corner of my eye a few pages on, I noticed a little Vietnamese girl in a red dress shyly emerge from the baggage laden throng.

Tentatively, with two fingers touching her chin, she carefully watched me as she slowly walked over to the bench I had wedged myself onto and asked in halting, accented English, “What is your name?”

She grinned with delight at getting a response, immediately returned to her mother for a bit of coaching, and slipped back through the cramped confusion with other questions; “How old are you?”…”Do you like Vietnam?”… and finally, “What country are you from?”

Though few in the crowd of curious eyes understood English, all knew what the last question had been when I answered, “America.”

At this, the girl beamed with excitement, turned on her heel, and dashed back to her mother. – After a few minutes, she hesitantly returned, stood up straight in front of me, and softly sang a Vietnamese song, as the place gradually quieted and all eyes looked on.

Touched by this gesture of hospitality, an especially open-hearted one in light of the tragic past our two countries share, I had to briefly look away, press my lips together and slightly turn them inward to keep my eyes from watering. As she finished the song, I started a solitary applause which was soon joined by everyone in the place.

At that instant, the train whistle abruptly echoed down the station platform. Bundles and bags were quickly hoisted, and the little girl was grabbed up, waving goodbye over her mother’s shoulder as they disappeared into the crowd flooding out to the waiting carriages.

Although the moment evaporated with the last sound of the train whistle, it will always remain in my memory. 

Because travel constantly allows you to live in the absolute moment, and create such priceless memories, I believe it’s as close as you can get to the weightlessness and wonder of being a kid again. - Rambling about, camera in hand, is the best way I've found to capture fleeting bits of that magic.   

* Excerpt from "Vietnam: After the Nightmare," Sunday weekend section article by Scott Shelton, published by the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, July 2, 1995.