scpotpourri

My trip – nearly here…..

19 June 2026

‘Anticipation, thy name is imminence.’

Long, long ago, there came out this movie, The Bucket List. It was the first time I had heard this phrase. It caught everyone’s fancy; everyone started building his own bucket list.

I did too.

It mostly revolved around travel – places to see and things to do while seeing them.

Vietnam was one on that list.

I fell in love with the country as a young girl. ‘Terraced gardens’ was taught in Geography class. Pictures of them in Vietnam, I simply loved. Rice fields, along the slopes of hills, with peasants, donning conical hats, tending to them. I yearned to see them.

Then there was this song taught to us in Middle School – Una Paloma Blanca. It haunted my every waking moment when I first heard a rendition by George Baker.

Then there is this anecdote from decades ago. I was at this courier service in the US, sending a parcel to my daughter in India. The guy behind the desk was a veteran of the Vietnam War. He saw my daughter’s name on the parcel, and said it took him back to those years in Vietnam when a local girl sang this song on karaoke nights at the bar.

Vietnam was magical – beautiful green countrysides, romantic stories in the horrors of war.

At the turn of this millennium, I was living in Detroit, USA. Friday nights were eat-out nights. Detroit was filled with restaurants from all over the world. Nestled in a strip mall was one that was a hole-in-the-wall, a Vietnamese restaurant, run by a family from that country. The food was simply out of this world…yum

I loved the country, its food and its people (worked with some of them in Chrysler), still do.

Decades later, back home in India, I’m embarking on a vacation in Vietnam. My longing, yearning over all these years, finally bearing fruit.

I leave in a couple of days.

I’ll be back with accounts and pictures of my vacation.