I travelled to Vietnam and you should, too

Food, nature, kindness— what’s not to like?

Vietnam is alien but familiar. It’s a country where I’ve learnt that keeping birds in a cage is a manly thing, and that nature is so overwhelmingly pretty that it can induce people not to even consider moving elsewhere. For a country 1600 kilometres long, the stereotypes of the Western traveler — the war, the communist Government, street food, the tropical flora — are ubiquitous yet delicate. Vietnam is long, narrow, and diverse in its climate. There is no best time of the year to visit: expect to be hit by the tropical weather with all its might 12 months a year. You just go and get used to it. November looked like a good bet, and it sort of worked, while exposing us to such climatic diversity: the torrid and humid South around Saigon and the Mekong Delta, the rainy Centre with Hoi An and Hue, the mild and dry North with its capital Hanoi.

Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon

Quiet and traffic

Vietnam is a country of mopeds. Few cars roam its roads, but thousands of bikes stream as you try and walk on zebra crossings. For me, coming from Southern Italy, it’s not shocking at all: zebra crossings are generally ignored, you raise your arm, look threateningly at the riders, slowly advance, and hope for the better. Vietnam is pretty much the same: the traffic will…