Tribute to the lovely Vietnamese people

I don't know who is more beautiful: the country of Vietnam or the people living here. Not beautiful in the sense of any (unrealistic) beauty ideals. I mean the beauty from within. In Ho Chi Minh City, people were already nice to us. And it is a big city in which one could easily hide behind an anonymous facade or become tired of tourists. Today, however, we are further outside the "beaten track" - the well-trodden tourist path. The people here seem to be even nicer and more beautiful from the inside! How many times have we been smiled at, engaged in conversation, waved at and said "Hello!!" shouted or people just stopped, looked at us, nodded with a smile and moved on. Once we were in a restaurant. There was no menu and the waiter didn't speak English. A young man, himself a guest with his family, helped us. As is often the case, the food tasted very good and we were once again explained with gestures how to eat the dish. The young man finished eating in front of us, came up to us and said: "I've already paid for you!". We looked at him completely confused. "Why?" I asked, after all we would have to buy him food because he helped us! His answer was short: "Because we Vietnamese are nice people!" Oh yes, you are and prove it to us tirelessly every day! Maybe some people are now thinking that we've only been in Vietnam for 10 days and that we can't rate it yet. But I have the following story to counter it: We drove around on the scooters today. We stopped for coffee at a small stand. We ordered a coffee and asked for the toilet. The porcelain throne was across the courtyard in their home. Soon all the adults in the family were around us. We willingly had photos taken with us, we were shown the farm with goats and cows and the man also knocked a few coconuts from the palm tree for us. We then sat together and communicated using a translation app. The woman really wanted us to come over again so she could treat me to coconuts! :))

She didn't want any money for the coffee.

These great encounters definitely inspired me to make this blog entry, as a tribute, as a message or rather as a shout out to the wider world about how sweet, nice, friendly and welcoming people are here in Vietnam. A welcoming culture that I have never experienced before!