Together in Vietnam

And then Lara visited me.

Shortly after the relationship with Eva ended after almost 4 years, I fled to my cousin in Mainz for a week to not go completely crazy at home and to have someone to talk, laugh, cry and dance with. And that person is my cousin Lena. It didn't take long for her to convince me to venture into the dating world as a single for the first time in my life and she downloaded the dating app Bumble for me. And there I saw this adorable person with a smile for the first time. We didn't chat for long, but quickly agreed to meet and after the first 'date', I knew that I had someone special in front of me. Never in my life has anyone asked me such interesting questions while expressing empathy and sympathy in every action, which can only make you want to reciprocate.

But we also got to know each other with the clear facts of reality. Come what may, after completing my apprenticeship, I will travel through Asia for a year and live only 2 hours away from her until then, while she is engaged in the demanding study of acting, which often doesn't make solid planning so easy. We met more or less for six months, but no matter how long we hadn't seen each other or under what circumstances, we had a dreamy time, marked by a touch of adventure, hours-long conversations, crossword puzzles, cheesy romance, and a lot of driving. Even the fact that we agreed not to commit to each other and also saw other people in parallel never caused any problems, which I would like to attribute to the, I have to pat ourselves on the back, phenomenal communication and honesty that I have never experienced to this extent before.

We both realized, or rather felt, as the date of my departure drew nearer, that we were becoming something more than just friends and we wondered what kind of relationship we would actually be in if I didn't leave. When she suggested visiting me in Asia for a few weeks in the winter, I was incredibly happy and filled with anticipation, but it also meant that our 'getting to know each other' phase was not over, but would continue for another four months. However, it also means maintaining, nurturing, and wanting to keep a long-distance relationship, even if we are not officially committed. It was sometimes very easy and enjoyable, and sometimes the emotional needs didn't align with the actual exchange, especially when you are on the other side of the world and simply long for someone familiar and someone who makes you feel good.

The last time we saw each other was on September 2nd, a day before my departure, when I stood in front of her door with Cassiopeia and I knew that I wouldn't be pressing that doorbell for a very long time. We strolled to the Rhine, settled down with a blanket and music, solved more crossword puzzles, tried to communicate only with gestures and facial expressions, which was not that difficult and damn funny, because you can actually answer questions like 'do you want to have children?' to some extent this way, ordered pizza, ate it with tea and watched the sunset on her balcony, and then flopped into bed at her place. After we quickly bought my last German bread, she took me to the tram and we joked, probably to avoid a highly emotional goodbye, about the movies where the man goes off to war and the woman waves goodbye to him with a tissue at the train station.

Four months later and 17,000 km apart, our togetherness was supposed to continue with the primary goal of having a really great time and possibly also seeing what the future could look like.

It was super nice to be able to hug her at the airport after all this time and to talk freely with her again, even though we both realized that we needed a few days to get used to each other's presence and character again. Not that it was uncomfortable or exhausting, not at all. It was more like gently getting to know each other's character traits and behavior. Especially since we spent the first two days with Eva and Malte, a certain level of privacy was not created, which extended the initial phase a little longer. But I was still thrilled that Malte and Eva immediately welcomed Lara with open arms and they all got along great.

Malte left a day earlier, so I spent the last day in probably the most interesting constellation I have ever been in. I was on the other side of the world with my ex- and now best friend Eva, and with Lara, with whom I was exploring the possibility of a relationship. It wasn't easy for me to hear about Eva meeting someone else and how often, and it was the same for her. Even if you no longer love the other person romantically, you still feel uneasy when you see your 4-year partner with someone else. We talked about it for a long time in the evening, and although it didn't make that uncomfortable feeling disappear, it did create a better understanding of each other's feelings.

When I said goodbye to Eva with tears in her eyes, the time with Lara as a couple began. We went back to Ninh Binh and stayed in a dreamy homestay, which was in the middle of nowhere, had hiking, climbing, and cave paths, offered a view of a lake, and we slept in a tent equipped with a huge round mattress and soft blanket. It was like being in paradise. Because I couldn't estimate what kind of vacation we would have together and I wasn't prepared for so much spontaneity and adventurousness, I was even more surprised when Lara quickly climbed the rock walls, swam with me through river systems without hesitation to watch the sunrise, where the mud went up to our knees, squeezed through the narrowest and darkest cave passages with our headlamps and motivated me to take any interesting and rudimentary looking path we saw. I could indulge in the same activities I would have done alone, but now I had another wonderful and crazy person with me to share everything. The first few days were like out of my imagination, and in retrospect, I can hardly believe that they really happened. But that doesn't mean that the following time was worse, it just had less comfort.

After being obsessed with peanut-butter-banana-Banh-Mis, we went back to Phong Nha to explore the cave systems, but this time we had some truly crazy experiences ahead of us. With Malte and Eva, we had sneaked into the Elephant Cave before and explored it with our ears pricked, in case we were not alone. With Malte, I climbed down a deeper shaft where we wandered around in complete darkness for about half an hour, exploring the shafts further and taking funny naked pictures with the stalactites and stalagmites. When we reached the other side of the huge cave, we had an incredibly beautiful view and we found a flat area where we could theoretically sleep.

So I went there again with Lara and we set up our camp in the cave. Without a sleeping bag or mattress, but with a plastic sheet under us, I slept for a proud 11 hours while bats swirled around us, water rhythmically dripped from the ceilings onto the forming stalagmites, and the sounds of other animals made us think that suddenly other people were coming.

Our last stop was in northern Vietnam, where we zoomed around for 5 days on a motorbike, covering almost 1000 km in the Chinese border area, the mountain landscape, and the isolated villages. We drove a lot in the rain and sometimes up to 260 km a day on the narrow and curvy roads. At first, the ride was quite slow because I had to get used to all the circumstances, but with every additional kilometer on the odometer, I became more familiar and could assess the situations better, so we also sped up. In the evenings, we usually arrived totally exhausted, tired from all the driving, and delirious from laughing about the situations we had experienced that day. Like the moment when we suddenly raced from the perfectly asphalted road to a muddy path with hills and depressions at about 50 km/h, bouncing up and down on the motorbike like in a rodeo for the first 50 meters, almost slipping away, and then when we stopped after another 200 meters, suddenly the weirdest wedding I could imagine took place next to us. With karaoke singing that made the situation so absurd and sounded so terrible that it was funny again. To top it all off, a Vietnamese man walked past us and suddenly, for no apparent reason, grabbed a goose by the neck and threw it with full force into a dry drain on the side of the road and just continued walking normally. Even though that was in no way funny per se and we despised that man, it made the situation even more absurd. In the evenings, we sat in the restaurant, waited for our tofu, and laughed loudly about the stories until we couldn't breathe. Fortunately, on the fifth day, we made it back without any accidents, not even when a cow jumped in front of the motorbike and I rammed a woman with her overloaded bamboo scooter.

During the time with Lara, I realized how much I enjoyed the time we spent together and appreciated her presence. She is just a very special person, who stands out on the one hand because of her empathy, sympathy, interest, and depth, and on the other hand because of her humor, sense of adventure, and openness to everything. Despite all these wonderful qualities, I still felt that I can't or don't want to commit right now. The circumstances, that we will be 17,000 km apart for probably the next eight months and that the future is as uncertain as it probably rarely is, had a big influence, and I must also say that emotionally I didn't want to get into a relationship. Even though it wasn't easy for me to overcome myself and tell her, as I was naturally afraid of hurting her and we would still be on the road for another week at that time, I was ultimately convinced by the knowledge that we had communicated so well up until now and the hope that it would be the same with this.

And in the end, my suspicion was right. Of course, such a conversation is always accompanied by strong emotions, but she still understood it and let me know that even if she may have been more uncertain at first, she feels the same way. However, this 'decision' didn't change anything about our relationship. I still liked her as much as before and she liked me, we were just more certain about the future we were heading towards, and who knows what it will be like when I'm back in Germany.

After saying goodbye to this special person with a heavy heart after two weeks, I was alone again. The reunion that I had been looking forward to since my departure was over. After this incredibly beautiful month, I didn't know when and if I would see her again. Maybe it's in 2 months when I get accepted for the summer semester, 4 months if one of them maybe visits me again in the summer, or 8 months when I start the winter semester.

Thank you to the three of you for being here with me, for taking on the costs, the effort, and the time to visit me. I love each and every one of you immensely, and each of you has a special place in my heart.