An Attack On All Senses

Right out of the airport, you’re immediately hit with a wave of heat so powerful it overwhelms all of your senses. You first notice the smell that is so distinct to Vietnam. Heated trash is the best way to describe it. Sometimes, when I’m walking down Telegraph in Berkeley, I catch that smell and it immediately brings me back to Vietnam. So when that freshly baked trash smell hit my nostrils, I just knew I was back in the motherland. Then, you feel your face become hot. Your cheeks redden and at the bridge of your nose, along your hairline, and the nape of your back, you feel perspiration form.

Your car then comes to pick you up and you catch the first glimpse of the city. It is chaotic and the heat only makes it seem even more so. You notice the brightly-colored buildings, the street after street of store fronts full of people trying to relax as much as they can to relieve themselves from the midday heat. And then, the motorbikes. Ah, the motorbikes. The motorbike is the lifeblood of Vietnam as much as rice is to our diet. You can’t talk about Vietnam without discussing the chaos of motorbikes zooming every which way and the barrage of noise—motors roaring, honking, and the kickup of dust and smog it creates that forms a constant haze over Saigon.

All of this becomes too overwhelming, despite your excitement of having just landed in the country. The heat, the smell, the cacophony of noise, the chaotic traffic and not to mention the long flight you had to endure—makes you feel tired, kind of numb from fatigue to even process everything. But once you finally have a chance to sit down to take a breather over a homemade bowl of hot and sour seafood soup, freshly cooked in a hotpot with family you haven’t seen for long time, it all sinks in.