Returning to Vietnam in 2023
Earlier this year I was lucky to be on a press trip of a lifetime. A 17 day famil with Azamara Quest on their Springtime in Asia Cruise. As I’ve not cruised before, I wondered how I would cope being on a ship for 17 days. I coped fine! It was amazing. More about that in another blog post.
Part of the 17 days voyage included a visit to Vietnam’s Hoi An and Hoc Chi Minh city. These are both places I have visited before, so it was nice to return to the familiar and explore with friends old and new.
Vietnam may have been hot and humid, but it was as interesting and exciting as it was last time.
That last visit to Vietnam was in 2014. I’d been on a G Adventures Tour. I left the tour in Saigon where I stayed a few extra nights. On one of those days, I hired a driver and headed south to Vung Tau to meet My Huong Le.
Meet My Huong Le
I spent a day in Vung Tau with My Huong Le. She shared stories about her childhood, being taken from her mother at the age of five during the Vietnam War. My Huong was born in Vietnam during the Vietnam war and raised in Australia after she was adopted as part of the post-war Operation Babylift program.
This initiative towards the end of the Vietnam war was instigated by American President Ford. As the Vietcong invaded the south, mothers from southern Vietnam were being fed stories about what may happen to their children if the Vietcong took over the south. Afraid for their children’s safety, mothers agreed to adopt their young children, some of them babies, out to American and Australian families.
My Huong Le returned to her country of birth 30 years after leaving. As an adoptee herself, could there be a better person to understand the plight of orphans?
My Huong now helps manage an orphanage in Vung Tau and also works closely with a learning centre established to help disadvantaged children. She has an incredible life story and this is only just beginning she says!
Her story about giving back despite all the challenges in her early childhood is inspiring. I wrote a a story
about my time with My Huong Le LIFT Magazine Issue 8 Winter LIFT 8 15-19
Published in Lift Magazine.
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