When friends and colleagues learned we would be moving to Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam, from Orange County, California, they made a request. They wanted us to provide updates on our travels and experiences moving from California to Viet Nam. This blog is about our adventure to a new country. Through photos and written descriptions, my goal is to provide a glimpse into this next chapter in our lives. If I find an easy way, I may include some videos.
While we are excited about this journey, we are also nervous especially since we have limited knowledge of the language, and although I was born in Viet Nam, I have not been back to the country since I was five years old.
We will share our stories as vegans. We love to eat and cook vegan food. We can’t wait to see what the vegan food scene will be like. We use the Happy Cow mobile app when we go to a new place. We have already looked up vegan restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City. There was a lot! Most are in particular Districts. District 2 seems to have quite a concentration of vegan-friendly eateries. From YouTube videos, I also learned that you could find vegan restaurants near Buddhist temples. Several days each month, people will go vegan for religious reasons. Those will be good days for us to find street food!
As of this post, we are not in Viet Nam yet. Hence, the “Before” category. We are waiting for our visas.
Did you know? The Vietnamese word for vegetarian is “chay.” I also use it for vegan. I like to check to ensure that there are no eggs or dairy, even when something is labeled chay. The other thing for us to watch out for is what items are gluten-free. A few years ago, Ted found out that his body reacted poorly to gluten. So, we will probably mention what is gluten-free too.
Photo Brief. To celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, we went to Bali, Indonesia. The photo above is one I took when we visited in 2019. It was the first time we traveled to Asia outside of the United States. Now, we are preparing to go to Viet Nam.