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Eyes Up in Vietnam: Rainstorms, Fish Guts, and Unexpected Friendships · Far & Familiar

• Britt Fisher: Hi friends, I am freshly back from Southeast Asia. And today you are going to get to listen to part one of my full recap of our incredible trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. This is another one of those episodes that I tried to cram into a single episode, but the stories were just too rich. There were so many incredible takeaways that I learned from these two really beautiful cultures. And so much goodness that I got to experience and just insight from the Lord of what He is doing in these countries that I needed to split it into two episodes to keep the episodes from getting too long. So I hope you enjoy today's episode, which is going to give you the full recap and takeaways from our time in Vietnam. And then next week I will be sharing all things Cambodia. I cannot wait for you guys to get to hear all of it and Something that is more in depth than just a simple little Instagram story. So enjoy this episode. And if you have any questions, feel free at any time to hop over to my Instagram and send me a DM. I would love to cheer you guys on as you plan your own trips. Let's do this. Welcome to Far and Familiar, the podcast about faith, biblical hospitality, and courageous adventure for Christian moms who are ready to step outside of their comfort zones and start fully living. If you find yourself feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, or uninspired in your everyday life, you found the right place. Friend, you were not made to play it safe and operate in survival mode. You were made to live with eyes up and doors thrown open, chasing the adventure and abundant life God has for you. I'm your host, Britt Fisher, Jesus follower, mama of four, and someone who believes a full dinner table and a passport full of stamps are forms of worship. I've spent years traveling the world with my family, opening our home, and navigating what it actually looks like to live a life outside of my comfort zone. And this podcast is everything I and other mamas who have gone before me have learned along the way. I am so glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi friends, welcome back to the Far and Familiar podcast. Today I am going to share a full recap from our family's 12 day trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, which we just got home from less than 24 hours ago. So if I sound a little sleepy, it's because I am jet lag coming home from Asia is always a challenge, but I wanted to share All of my takeaways while everything was fresh on my mind. So without further ado, let's dive in. Alright, so I want to kick this episode off by diving specifically into our Vietnam itinerary and the takeaways from our time there which is really the more vacation portion of this trip, and then dive into exactly what we did in Cambodia, which was more of a mission portion of our trip. and my takeaways from there as well. So jumping in to Vietnam, we kicked off our trip by flying into Vietnam from Hong Kong after taking a 16 hour flight between Dallas and Hong Kong. So we flew to Hong Kong then took a shorter flight to Denong Airport, landed in Denong, Vietnam And then headed into the city of Hoyan, where we stayed at the most lovely Airbnb and just dove headfirst into so many fun experiences, which brings me to one of the first recommendations I want to make if you are planning or thinking about planning a trip to Vietnam is to hire a private driver. And I know this sounds super bougie, and so I'm gonna preface this with this is incredibly affordable. Locally. It cost about $80 a day for us to have a private driver who picked us up from the airport, transferred us and all of our luggage the 45 minutes to Hoian, and then acted as our private tour guide and took us around the entire day to so many different local spots. And not only was this incredibly valuable because of his expertise, he helped us find the best restaurants, he helped us. find all of the places that these different experiences were, which one thing we learned during our time in Vietnam is that a lot of things are off the beaten path and would have been harder for us to find on our own. And the few things that we did try to find on our own took a lot more time. So we were able to see a lot more and do a lot more because of his expertise. But then on top of it, it was also really incredibly fruitful relationally, which I will get into more, but I highly recommend Hiring a private driver. Lee was our driver for our first day. And then one of his friends, Long, drove us around a few days later. And it was so worth every penny. I will drop his information for his business in the show notes if you want to save it for your own future trip to Vietnam. But a few things that Lee took us to do that were just highlights for us is we went to an old pottery village where generations of potters have worked in this small area of Hoyan. There were countless pottery shops lining the street, and we actually got to go learn how to make pottery hands-on on a potter's wheel. This is something I have always wanted to do, but in the States, the classes have just been out of our budget or time commitment. And this was a fairly quick experience. We spent about an hour total at the shop, but we actually got to try and learn how to make some small cups or bowls or little mini vases hands-on. I made a little espresso cup, and the whole experience cost about $15 for our family of six, And then we also learned how to traditionally prepare rice paper. Over an open fire that was fed by the husks from the rice. Then they used the burnt up husks as organic fertilizer. This level of stewardship and these practices was really incredible. But it was so fun for our kids to actually get to spoon out the rice milk and then spread it out and cook the rice paper and then turn that into rice noodles. We even got to try some rice cream. Crackers made out of the rice paper that we had made. there's actually a really funny video on Instagram. If you want to see any of this with your own eyes of what this looked like, it was really cool. But there's a funny video of me essentially inhaling some really spicy soy sauce while eating one of these rice crackers on Instagram, save to my Vietnam and Cambodia highlight. But it was just such a cool experience for the kids to get to do that hands-on. We also got to get hands-on on a local farm and learn traditional farming practices. We got to do a market tour. And then the person that had taken us to the farm and the market tour also took us back to their family home and we learned how to cook a five course Vietnamese meal. the whole general point of this is that we got to get hands on with families that have been passing these skills down for generations and stewarding these gifts and resources well and learn how to do that as a family. it was just such a powerful experience for us to get to kind of see behind the scenes and get hands on with Vietnamese culture. And as I said, we hired a driver to take us to a lot of these experiences. The cooking class, they provided a driver for us to get us out to the farm and then into the market. And then we were able to actually walk with them to their home. But the privilege and honor, beyond just the convenience of having a personal guide, was that we got to spend quality time with these people and learn about their. families, learn about their daily life, even step into one of their homes and really just get to have some rich conversations about their culture, about their beliefs. And we got to share about our belief in Jesus. And so we were able to develop real relationships with these people through these conversations that truly just gave us such a heart for the Vietnamese people in a way that wouldn't have happened had we just been touring around ourselves. And before I get into the other takeaways, I also just want to give you guys a quick overview if you ever go to Vietnam, especially because I mentioned our cooking class of some food items that I highly recommend that you try. Kao Lao is a Vietnamese noodle dish that is specific to Hoyan that I highly recommend. What I love about Vietnamese food is it truly is just an explosion of textures, of flavors, of hot and cold. It's all these juxtapositions all wrapped Up in like a single dish that is just such an enjoyable and fun experience to eat. I fell in love with what I believe is pronounced Bon Sho, but my Vietnamese pronunciation, I'm sure, is not fantastic. But it was an incredible dish that was kind of a Vietnamese rice pancake of sorts wrapped in rice paper with fresh lettuce and bean sprouts and mint and Thai basil and peanut sauce and dipped in a sweet and sour fish sauce and it is truly one of my favorite bites I had on the entire trip. I ordered it four different times in addition to learning to cook it. So I highly recommend that. And then if you ever get to go, don't miss out on of course classics like photos, the beef pho noodle soup. Or the Vietnamese egg rolls that you wrap in fresh lettuce and mint. And Bon Mi, which is already a favorite here in the US, but is so delicious there, and you can get so many different varieties. We ordered Bon Mi one night for dinner and we're able to get four large Bon Mi and two giant bow like steamed buns for eight dollars for our entire family. So the affordability of the food there is incredible, but also do not sleep on all of the incredible beverages. We drank so much Vietnamese coffee, we got Cafe soie, which is the classic Vietnamese milk coffee. Cafe dua, I believe, which was the coconut coffee. We also got the egg coffee and the salt coffee. There's so many versions of coffee and they're all spectacular. And then also some really incredible herbal teas made with things like lemongrass and ginger. Truly every sip of a beverage we had there was out of this world. So I wanted to give you guys some specifics there. So if you're planning a trip, make sure to kind of make some mental notes or some written notes about some of the items that you're going to want to order while you were there. and then beyond the incredible food and some of the relationships that we were able to build Through some of the experiences and the people that we were able to meet. Some other takeaways is just the incredible gift that travel gives you to build your resilience muscle. So one of the experiences that we did when we went on the market tour, we were going through an open market, fruits, vegetables, fresh meats, fresh fish. Imagine all the smells. And my six-year-old son is walking, and there's quite a bit of water on the ground and the fish area. And My son ended up slipping in some fish guts. And I saw the fall and I knew he was fine. But my goodness, it was comical watching him fall. He tried to recover himself and just made it worse. And so he initially slipped onto his back, but tried to spin and catch himself. So he ended up coating his entire back and front in fish guts. And what was kind of remarkable about it in the moment is all of these. kind of Vietnamese aunties that worked there in the market that didn't speak English all jumped into action with buckets of clean water and towels and spare clothes and immediately were dousing him, stripping his shirt off, doing all these things in just like a few minutes within it happening, wanting to help. And the family that was giving us the market tour had a son his age, they took his clothes and washed and dried them for us, provided additional clothes from one of their children. Just truly the level of hospitality was out of this world, But it was one of those experiences that could have been really overwhelming. But we kind of chose as a family to be grateful, number one, for all of the help, but also to kind of laugh at the situation. And our son was able to have a sense of humor about it too. and then another time on the trip, their first day, it poured rain during this really cool basket boat tour through the coconut forest that we took. There were these big round, you'll have to go on my stories to see them, but these kind of round. Half coconut shell-shaped boats that we got to go crab fishing and kind of go through the coconut forest and spin around and kind of dance to music. But the sky opened up and it poured rain and we got soaked. And then afterwards, we had planned to go to this duck farm that really honestly, with it raining that hard, was a terrible idea, but we were just like, hey, we're committed, we're here, let's do it. but we just really underestimated how muddy it would be, that our sandals were going to get stuck in the mud, that it was the end of the day, and our jet-legged kids were just really not up for playing with ducks that were kind of aggressive. And so we ended up with crying children. My husband and I are carrying each one of them alongside our shoes and holding an umbrella and trying to stay dry, even though we were already completely soaked to the bone at that point. When we got back to the car, our driver commented that he was amazed that we were smiling still and having a good attitude in the middle of it And it reminded me of just this practice and this skill that I've been working on teaching my children in hard moments, even just at home. Let's say we're in the car and the littles are maybe going crazy and someone's melting down. And I'll look at my oldest son in the front seat and just say, Hey, I know you feel like you're going crazy, but just force yourself to smile, and I promise you'll start to feel better. And before we know it, we're both laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. And that's essentially what we had to do with the fish guts and the Surprise showers and the rainstorms and the aggressive ducks. We learn to laugh through the hard moments. And travel just gives you so many opportunities for real life practice in that because it is full of challenging moments. Very rarely do trips go without something going wrong and not going according to plan. And I love the opportunity that my kids get to kind of build and flex that muscle of building resilience and building that. Ability to keep a good attitude in the midst of hard things. another takeaway from Vietnam was just this incredible culture that truly delights in children. Whether it was the market aunties that jumped in to help our six-year-old, or our favorite cafe owner bringing out Oreos for our kids after a meal, or a waitress at another restaurant playing like a fun slap hand game. With our daughter to entertain her when she was done eating before we were. Everywhere we went, people went out of their way to love on our children, to make them feel seen and to make them feel valued in every space that we were in. And that was such a gift. And I think this is just another example of that over-the-top hospitality that I talked about earlier. And people did so much more, even beyond the things that I already mentioned. There were shop owners that Offered to give us a motorbike ride to go to the ATM that was further away that didn't have fees so we could get cash. They brought ice cold waters, they brought sweet treats. our drivers would go the extra mile to walk with us to help us navigate tickets to different things, even if they weren't actually required to accompany us to those things. Our Airbnb hosts stocked our Fridge and our pantry with breakfast items for us, and that was not included in the price. They just did that out of the generosity of their hearts so that our jet-lagged kids who woke up at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. could have some toast to eat when they were inevitably hungry. people just went out of their way to go above and beyond for our family, and it was such a gift. And then another big takeaway from Vietnam was. the multi-generational living that they focus on there. This was something that as a daughter of a family has embraced multi-generational living in some ways, I thought was really special. So my parents actually live in a house now that my grandparents and my great grandparents built together as a multi-generational home. They lived there for years and it was just around the corner from the house that I grew up in. So I got to experience this joy of being really close to my grandparents and great grandparents. And I have learned so much from proximity to them. And I think multi-generational living is so beautiful for that reason. And now my great-grandparents are in heaven, my grandfather is in heaven, but my parents have moved into that same house and lived there with my grandmother. And they are able to experience community and It's actually funny. I'm recording this episode from that house because my internet was down. And so I was able to pop over here and my kids can play and they fed me dinner. And it is just such a gift to be close to multiple generations of your family. And they embrace that in Vietnam. Most families live in a multi-generational home that was built to have great grandparents and grandparents and parents and children all under the same roof. passing down generational skills and stories and living in community. And I think that is so beautiful. Which that brings me to my final takeaway, which is just the heart that I developed for the people there as I got to know more of their culture. And while I was so impressed by their culture of multigenerational living and over the top hospitality and the way that they honor both young and old. I also got to learn about aspects of their culture that are maybe a little bit harder for me to wrap my mind around as somebody that was raised in a Christian home. So the religion I learned in Vietnam is really a blend of Buddhism and Hinduism and animism and ancestor worship. And essentially they have just taken bits and pieces of all the different religions that they've been exposed to in their country and kind of turned it into something that they call their own. Every single place we went, you would see altars where people were burning items to their ancestors or to someone that had recently died. In their culture, we were told they'll even burn things like iPhones and cars and gold and things because they believe that when they burn items after someone has died, they are sending those things for that person to enjoy in the afterlife. And if the person enjoys those things in the afterlife, then maybe they will be happy and send blessings back onto them. And While I believe that honoring ancestors and the generations that have come before you is so beautiful, I also can recognize that sliding into looking to ancestors for what only God can give can be a really dangerous and disappointing venture. And I think I developed such a heart for these people, and honestly, a sadness in ways of realizing that so many of them don't know the God of unconditional love. The God who loves you and wants to bless you simply because you are his child, not because of what you can offer him or what you can do. And as a Christian, knowing that I can be secure in a love that is not contingent on what I do right or what I do wrong, that it is unchanging, truly has given me so much freedom and joy and peace in my life. And getting to know these families, these incredible families and people that we had the honor of spending time with has given me such a heart for them to feel that same peace and security that I have in Christ. and so our final experience in Vietnam was really centered around that heart that we had developed for the people. And so in Huian, what the city is most known for are their lantern boats. And literally in the evenings, it's like their river turns into a scene from a Disney movie. it looks like it's straight from the movie Tangled. And imagine a river that is covered in boats with brightly colored lanterns all over them as people then release paper lanterns with lit candles into the river. And so you just look and you see color and lanterns and glowing light in every direction. It is so beautiful. And so we were able to go out onto a boat with our lanterns, but instead of just releasing them for fun Or maybe for one of the many other cultural reasons that this practice was started, we used it as an opportunity to pray for the people there, for the individuals that we had met by name. And so we each lit our lantern on the boat and we prayed over each of these people and the families and the businesses that we'd had the honor of building relationships with. And then we were able to release those symbolically onto the river as we symbol. as we released our prayers to the Lord in the same fashion. And so what I hope is that experience for our kids becomes something that they will forever remember. As this example of stordship, that we got this incredible opportunity. not only just to visit another country and experience another culture, but to Steward and hold other people's stories and beliefs in a way that then allows us to specifically pray for them and lift them up to the Lord. Whether it was our drivers or our cooking class teachers or the seamstresses that made us some really fun linen clothing while we were there. Each of them holds a special place in our hearts And as we continue to pray for them, I hope our kids continue to be impressed upon the incredible privilege that we have to step into those places and to lift those people up to Christ. All right, friends, we have reached the end of part one of this story. Next week in part two, I'm going to dive into all things Cambodia. And my goodness, there were some really powerful takeaways that I had from our time there that I cannot wait to share with you. So make sure to tune in next week. in the meantime, if you have been enjoying this podcast, would you please take 30 seconds of your time to leave a rating and review wherever you listen? truly read every single one, and it means the absolute world. This is how other mamas find this podcast. I did want to give a shout out to Mariah. Who left a review recently, and I want to start reading some of these reviews because I truly am just so grateful for each and every one of you that takes the time to leave one. This one says, Brit is a breath of fresh air to everyone she meets. And having her in podcast form is exactly what this world needs. Just a few episodes in, and I'm already blown away, can't recommend enough. Thank you, Mariah, for taking the time, and thank you to Each of you that are listening for spending the time just tuning in. It truly means so much to me. And I am just so grateful you are here. That being said, I cannot wait to share All Things Cambodia with you next week. Until then, eyes up, doors open. I will see you in the next episode.