Hanoi, Vietnam - January 23, 2010

Peering out the airplane window, the raindrops cling to the glass, giving the grey, wet Taipai morning a 3 dimensional feel.
Taiwan - next to last stop on a cross global flight that started in Mobile, AL to Dallas then Los Angeles - 14 hours and a middle seat later.  Add another 2 hours and we will land in our final destination of Hanoi, Vietnam.

The window looks identical to the wet landscape that greeted us in Los Angeles.  Even though it was night, you could see the after affects of atypical flooding there.  Boarding the crowded China Airlines flight, I wondered what lost in translation event occurred that had me in a middle seat with no other options for change.  It was to be a long succession of internal dialogues and physical adjustments to find an angle that would allow me to unbend my knees and feel the simple, sweet satisfaction of a leg stretch.

I've never had much success with sleeping on planes and with 20 minutes of dozing here and 20 minutes there, I can feel the familiar buzz of adrenaline that my body manufactures when circumstances interfere with normal sleep.

I have 5 joining me on this trip - 2 sisters 18 and 16.  Essie and Sara whose dad willingly sent them on this adventure.  Seems part of the family business revolves around developing water treatment solutions and the 18 year year old, already a world traveling activist, is searching for areas to devote her post high school, indominable spirited energies towards.  Next are three older women in their late 60's and early 70's, Claudette and Pat from No. Cal and Frances from my congregation in Alabama.  Different temperaments - same sense of adventure.

By all accounts, this sacred site journey would look to be my most flawed.  Drastically reduced in number (most likely due to the fact that I simply don't tour and promote at the same level I use to), I have far less participants than needed to fund my expenses or offer me additional compensation.  I was hoping the nice piece written about global service in the Science of Mind magazine and my desires to build continuing fresh water wells in Cambodia would have generated more interests.  I even kept my fingers crossed that the social network phenomenon, Facebook, would have also garnered a few participants but it still seems that nothing quite takes the place of enrolling people into joining you like a personal appearance.

All that aside, I couldn't bring myself to cancel.

What is that overriding emotion that refuses to let me do that  ~  faith, stupidity, reckless and stubborn adventure, or some irrefutable conviction to do something of significance for the people of Cambodia?  Perhaps all.

I know more than 5 years and two tours ago, when discussing ways to make a difference while in Siem Reap with 18 people in tow, my heart was broken so open that I've never wanted to put it back together again in the same way.  It was then, that we bought out three local markets worth of food (roughly $86 in US dollars) and caravaned to the dried up banks of the Tonle Sap River.  It was there we distributed bags of fresh tamarind, milk, noodles, bananas and more to the poorest of the poor children - many abandoned, their bellies swollen and distented, they stretched out their arms for whatever we offered.  We started fairly organized and then watched as the horizon brought more and more hungry faces.  By the end our clothes resembled a canvas of muddied handprints from the reaching and grabbing that followed.

I clamored onto a pontoon boat floating in the dirty water and finally let my contained composure bust into a million little pieces.  I sobbed uncontrollable, breath robbing sobs, the likes of which I'd never experienced.  That was all it took to abandon reason.

Since then, returning, has always offered different opportunities to serve.  From that has morphed the very doable and affordable tasks of funding fresh water wells - something sustaining to leave in the wake of our visits.

~
After having lost count of the actual number of hours plus the loss of a day by crossing the International Date Line, we finally land in Hanoi, Vietnam.

It is still drizzling with residual rain from an unseasonable monsoon days before and the temperature is much cooler than any of us anticipated.

We are met by our guide, Trang, a 27 year old Vietnamese woman whose poise and and grace seem to give everyone a fresh sense of enthusiasm.  Everyone's luggage arrives and we settle into our mini van.  It's now nearly 11 AM and I strategize with Trang about what to actually do today based upon everyone's physical energy.  We decide to head into Hanoi (about an hour away) and play it by ear.  It's Saturday and we travel from calm countryside into the cacophony of noise, people, motorbikes and diesel burning vehicles that seem to be the soundtrack of all third world countries.  Cuong, our driver, maneuvers us into a maze of congested streets on Hanoi's south entrance to a restaurant where we're served fresh steamed bok choy, rice, marinated chicken and spring rolls wrapped in amazingly delicious rice paper, easily erasing all memory of airplane meals.

15 minutes later we are at Maison D'Hanoi, a narrow 8 story hotel, indicative of the local architecture - skinny and high like an upright domino, in the Hoan Kiem district.  It is a perfect, beautiful, zen-like structure with beautiful, clean, quiet rooms.  After getting everyone their room assignments, I convince Trang that we'd be better served by rest, showers and free time on our first day.  Structured touring can wait till tomorrow.  Besides, we are in the heart of the city and the streets are alive and beckoning to be explored.