Paula Brukmüller - Flowers from Greece - The Autobiography of the Journalist Who Turned a Personal Tragedy into an Inspiring World Tour

When I finished my internal dialogue, I spotted three motorcycles coming out of the chaotic traffic of the main street towards me. He flashed a huge smile while Diogo, his younger brother, joked about our meeting. Pablo, their friend who traveled with them, just watched everything laughing.

Diogo took my bigger backpack and I climbed Cristián’s motorcycle, who squeezed my right thigh tightly.

- I’m so happy to have you here!

I just hugged his body from behind, tightly. There was no word in Portuguese that could express how I felt. In English, much less.

When we finally got into the insane traffic in Vietnam, my heart sped up in a way that had never happened before. Cristian dodged cars and motorbikes, no one respected traffic lights, and people walked among cars wearing their face masks, without looking sideways. For a minute, I thought that if I hadn’t put my life at risk until then, the time had come.

- Canceled, canceled, canceled! – I shouted to the wind, waving my right hand behind the back of my neck, not caring what Cristián would think.

We parked the motorcycles in front of the Citadel, also known as the Imperial City, and I wondered who was the Chilean I was going to spend the next few days with.

- I worked in sales in Chile and spent the last year studying English in Auckland, New Zealand. Now I am traveling a little, before returning to Chile and looking for a new job – Cristián explained, mentioning also his degree that I could not understand.

- I was a journalist and married for 14 years. Now I’m traveling the world since I got divorced. Nice to meet you. – I put out my right hand. He laughed and said once again that he was happy to see me again.

When we reached our second stop, an elephant sanctuary in the middle of a forest, we had fun avoiding piles of dung on the small road that led to the parking lot. We were unsure if the path indicated on the GPS was right, but judging by the size of the feces, we couldn’t be wrong.

We paid something around a dollar to leave the motorcycles in the yard and walked on. The lady who greeted us spoke absolutely no English. Just nodded, pointing to the road. “Elephant, up. Up” she repeated, showing the river that cut the property on the map.

We head toward the water. The river went down fast and noisy among very large round stones, and this did not seem the best place for an elephant sanctuary. It was not a geographically friendly river for such large animals.

We met a group of tourists coming in the opposite direction and asked if the sanctuary was too far away.

- Keep climbing – one of them laughed, with a German accent – you need to see for yourself. His friends’ laughter sounded strange, but since we were there, there wasn’t much to do.

After ten minutes of walking between the rocks, the sound of the water became deafening and we finally found the big surprise: a concrete trunk handcrafted in a large elephant-shaped rock in the middle of the river.

- This cannot be it! – Cristián laughed as another group descended toward us.

- We are also disappointed. Such a sanctuary does not exist. Do not waste your time climbing, because the only elephant here is that rock over there – a middle-aged man informed us; he was wearing grey shorts and black socks that went to the middle of his calves. From the pronunciation of the Rs and Ls, he was probably American or Canadian.

Cristián asked Pablo to take a photograph of him between Diogo and me.

- Quiero mostrarle Paulina a mamá [23] I want to show Paulinha to mom. – he said, excited. Every word he said entered my ears slowly creating a whirlwind of emotions that I refused to look up close. I knew I should be careful, but it did me so well that I let myself be carried by the calm waves of their conversation.

A journey of about 6 hours separated us from Hoi An, where we would spend the next two or three nights. The road was full of breathtaking scenery, but the dense forest that skirted the highway brought down the temperature in the late afternoon. Even so, we were all excited about the trip. I couldn’t help myself, I was so excited. Visiting a country as peculiar as Vietnam on the back of a scooter feeling an adventurous passion? It definitely matched the kind of crazy adventure I’d like to live.

As the sky began to redden, we stopped at a gazebo overlooking the Vietnamese sea and made a beautiful photo of the four motorcyclists.

At night we arrived in Hoi An. We were tired and our faces dirty with the dust of the road. Still, the feeling of joy in my chest was overwhelming and nothing could take the smile off my face.

We had something Western for dinner, before going to the guest house where our luggage had already been delivered by the store where we rented the motorcycles.

Finally, we had a private room with a double bed. We made love to each other after a shower as if these were our last minutes on Earth. Everything was perfect and I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world that night.

Hói An is much more than charming. The city of lanterns, which has endured since the 16th century, is a valley of tranquility within the frenetic traffic scene of the rest of the country. The historic center, with its yellow buildings decorated with thousands of colorful lanterns, does not allow cars or motorcycles to travel, giving tourists a romantic atmosphere unseen in Southeast Asia.

I spent the day following the Chileans in tailoring shops. The place is famous for tailored suits at unimaginable prices, and they wanted new clothes for the upcoming wedding season among their friends.

In the chosen store, I could see better how Cristián likes to seduce women. He had fun hitting on the extremely shy Vietnamese saleswomen. I watched with an analytical look and an incredulous smile on my face. I was increasingly sure that he was the perfect scoundrel. But he was a deliciously seductive bastard.

- Does your girlfriend let you look at women like that? – Xuan, our saleswoman, asked.

- She’s not my girlfriend. She is my wife and she is not jealous of me – he replied, giving a warm kiss on my mouth. – Isn’t that true, hot babe? – The “wife” part surprised me, but I just smiled, rolling my eyes and unable to agree with him.

I helped them choose the colors of the suits and the prints for the internal finishing. After making all the sales woman fall in love with each one of them, Cristián pounced. With its annoying charm, it managed to negotiate an unbelievable price for all three sets. While he had fun pulling the calculator from Xuan’s hands, Diogo approached me.

- This is heaven for Cristián. He buys things he doesn’t need, just for the pleasure of bargaining. His prize is not the merchandise, but to get the price he wants – Diogo commented, proud to see his brother in action.

Cristián and I lived in a world without watches. Diogo and Pablo didn’t wait for us. They simply followed their own plans and we contacted each other later to find out where they were. We made love without haste, whenever we were in our room. Four, five, six times a day.

- Why is it so perfect? – he asked me, panting after we had just came together.

- I don’t know – I said, smiling, not really worrying about finding a logical explanation. – Do you think we can try once to make it feel bad?

- Impossible – he said in Spanish, between passionate kisses.

On our Last night at Hói An, we walked through a night market full of trinkets, handicrafts, and exotic food. Whole roasted ducks, with heads, beaks, and fins, were sold hanging from clotheslines, and some stalls displayed snakes, frogs, and other animals grilled on sticks.