I intended to make a thank you note, but then I realized that it’d sound like I just won the Oscar. But really, the last few days were overwhelming! And I feel like I’m the luckiest girl in the world to receive that much support. My trip was kindly featured on newspapers (Tien Phong, SGTT, etc.), spread on Facebook pages (Doremon, Brunei fm, etc. & friends’ pages), put on social news site (LinkHay, Loantin, etc.), and probably some more that I don’t know. Since the day I published my travel plan, a lot of people have sent me both supporting messages and offered to help. Deep down inside, I’m really thankful; though sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve it. It’s just a plan and I’m still struggling to achieve it. I don’t want to disappoint any of you, but I can’t promise anything. I will try my best.

I’ve had some time to think more about my plan, and people’s offers have made me figure out a pretty decent plan to travel and write and finance it at the same time. I just want to make some updates about my plan, if any of you cares to know

First, I want to about the book I’m writing. It will be named “Du lich bui A –> Z” ("Viet backpackers A –> Z” in English) or something like that, I haven’t decided yet. It can be considered as the Lonely Planet for Vietnamese. Lonely Planet is the leading travel publication for backpacker. They have 1 book for almost every country. However, their information is for Westerners and not really relevant for Vietnamese in term of cultural differences, diplomatic relationships, visa process, transportation and many things more. When I was working on the itinerary, I was really struggling to find information through few websites and friends. I don’t want that information to be wasted when I finish the trip. I want to put all what I collect on the way together with information from friends into a book, to make a “Lonely Planet” for Vietnamese to backpack to all countries (well, not all, but many :P)

Second, about my itinerary, since I change it all the time due to the unexpected nature of traveling. So I just added the Dopplr widget on my blog and I will update whenever my plan changes.

Third, at least 4 people have told me that I should publish my bank account on my blog so that people can chip in to help me. A newspaper also asked to publish it on their newspaper. I’m really really touched. However, the truth is that I feel that it’s unfair to ask people to give me money without doing anything back for them.

For now, I’m in Chiang Mai, Thailand for a media camp. The schedule is really packed and Internet here wasn’t working very well so I couldn’t update very often. But now the Internet is back! I will update my blog at least 3 times a week from now on, so please come back!

Thank you!

Tags: Chiang Mai, Thailand, travel, Travel and Write