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I will always fondly remember the drive from Glossodia to the service station on the Putty Road at North Wilberforce to buy kerosine for the old heater that was donated to us. It was the early 1990s and I moved to the sleepy village to start a life as a newly married home owner. Now, some three decades later, I am sitting in a cafe in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) pondering how I went from the Hawkesbury to living in Vietnam.
Don’t get me wrong, Hawkesbury was a wonderful place to live. Back in the 90s it was very much that rural community. The roads were not so good and the shops were mostly old sheds set up on the side of the road.
I was newly married and we had purchased a home in Glossodia for the massive $104,000. And to pay the 20% interest on the mortgage I was working shiftwork and two different jobs. Those days were tough but it was an idyllic place to live for a young man.
As the Hawkesbury built new bridges, shopping malls and better roads, my family grew then, as is sadly common in this world, fell apart just as quickly.
Around 30 years of hard work seemed to vanish overnight and I found myself living in a caravan park in Rouse Hill. This point of nothingness seemed to be the trigger that bought me to a whole new world.
My family was heavily involved in the Vietnam War, which was the same time I was born. I was so closely connected to that country, Vietnam, but I never knew it, never experienced it and never accepted it as part of my being.
With nothing more than a dream to close a chapter in my life, my son and I boarded a plane in August 2012 and eight hours later landed in HCMC, Vietnam.
As the plane descended, the captain announced the imminent landing into Tan Son Nhat with a temperature of 32 degrees. Tears filled my eyes as I looked out at the hot sticky and wet atmosphere of Saigon Vietnam.
That two-week holiday in Vietnam gave me more than an escape from the cold winter of north-western Sydney. It gave me an opportunity to forgive, connect and understand. But, strangely, it also built up an intense sense of purpose as I seemed to just fit into the community in the most unexplainable of ways. I felt like I had found a new home.
One year and two weeks later I moved to HCMC permanently to start a new chapter in my life. It started with some teaching and I quickly found myself deep in charity work and helping blind children learn to swim. There was so much to achieve in a land where very few people understood anything you said, but it didn’t seem to matter.
It has now been 12 years since I stepped off that plane and now I write for a national newspaper, I have published stories in two books, both translated to Vietnamese, remarried and had a career that gave my life purpose I could never have dreamed of.
As I sit in the cafe in HCMC on a hot morning in July, my mind turns to Windsor Mall and that Pie Shop where there was always a hot pie and coffee available. I really miss that mall because there are no pies in Vietnam and you will never get that feeling of the cold Windsor morning air with the hot pie warming your fingers and mouth.
That house in Glossodia has seen a few owners since we sold it in 2000 and when I visit home I like to take a drive out there just to remember that chapter in my life. And that is what it was, a chapter. A wonderful time where I grew, had a family and went from being a young man to a father.
As a travel my new home country I always reflect on the Hawkesbury, the old house on Freemans Reach Rd, Yarramundi Bridge, Kurrajong Village shop and so much more. I carry the memories and am so thankful for the time I got to call myself a Hawkesbarian.
To see some of my travels in Vietnam, simply search “An Aussie in Vietnam” or my name. It's been a real adventure with so much more still to come.
Ray Kuschert
