I no longer remember exactly when I began reading that book. Perhaps it was on a sleepy morning in Saigon, or maybe while sitting on the slow train from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, passing through unfamiliar mountains, the wind brushing in through the window. But the feeling remains clear: as if I were walking alongside someone who didn’t need to speak, whose mere presence was enough to soften the heart.

Nguyễn Tường Bách doesn’t write about journeys in the usual sense. He steps into the world with deep listening, carrying a quiet, awakened spirit.

Each page he pens is light as breath, yet behind every passage lies a silence deep enough to make one pause. He doesn’t travel to seek the extraordinary, but to gently receive the simple things unfolding around him.

There’s something intimate I noticed while reading his quiet philosophical reflection flows into each sentence without declaration. From Zurich and Munich to Tibet and Nepal, his steps trace a continuous rhythm between cultures in dialogue. Not dramatic, not loud, but composed and contemplative.

As VnExpress aptly described: “Đường xa nắng mới is a journey back to the Eastern roots from science to spirituality, from reason to intuition, from the West to an Eastern gaze.”

I once thought writing about travel was a way to preserve memories. But after reading his work, I came to realize that writing is also a way to bow before fate, before life itself, before the seemingly small lives of others: a mother carrying her child through the cold forest, an old monk standing silently in a weathered temple, a motorbike driver sitting in a quiet market corner, forgotten by most.

And then, memories returned. Remote places. Wordless moments no one ever saw. Evenings spent writing blog entries beneath a single yellow lamp.

“Every time I travel, it’s another chance to be grateful for still being able to see life with gentle eyes,” I once wrote.

There isn’t much to recount, except the quiet mornings in the Langtang forest, the footsteps across Khardungla with freezing wind slapping my face, or those slow afternoons in Kerala, where the scent of coconut oil melts into the golden light.

Sometimes, it’s simply this: “You don’t need to arrive anywhere. Just stay still, and let time flow on its own.”

The people Nguyễn Tường Bách met emerge in silence ordinary, unadorned, but full of dignity. I, too, have encountered such moments. No promises, no photos, no trace left behind. Just a glance, a greeting, a shared cup of old tea along the way.

Like the elderly woman I once wrote about, sitting beneath a tamarind tree in Saigon: “She wasn’t selling anything. She simply sat there, waiting for someone who might need a cup, a dish, or just a quiet presence to sit and look at.”

Closing the book, my heart felt quietly joyful, like after a gentle rain. A thin layer of mist lingered in the mind soft as sunlight returning to the earth after the overcast days in Poonhill.

And I was grateful, silently, for having met him through those words right when I needed a gentle reminder.

And as I once wrote: “I don’t travel to prove anything. I travel to be quietly present, then move on.”

That’s all. With thanks.

Tiền Giang, July 13, 2025