It began in 1997. I was young, hungry for the world, and drawn to the art of showing others the Vietnam I knew—not the Vietnam of postcards, but the Vietnam that breathes in the back alleys of Saigon, in the mist of the Hai Van Pass, in the quiet resilience of farmers bending over rice paddies. I became a tour guide. Not because it was a job, but because I discovered I had a gift: the ability to translate not just language, but feeling. To help strangers fall in love with my country the way I had always loved it.

Two years later, I stepped into a new role: tour leader. The difference was subtle but significant. A guide shows. A leader guides—through terrain, through culture, through the unexpected moments that define a journey. I learned to read the road. To anticipate. To hold space for wonder. By then, I was leading groups deeper into Indochina—across borders into Cambodia and Laos, where the landscapes changed but the human spirit remained familiar.

The new millennium brought new horizons. In 2001, I became a tour operator for Buffalo Tours Vietnam. This was where I learned the architecture of travel—the intricate dance of logistics, partnerships, and dreams woven into itineraries. I worked alongside remarkable people, including a certain Norwegian named John Klostard, who arrived in Saigon as a young, enthusiastic tour leader with a camera and a heart wide open. We became brothers on the road. I was the local operator who knew the terrain; he was the storyteller who knew how to capture it. Together, we crafted journeys that went beyond the ordinary.

In 2006, I planted my own flag. Asiana Travel Mate was born—not as a company, but as a philosophy. Travel, I believed, should be more than sightseeing. It should be transformation. Connection. A meeting of souls across cultures. I built it from the ground up, pouring into it everything I had learned: the importance of authenticity, the value of local knowledge, the belief that the best journeys are those that leave both traveler and place enriched.

Then, in 2008, I made a choice that surprised many. I left Sài Gòn—the city of my beginnings—and moved to Huế. Huế is different. Slower. More deliberate. The old imperial capital carries a weight of history that demands stillness. I needed that stillness. For ten years, I lived along the Perfume River, learning the rhythms of a city that measures time not in deadlines but in cycles of lotus blooms and ancestral remembrance. I continued to work, to guide, to build. But Huế taught me to listen more deeply. To let places speak before I tried to translate them for others.

A decade later, I felt the pull back to where it all began. In 2018, I returned to Sài Gòn. The city had changed—taller, faster, more restless than ever. But so had I. I came back not as the young guide who left, but as someone who had learned that movement and stillness are not opposites. They are partners. The road out is also the road home.

And now? Since 2023, I have been doing what I was always meant to do: traveling and writing. The tours continue. The stories accumulate. But now I am also capturing—not just with itineraries, but with words. Writing, for me, is another form of guiding. It is the art of taking someone by the hand and saying, Look. Here is what I have seen. Here is what it taught me. Come, let me show you.