Hoa Binh, Vietnam Day 20 aka Monday the 29th of July 2024 - My best breakfast in Vietnam...

How was this day....???? Great, how did it start? With a nice jog at 6.00 am followed by a trip to the gym at 7.00 am where I hit the bag a bit and did some stretching and bodyweight exercises...pull-ups, leg raises...etc.
In the gym this morning was a guy on the treadmill who I could tell was not Vietnamese. I'd basically hit the bag in the boxing area, and then go to the main gym to do bodyweight exercises in between...and there was this insane guy on the treadmill running like a motherfucxer...
After about 30 minutes he introduced himself as Robin from India and the yoga instructor at Sakura Gym....Jesus this guy is fit...he ran 16.9 kms on the treadmill that morning at a fast pace, check his Facebook 'Yogi Robin Singh'....
Such a nice guy, working for an Indian chain company in Vietnam doing yoga. He'd been in Hanoi for 2 years, now a few months in Hoa Binh, which he found a bit too quiet, but what a guy, and what a life.
We had a very nice chat, he told me there were very few foreigners in the city, which confirmed what I already knew...one of the reasons I like Hoa Binh so much.
Now it was time for food, jog, gym, food - I went to the sandwich lady Thuy at the end of my road for the first time since I'd been back in Hoa Binh. She was the only person who remembered me from last year, and I'd forgotten how good her sandwich was....it's insane, fresh cooked eggs, pork, veg, herbs....the taste is mind-blowing, and she warms up the bread.
I was there for about 2 hours, joined by a group of lads on their summer holidays. Everyone loves 'Thuy' as No.1 she makes great food, but joint No.1 is she's a beautiful, kind and friendly person....
She actually sat down and wrote me a handwritten letter the day I left, telling me not to read it until later.
She said some very kind things to me, and also told me how hard her life was. As a tourist in somewhere like Hoa Binh, you can have an amazing experience, when you live there, as a citizen and part of the system...I can see how for a lot of people like Thuy it's quite limiting, and hard to break out to make a better life, or the life you perhaps dream of.
But despite all her frustrations...there is never a smile missing from her face...and she's not shy at giving out beautiful heartfelt hugs to people like me.
That was the start of my day, the end involved trying some huge can of Chinese beer, I'm told is new to the country...it was pretty good.