Old friends

It was 40 years ago. We were saying good bye on the frozen platform of the Chelyabinsk train Station, standing next to the carriage, which was going to take me and my family on a long journey from frozen Siberia to the blessed boundlessness of the sunburnt plains of Australia. We all thought that we will never see each other again and our hearts were breaking. At the time our families, our friends – everyone who was dear to our hearts, was going to stay behind an Iron Curtain and we were getting out through the little chink, which had suddenly opened. The feeling of losing friends and family was devastating. As I said it was 40 years ago. How things have changed. In no feverish dream had we thought that we’d be able to see our friends and family again. What I am trying to describe is an almost miraculous several days spent with our friends in Vietnam.

There is no better way to feel better about oneself than meeting old friends many years since you saw them; old friends with whom…