Part 5: Ho Chi Minh City

I completely forgot!

Indeed, I did. I left Ho Chi Minh City for Bangkok to meet some friends and go on a tour of the southern Thai islands, and I forgot to write the post about Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon).

Back in Thailand, I met several people who had travelled to Vietnam, and every one of them told me there’s a saying: “If you liked Hanoi, you won’t like Ho Chi Minh City, and if you liked Ho Chi Minh City, you won’t like Hanoi.”

Well, that’s kind of true. I had mixed feelings about Hanoi, but I really enjoyed Ho Chi Minh City. Hanoi is the administrative capital, but HCMC is the economic capital—and you can feel it. It’s more modern, the city really moves, and of course, the food is great (but that’s true everywhere in Vietnam). Moreover, the traffic is a little less chaotic than in Hanoi, which I won’t complain about.

Plus, HCMC has the Iron Man tower—you can’t beat that!

On the tech side, I’ve continued my study of Azure and added Docker and Kubernetes. Not an easy subject, but quite interesting!

Part 4: Da Nang

Sea, Beaches, Mountains, and Sunrises

Da Nang is surrounded by mountains on one side and the sea on the other. It’s a little bit like Ireland but without the rain—with the sun instead.

My Khe Beach is known as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The first time I saw it, I didn’t really understand why. It is a beautiful place, but not more beautiful than some beaches I’ve been to in Mexico.

It took me some time to understand that the best time to go there is early in the morning, around 5h30, just before sunrise. It is quite an experience to see the beach full of Vietnamese people doing gym exercises, running, or playing with each other. At the same time, the fishermen start their day, and the sun begins to rise. The best way to start a day!

Meanwhile, I’m continuing my learning of Azure administration and have added networking and DevOps to the stack. It’s quite a journey as well.

Part 3: Hanoï

The first thing I will remember about Hanoi is scooters—scooters everywhere!

Hanoi is pretty famous for that, but you can’t truly imagine it until you experience it yourself. They have priority over everything and everyone, including pedestrians.

I’m happy to still be alive.

The food here is good. I hadn’t eaten any bread for two months, but in Vietnam, they know how to make good bread. My first Bánh mì was quite an experience.

AWS was just a warm-up. Now, things are getting serious. I plan to specialize in Azure, so my studies are focused on Microsoft certifications for Administration, Networking, DevOps, and a bit of Security.

Of course, I will also learn Terraform.

I won’t be taking any certifications for a while. For AWS, I focused only on passing the exam, and I think that was a mistake. This time, I will spend more time practicing before attempting any certifications. During my time in Hanoi, I’m working on the administrative side of Azure. My time in Da Nang will also focus on Azure Administration, along with Azure Networking.

Part 2: Chiang Mai

Part 2 | Chiang Mai, Thailand

The second part of the journey is coming to an end.

Chiang Mai is well-known in the digital nomad community. It’s not too small, not too big, with good weather, reliable internet, affordable prices, and excellent food. All of it is true. If I had to choose between Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Chiang Mai would be the winner. It’s truly a fantastic place to work online or study.

During my time here, I continued studying for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification, which, as its name suggests, is an architecture-focused cert. I’d describe it as covering a little bit of everything in the AWS ecosystem—though “a little bit of everything” in AWS is actually a lot!

After completing that, I moved on to the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate certification. This cert is essentially for AWS administrators. It has a reputation for being more challenging than the Architect Associate certification. In my opinion, it goes deeper into fewer topics compared to the broader scope of the Architect certification.

When I was about a week away from finishing my SysOps studies, I went to the test center to take the Architect Associate exam. A week and a day later, I returned to take the SysOps exam.

After two months of intense studying, I was quite nervous about going to the test center. I didn’t want all my efforts to be for nothing. This was the first certification of my journey, and I wanted to start on the right foot.

As you’ve probably noticed, I passed the Architect Associate certification. I can’t describe the relief I felt! A week and a day later, I returned to the test center for the SysOps exam—and just a few hours ago, I learned that I passed that one, too. What a second wave of relief!

Thailand turned out to be incredibly productive.

Next step: Hanoi, Vietnam.

Part 1: Bangkok

The first part of the journey is over. I just traveled from Bangkok to Chiang Mai by night train.

First of all, Bangkok is huge—impossible to truly understand without seeing it. The city has a population of 9 million (17 million including the metropolitan area), which is more than the entire population of Belgium! The city is beautiful, the food is amazing, and the people are very nice. The only downside is the pollution; at times, it was difficult to breathe.

Now, for the IT journey. Back in Belgium, I had planned to start with Azure and the AZ-104 certification. But, of course, I changed my plan at the last minute and decided to start with AWS and the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification.

This certification is quite demanding. AWS requires you to understand a lot about their products, how they work together, and which one is best for a specific task. The challenge is that AWS offers over 200 tools!

Since I like to learn the same material from different teachers, I began with the ICA Learning course, followed by the A Cloud Guru course.

Currently, I am taking Adrian Cantrill’s course on cantrill.io. If I had to start over, I would begin with his course. He is one of the best IT teachers I’ve ever encountered.

Next step: Chiang Mai, where I’ll continue Adrian Cantrill’s course and sit for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam.

I’m going on an adventure !

I left my job and returned the company car and apartment.

For personal reasons that I won’t discuss here, as well as professional reasons, I decided to embark on a seven-month journey through Southeast Asia. During this time, I plan to focus on myself, explore new places, and work on the next steps in my IT career.

I have always been deeply interested in IT administration, and since the advent of cloud computing, I’ve been fascinated by it as well. So, I decided to use this time to learn, practice through labs, and earn certifications in cloud technologies.

Throughout this journey, I will document my travels, experiences, learning process, and certifications on my blog and LinkedIn.