Fascinating. What prompted all the travel? Writing a book :)
Went from living in San Francisco with a big rented house and garage full of stuff to literally just having a small backpack and living in a foreign country where I don't speak the language and don't even have a 'home'.
Being completely outside of my comfort zone has been amazing, best decision ever. Just enjoying a much simpler life based on minimalism. I also spend a very small fraction of the amount of money that I used to, I consider every purchase very carefully now.
For the past month I have been staying at a yoga retreat center in the mountain area north of Saigon. Clean fresh air, quiet, 2 hours of yoga every day, 2 good veggie meals, a lot of meditation and writing code for my day job and commenting on HN.
I don't plan on writing a book... I'd probably fall asleep if I was asked to read it. =)
Difficulty? It is all relative... I know 30+ computer languages, but can barely speak english (haha). =) So for me, both would be impossible. Vietnamese is tonal + context and I just don't hear the tones at all.
A few other ways to look at things... yes, I miss out on a lot by not knowing Vietnamese, but at the same time it is a low value language in all other countries. I won't need it elsewhere and I'm not sure I want to live here forever.
Not knowing the language has made me tune my other senses more... I can usually pick up on what people are talking about just by gestures.
The other thing I've noticed is that I just don't have much in common with people who don't know english... there is just so much that you miss out on in the world that cultural values and judgements tend to be vastly different.
Travel. Live in other countries. Pay attention to what is around you. It really gives you immense perspective that you don't get otherwise.