By mid-February, we are already halfway through month three of our gap year and wow. What a trip. So far, I have befriended and danced with strangers, almost kidnapped several cute furry creatures, lost pub quizzes, discovered at least 50 new food items, almost lost my phone, yelled at a monkey, gotten into fights with property dealers, sold food for the first time, and (surprisingly) made my first income through café tips. If you don’t know all the stories yet, I have saved some juicy bits for when we meet 🤫

With this, and with many stars in our eyes, we landed in Da Nang on February 14th. Soon after landing, though, all stars nicely disappeared, as we waited for three hours at the immigration line of Da Nang. “What the hell happened, guys?”—you wonder? We made a very confident decision of arriving into Vietnam at the absolute height of Tet celebrations. The airport was poorly staffed, and it looked like half the planet wanted to see the Tet fireworks by the Dragon Bridge of Da Nang. The one airport security staff we did notice was acting very shady, and our speculation was that bribes could be a thing here. But we hardly know how to bribe in India, so we stood in a long zig-zag line that no one seemed to know the beginning nor the end of, for what seemed like a million years. After we were finally done, a quick Grab ride took us to our hotel, where we arrived frustrated, tired, hungry, and far too dazed and confused to venture out for food.

I decided to order on Grab, and this was the moment of my first culture shock in this new city—nearly every restaurant on Grab was an Indian restaurant, which meant our first meal in Vietnam was biryani and Paneer Labrador. (Don’t judge; this was likely our first proper Indian meal after leaving India in November, and we compensated by eating many Banh Mis afterwards.) Why is there so much Indian food in Da Nang was my first question, immediately answered on r/VietNam: the Da Nang food scene caters a lot to tourists and apparently there are bus-loads (no, literally) of Indian tourists coming to Da Nang every day! Later, we also noticed some clubs and venues around the beach playing very loud and very cringe Bollywood, so it started to make sense—lots of middle-aged uncle and aunty tourists in Da Nang.

However, when I started focusing on the tourist demographic, I quickly learned that Da Nang is also full of South Korean, Chinese and European tourists. Apart from tourists, the city is also turning into what might be referred to as the “coastal Chiang Mai.” Due to the low cost of living, beach and surfing vibes, several food options, and a high concentration of massage and wellness studios (I am just assuming that this could also be a good reason), the city is attracting digital nomads from across the world.

Speaking of digital nomads 😃 one of the reasons why we decided to steer our plans in this particular direction was for a certain digital nomad from Berlin (and our new gap-joiner)—(drum-rolls please)—MARIA!! Almost everyone we know has met Maria at one of the famous spiritual retreat dinners, but if you haven’t, just for context, Niki and Maria have been friends since 2018—his time in German Autolabs. Initially, their friendship was contained to ping-pong after work, eventually evolving to (you won’t believe it)—Vietnamese after work, and the most recent and likely the most long-term version—Saturday morning squash! So it somehow made a lot of sense that we meet up here in Vietnam for Tet celebrations, some bomb Bún thịt nướng, and one more round of squash. Maria was very pleased to discover that we are cat people now, and so she took us to one of her favorite spots—a cat and dog café! Catching up after so long felt like a long sip of cool water for the soul—and left me with even more appreciation for gap-joiners. (yes, I am looking at you—where are you joining??)

For actual Tet, we decided to take a short cab ride down south from Da Nang to what might be my new favorite city on earth—Hoi An. See, when I say favorite, it's not in a “oh wow, maybe I can live here” kind of way—it was more a “wow wow is this a real place or is the simulation on some kind of overdrive—my eyes cannot believe how beautiful this place is” kind of way. You get it, right? Maybe my experience was also highly seasoned with the fact that it was Tet. I will add some videos, but those do not do actual justice to how gorgeous Hoi An is on Tet. Being recognized as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, Hoi An felt like a living memory of its trading-port past, with lantern-lit lanes, timeworn buildings, and tailor shops brimming with color and character. We took our sweet time to discover its unique blend of Chinese, Japanese, and European influences by wandering the Ancient Town beside the Thu Bon River. It was incredibly full for Tet, with several people leaving paper lanters in the water. We later realized that it is not just international tourists but also a lot of local Vietnamese tourists—some of them even talked to us while we ate our dinner at what can only be described as a traditional food court. Beautiful place, full of beautiful, warm and friendly local tourists. This was one of the most memorable days in recent history, and I have a feeling I will return some day, hopefully with an empty suitcase that I can fill to the brim with the maximum number of lanterns that I wanted to buy but could not buy due to our backpacker lifestyle.

My most memorable part of our Vietnam trip, however, was not limited to Tet and Hoi An; things got even more interesting as we headed north to spend a few days in Phong Nha. Here, we rented what barely qualified as a bike to visit some local wonders. Phong Nha protects more than 104 km of caves and underground rivers, making it one of the world’s most extraordinary limestone karst landscapes. Its formations date back around 400 million years, and the area is home to a wide range of caves, including Phong Nha Cave and the vast Son Doong Cave.

Beyond the subterranean wonders (which nearly took me out by the way—this whole place is beautiful but one must have knees of a 25-year-old and quads of a rugby player to do maximum enjoyment), the surrounding villages wrapped us in a cozy, timeless charm, with thatched-roof homes clustering along dirt paths, and village kids running around in the middle of the streets with wide smiles, curious waves, and occasional high-fives. We noticed several 8-to-10-year-olds (happy to report—I saw boys as well as girls) riding dangerous-looking bikes like ours, but with a lot more confidence than us 😂🤦‍♀️ Here at our homestay, we also chanced upon a beautiful couple from Hue as they were in the middle of a very cool bike trip across the country. We talked about coffee (as they made us a fresh cup from their coffee kit that they travel with 😮), flutes, travels, Tet, karaoke, CapCut, and about the entrepreneurial spirit of Vietnam. If you ever find yourself in Hue, stay at their homestay; I can highly recommend their coffee!

After Phong Nha, we headed to Hue via a long cab ride to stay for a few nights and check out the legendary Bun Bo Hue and the Imperial Palace. If Phong Nha was about the raw, subterranean power of nature, Hue was about the refined (and slightly faded) glory of the past. The Imperial Palace is an absolute beast of a complex—a sprawling fortress of ornate gates and quiet courtyards that made me feel very small and very over-casually dressed in my usual garb, as entire families flocked there in royal silk robes from the Nguyen Dynasty (something called the The Nhat Binh Robe- it was so beautiful, that I found a google image for reference; obviously I didn’t go around filming random people on the street, that would be rude).

We took a walking audio tour around the property and it felt like a giant shrine to the past, because apparently, for the Nguyen Dynasty, the "success" of the country was directly tied to how well they honored their predecessors. I noticed this in other places of worship as well; apparently, most Vietnamese people combine Ancestor Worship with Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian principles, creating a "blended" religion where a single altar might hold a photo of a grandfather, a statue of the Buddha, and a bowl of incense for a local spirit. Many people also keep a can of beer, an energy drink, and a bunch of cigarettes (and a lighter, can’t miss that) on the same altar, so that grandfather can also party in the spiritual realm.

While we were in Vietnam for just two weeks, I picked up on some cool tidbits about this very cool country:

1. People dress up: Maybe it was the charm of families coming together for the biggest holiday of the year, but man do people dress up in Vietnam. I obviously saw many in traditional Áo dài, gracefully gliding the streets of Hoi An, but I also noticed several ajja ajjis wearing beautifully tailored Western formals, styled directly with inspirations from the 70s or 80s—pencil skirts, suit jackets, matching berets—the whole thing, while we were walking around Phong Nha caves. Even the babies dress up.

2. Speaking of babies though: (and new parents—please relax when you read this, obviously your baby is the cutest)—but you have not seen a cute child until you have seen a Vietnamese baby in bangs. And those small babies were also very friendly to us for some reason—most kids generally take one look at Niki’s beard and start scream-crying. This was different from that—it's just what I noticed 🤷‍♀️

3. Communism served with a side of healthy capitalism: You’ll see the hammer and sickle on every corner, and red flags lining every street, but they are often sitting right next to a neon sign for a high-end viral tea shop or a cute nail salon. It’s a pragmatic system that honors its revolutionary roots with imagery while letting the people hustle with a purely entrepreneurial spirit.

   
   

   

   
   

4. The original serial entrepreneurs: The Vietnamese were the original serial entrepreneurs long before it was a LinkedIn brag. If there is a square meter of space on a sidewalk, someone has already figured out how to use it to sell sugarcane juice, fix tires, or run a pop-up hair salon. This grit is the country’s true engine; it’s a culture of people who don't wait for opportunities to appear—they just grab a couple of plastic stools and build them.

5. The Sidewalk "Plasticulture": Speaking of plastic stools on sidewalks (you already know where this is going)—some of the best meals, desserts and drinks I had in Vietnam were sitting on a plastic stool on the side of the street, while fully channeling my inner Bourdain.

6. The "Karaoke as a Sport": Whether you’re in a bustling city or a remote village in Phong Nha, the unofficial soundtrack of the country is someone, somewhere, singing their heart out into a giant speaker. It’s not just for "fun"; it’s a social glue that crosses all generations. We saw people singing while selling lottery tickets, while sitting alone in their houses, while drinking alone at a bar—even our friends from Hue mentioned it as a non-negotiable.

7. Economic Matriarchy: If you look at the streets, you’d be forgiven for thinking the patriarchy simply doesn’t exist here. Vietnam has one of the highest female labor-force participation rates in the world; from the "Long-Haired Army" of the revolution to the ajjis running multi-generational street-food empires today, there is a fierce, visible female agency that makes the traditional "male-led" narrative feel completely obsolete.

8. Coffee culture: Coffee in Vietnam is not a quick caffeine fix; it’s a slow-motion event involving a Phin filter dripping patiently into thick condensed milk. The salt coffee (Cà Phê Muối) from Hue and the coconut coffee are still permanently ingrained in my taste buds—they are less like drinks and more like decadent, caffeinated desserts. It is, without a doubt, the most delicious coffee I have ever had on the planet.

All in all, I can say that Vietnam has been a very special place, one that I will be waiting desperately to return to some day, and like I mentioned, with no baggage constraints. While Koh Lanta was a piece of the slow travel life, Vietnam was the fuel that got our travel engines roaring. We are leaving with even more stars in our eyes than the ones we arrived with, fuller hearts after seeing a beatiful familiar face, some extra “sqash zone minutes” on Niki’s Garmin, and a newfound respect for the art of the sidewalk hustle.

Next stop: Philippines for some much-needed silence at Dhamma Phala. Stick around—things are about to get quiet, but never boring 😊 as always, we love you guys <3