Vietnam — A Journey That Made Me Fall in Love With Travel Again

September 2019.

By this time, international travel was no longer something completely new for me.

Malaysia had been my first.

Dubai had followed.

And now, Vietnam.

My fourth international destination.

There was something special about realising that.

A few years earlier, international travel had felt like something distant.

Now, slowly, I was becoming someone who travelled.

And Vietnam wasn’t just another country on my list.

Some places you visit.

Some places you remember.

And some places somehow stay with you.

Vietnam became one of those places for me.

The journey begins

My flight was Thai Airways TG 316, scheduled for 11:30 PM on 6 September 2019.

The funny part?

That afternoon, I was still lying on my bed after lunch.

The packing wasn’t even done.

I thought,

“I’ll take a little nap and pack afterwards.”

That “little nap” was obviously more important at that moment. 😄

By around 6 PM, reality finally kicked in.

Passport.

Documents.

Shoes.

Sunglasses.

Clothes.

Everything had to go into the bag.

And then came one of the most difficult decisions of every man’s travel preparation:

Which two shirts and trousers make the best combination?

I probably spent more time staring at clothes than I should admit.

Eventually, I packed everything and left for the airport.

Check-in done.

Baggage done.

Immigration done.

And then came the announcement—

The flight was delayed by around 15–20 minutes.

Normally, a delay can be annoying.

That day, I didn’t really care.

I was already sleepy.

And hungry.

So I was just waiting to get inside the aircraft and finally eat something.

And then Thai Airways surprised me.

I was expecting the usual flight meal.

But when the food arrived, I realised they had served a North Indian meal.

And surprisingly…

it was really good.

I finished dinner.

And then came another very human problem.

I wanted to burp.

Loudly.

But there was a person sitting next to me.

So I did what any socially responsible traveller would do—

I tried to do it quietly. 😂

Sometimes the best travel memories aren’t the monuments.

They’re these tiny, silly moments that you remember years later.

Welcome to Vietnam

After the overnight journey, I reached Ho Chi Minh City.

I had already booked my hotel.

But when I arrived, I was too early for check-in.

And, unfortunately, they didn’t have a room available yet.

So there I was—

tired from the journey,

sitting on a sofa at reception,

waiting for my room.

The hotel staff offered me a welcome drink.

I was sitting there with my mango-flavoured drink, half tired and half excited, when a lady finally came over.

“Sir, your room is ready.”

A staff member came to take my luggage and showed me to the room.

That feeling of finally getting into your room after travelling through the night is underrated.

I just wanted to sleep.

And that’s exactly what I did.

Then came food.

After waking up, we went out looking for lunch.

We found a restaurant serving North Indian food.

I ordered chapatis, kadai paneer, dal and rice.

And I was hungry.

Very hungry.

But there was another little problem.

My fellow travellers were eating.

And eating.

And eating.

Half an hour passed.

I had finished my food within about ten minutes.

But I didn’t want to be the first person to stop.

So I kept taking small spoonfuls of rice.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

Until eventually I had eaten far more than I normally would.

And finally I looked at them and said:

“Itna nahi khata main!”

They looked at me as if I had just revealed something completely unexpected.

That day I realised something—

sometimes your self-respect can make you overeat. 😂

Ho Chi Minh at night

That evening, we decided to explore the city.

And this was one of the first things that really surprised me about Vietnam.

The streets were alive.

People were outside.

Music was playing.

People were dancing near the clubs.

And there was a certain freedom in the atmosphere.

Nobody seemed too concerned about whether someone was watching them.

People were simply enjoying themselves.

And that stayed with me.

Because sometimes we spend too much time thinking about how we look to other people.

What will they think?

Will they judge me?

Am I doing this correctly?

And then you travel somewhere and see people simply enjoying their moment.

It reminds you that maybe life doesn’t need that much approval from others.

And then there were the motorbikes.

So many motorbikes.

Everywhere.

The streets almost felt like they belonged to them.

As someone visiting Vietnam for the first time, crossing the road initially felt like a challenge.

You look at the traffic and think,

“How am I supposed to cross this?”

But somehow, you just start walking.

And the traffic moves around you.

It becomes a strange kind of rhythm.

At first, you’re scared.

Then you’re confused.

And eventually, you’re laughing about it.

That’s travel.

The things that initially make you uncomfortable often become the stories you remember most.

The vegetarian struggle

Being vegetarian while travelling can sometimes be an adventure of its own.

And Vietnam tested me.

Local food often had smells that were completely unfamiliar to me.

For someone who had never even grown up around the smell of chicken or egg curries, some of those food experiences were… difficult.

So I started looking for something familiar.

North Indian food.

And thankfully, we found a restaurant whose owner was from Punjab.

Suddenly, in the middle of Vietnam, I found a little taste of home.

Sometimes you don’t realise how comforting familiar food is until you’re far away from home.

The early morning departure

The next morning, we had an early flight to Hanoi.

6 AM.

And that meant waking up ridiculously early.

Around 4 AM, the hotel staff had packed some fruits for us.

We were standing in the queue for our flight, eating those fruits while waiting to check in.

That was another tiny moment I remember.

It wasn’t glamorous.

It wasn’t a tourist attraction.

It wasn’t something I had planned.

It was just us, half sleepy, standing in an airport at 4 in the morning, eating fruit before catching a flight.

And somehow, those are the moments that make a trip feel real.

Hanoi

We reached Hanoi and, without wasting much time, got ready to explore.

Another city.

Another side of Vietnam.

Another set of streets, people, sounds and experiences.

By this point, I had stopped trying to compare everything with India.

I was simply observing.

Watching.

Learning.

Taking it all in.

And that’s one of the best things travel has given me—

the ability to observe before judging.

Vietnam was more than a holiday.

Before visiting Vietnam, I knew it mainly through history.

I had read about the country.

I knew that Vietnam had gone through a long and difficult period of war.

But reading about history in a book and standing inside museums where that history is preserved are two completely different experiences.

You begin to understand that behind every country there are people.

Real people.

Families.

Losses.

Struggles.

Dreams.

And eventually, rebuilding.

What impressed me most was seeing how Vietnam had moved forward and built a strong tourism culture while preserving so much of its identity.

That was something I hadn’t expected to feel so strongly.

And somewhere along the way, I made friends.

I met two people during the trip who eventually became friends.

One was Vietnamese.

The other was from Scotland.

Different countries.

Different backgrounds.

Different stories.

But somehow, we connected.

We eventually connected on social media too.

And that’s another thing I love about travelling.

You leave home thinking you’re going to see places.

But sometimes you come back having met people who were never supposed to be part of your life.

And the coffee…

I have had a lot of coffee.

But Vietnam gave me what is still, perhaps, the best coffee I have ever had.

Maybe it was the coffee itself.

Maybe it was the place.

Maybe it was the mood.

Or maybe everything simply tasted better because I was somewhere new.

That’s the funny thing about travel.

The experience changes the taste of ordinary things.

A cup of coffee becomes a memory.

A hotel sofa becomes a story.

A packet of fruit at 4 AM becomes something you remember years later.

A bowl of dal and paneer becomes comforting because you’re thousands of kilometres away from home.

And then it was time to leave.

We were heading back to India through Bangkok.

The trip was ending.

And once again, I had that familiar feeling.

You know the feeling.

You are tired.

You have seen so much.

You are ready to go home.

But at the same time…

you don’t want the journey to end.

Vietnam had given me more than photographs.

It gave me stories.

It gave me unexpected friendships.

It gave me some very good food.

Some questionable food decisions. 😄

Some very early mornings.

Some unforgettable streets.

Some beautiful conversations.

And a different perspective on a country I had previously known mostly through history books.

Most importantly, it reminded me why I love travelling.

Because travel isn’t really about how many countries you have visited.

It’s about how many times you allow yourself to be surprised.

How many times you step outside what is familiar.

How many times you meet someone completely different from you and still find a connection.

And how many ordinary moments suddenly become unforgettable.

Vietnam was my fourth international destination.

But it became much more than another country on my travel list.

It became one of those journeys I still smile about.

And as I boarded my flight back to India, I knew one thing for sure—

I wasn’t done travelling yet.

Not even close.

See you again, Vietnam.