My God. It’s Hot As Hades!

There comes a point in every holiday where you stop looking like “travellers” and start looking like escapees who’ve wandered too far from the hotel. Today was that day.

We went back into the old part of town to pick up the five pairs of shoes I had made. Five. Apparently I now believe I’m some sort of Imelda Marcos wandering around Vietnam in custom footwear. To be fair though, they’re gorgeous, and when someone can make shoes specifically for your feet while you sit there sweating into your own eyeballs, it feels rude not to buy several pairs.

The Squeeze got some shirts made too, because apparently we’ve both decided we’re becoming linen people now. You know the type. Holiday people who suddenly think they’re sophisticated because they own breathable fabrics and say things like “the humidity is oppressive.”

And oppressive it is.

The heat here isn’t normal heat. It’s biblical. It’s the kind of heat where you don’t walk anywhere so much as slowly dissolve toward your destination. By midday we both looked like damp regret wrapped in cotton. I caught sight of us reflected in a shop window at one point and honestly? We looked like two sock puppets who’d just received terrible medical news.

After collecting our haul, we climbed into what I’m still calling a tuk tuk, even if it technically isn’t one, because at this stage I’m too hot to care about transport accuracy. The driver sped us through traffic while we flapped gently in the breeze like exhausted laundry.

By the time we got back to the hotel we were absolutely finished. Cooked. Emotionally steamed. We collapsed dramatically indoors pretending we’d survived some enormous ordeal instead of what was essentially “shopping with humidity.”

Still worth it though.

Five pairs of glorious shoes!

We Are Leaving!!

We decided to do the relaxing couple thing and book an all-over massage. Very sophisticated. Very worldly. Very “look at us embracing the local culture.”

The place looked calm enough. Soft music. Dim lights. Tiny cups of tea. Women who looked about ninety pounds soaking wet but somehow possessed the thumb strength of industrial machinery.

At first it was lovely. Stretching, oils, elbows in places I didn’t even know could hurt. The squeeze was in the bed next to mine behind one of those curtains that give the illusion of privacy while allowing you to hear every grunt, crack, and accidental fart in the building.

Every now and then I’d hear him mutter things like, “Jesus Christ,” or “Ooohhh,” which in fairness could have meant pain, relaxation, or spiritual awakening. Hard to tell.

Then suddenly there was silence.

Not peaceful silence. Suspicious silence.

A second later, I heard the unmistakable sound of panic-dressing. Velcro. Shuffling. A curtain violently dragged open like someone storming out of a motel raid.

There stood the squeeze, fully clothed, looking horrified.

“We are LEAVING,” he announced.

Apparently the massage had drifted a little too close to the family jewels for his comfort, and rather than politely navigating the situation, he reacted like a man escaping an attempted kidnapping.

The poor woman looked absolutely bewildered. I was still half covered in oil trying to process what was happening while he stood there clutching his shoes like a traumatized Victorian gentleman whose honour had nearly been compromised.

So that was the end of our relaxing spa experience.

Nothing says romance in Vietnam quite like fleeing a massage parlour mid-rub while your partner marches into the street muttering about boundaries and nearly spraining an ankle getting his shorts back on.

Vietnam By Night

There’s something slightly dangerous about agreeing to a “food tasting” with a local Vietnamese person. Not dangerous in the taken-from-a-hostel-never-seen-again sense. More dangerous to your stomach, your feet, and your ability to say no politely while being handed your seventh mystery item on a stick.

Yesterday started innocently enough. “We’ll walk,” they said.

That should have been the first warning.

People in Vietnam don’t “walk” the way Australians walk. Australians stroll twenty metres to a café and call it exercise. Vietnamese people walk like they’re training for an Olympic endurance event while casually chatting and weaving through traffic that looks like organised chaos.

So we walked.

And walked.

And ate.

Little things wrapped in leaves. Things grilled over charcoal. Tiny bowls of soup that somehow tasted better than entire meals back home. Bread rolls that would make Australian bakeries shut their doors in shame. Every second stop came with someone proudly watching us take the first bite like they’d personally invented flavour.

And somehow, despite being absolutely full, we kept eating.

Eventually we ended up by the river where the lantern boats were waiting. Tiny wooden boats glowing with coloured lanterns drifting across the water while tourists tried not to fall in climbing aboard with the grace of injured giraffes.

It was honestly beautiful.

Hoi An at night looks less like a town and more like someone collectively agreed reality needed softer lighting. Lanterns everywhere. Reflections across the water. Music drifting from restaurants. People laughing. Little boats floating past in the dark looking like scenes from a movie.

For about half an hour I forgot about life, bills, social media idiots, and the fact my knees now fucking kill me every time I stand up.

Then naturally we ended up at what was basically the Vietnamese equivalent of a pub because apparently the night still wasn’t over. Cold drinks. Loud conversations. Tiny plastic stools seemingly designed by someone who hates spines.

By the time we finally caught a car back home I was completely exhausted. The kind of tired where your body stops functioning properly and you just stare silently out the window questioning every life choice that led you there.

Worth it though.

Vietnam has this annoying habit of making you feel more alive while simultaneously trying to physically destroy you.

Marble Mountain - Site To See

There’s something deeply humbling about climbing a mountain in forty-degree heat while pretending you’re still reasonably athletic. Today’s adventure in Vietnam began at Marble Mountain, which sounds gentle and decorative until you realise it involves stairs apparently designed by medieval punishment experts.

Absolutely worth it though.

The caves were unbelievable. Huge stone chambers filled with incense smoke, hidden temples, shafts of sunlight cutting through the rock like something out of an Indiana Jones film if Indiana Jones had slightly sore knees and needed frequent bottled water breaks. Everywhere you looked there were carved Buddhas, tiny shrines tucked into the mountain, and tourists trying not to die dramatically on the steps while pretending they were “taking in the culture.”

Vietnam does this thing where every place somehow feels both ancient and alive at the same time. Nothing feels manufactured. Even the chaos has history attached to it.

After surviving Marble Mountain with our dignity mostly intact, we headed to Monkey Island, which sounds whimsical. Beautiful views though. Absolutely spectacular. The coastline stretched forever, the ocean looked painted on, and massive jungle-covered hills rolled down toward the sea like something from a movie set.

And yes — there were monkeys.

Watching tourists try to casually coexist with animals was fabulous. It reminded me of a Facebook thing I follow. Punch an abandoned monkey who is now adored by thousands. It is astonishing to me how alike we are… they kiss and hug; more so and better than the Squeeze who is allergic to displays of affection. Perhaps they are the best of us.

By the end of the day we were exhausted, sweaty, mildly dehydrated, and completely happy. Which is honestly the best kind of travel day. Not rushed. Not curated for Instagram. Just wandering through incredible places, eating too much, taking photos you’ll barely look at later, and occasionally stopping to think, “This is actually pretty amazing.”

Dinner tonight was one of those perfect holiday meals where nobody cares what time it is anymore. Warm night air, tired legs, and that strange holiday feeling where every day somehow feels longer than normal life.

Back to the hotel afterwards completely wrecked — the good kind of wrecked. Vietnam keeps doing this. Every day turns into something slightly unexpected. And somehow every day ends with us saying the same thing:

“We should probably slow down tomorrow.”

We won’t.

It will probably somehow involve another mountain, another massage, another drink, and at least one moment where you both say, “We’re too old for this,” immediately before doing it anyway.

Acupuncture - With Sign Language

Vietnam continues to feel like a fever dream stitched together by heat, confusion, optimism, and increasingly questionable decisions.

Today I went to what can only be described as a mysterious underground Vietnamese acupuncture wizard. Tiny room. No English. No explanations. Just intense eye contact and the quiet confidence of a man who has definitely stabbed thousands of people professionally.

To be fair, I also speak no Vietnamese. So our medical consultation mostly involved me pointing at various body parts while making vague suffering noises and attempting interpretive dance-level demonstrations of “my muscles don’t work properly.”

Somehow, against all logic, he understood.

The Squeeze, meanwhile, sat outside the curtain the entire time listening to what probably sounded like a hostage situation unfolding in stages.

Every few minutes:
“OW.”
Silence.
“Jesus Christ.”
More silence.
Then the occasional nervous laugh from the acupuncturist which did not inspire confidence.

Apparently this was healing.

An hour later I was folded, stretched, poked, prodded and needled like an old couch cushion. At one point I’m reasonably sure I briefly left my body and became aware of previous lives. There were moments where I considered whether this was still therapy or if I was being quietly assembled into flat-pack furniture.

Meanwhile The Squeeze remained outside, loyal but absolutely unwilling to swap places with me once he realised this wasn’t the relaxing spa treatment the brochure probably implied.

But weirdly? I felt a bit better afterward.

Not cured. Not suddenly sprinting through the streets like an inspirational pharmaceutical commercial. But looser. Lighter. Less like my muscles had been set in concrete sometime around 2019.

So naturally, full of post-treatment confidence and poor impulse control, we walked home past a guitar shop I’d been eyeing off all week and I bought a ukulele.

Because apparently this is who I am now.

A woman wandering through Vietnam collecting alternative therapies, cocktails, dresses, and small musical instruments she absolutely does not know how to play.

Anyway, we’re now back at the hotel sitting by the pool, mildly sunburnt, vaguely relaxed, and pretending we’re the sort of people who casually buy ukuleles overseas instead of normal tourists who return home with fridge magnets and regret.

Vietnam really is becoming less of a holiday and more of a very strange personality transformation.