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.

The Old Part of Vietnam

Today we climbed into one of those open cabs that look like they were built entirely out of leftover scooter parts and optimism, and headed into the old part of town.

The minute we got there, it was like walking into a weird little sequel to last year. Same market. Same faces. Same people waving and smiling like we’d only left yesterday instead of a whole year ago. We were mainly there to see the girl who made clothes for us before, because apparently I now travel internationally to continue feeding my tailoring addiction.

And honestly? Successful day.

I ended up with three pairs of shoes, a pair of pants, two dresses, and an order for a girlfriend back home because apparently I’ve become some sort of middle-aged fashion mule. The squeeze got two shirts, which in male shopping terms is basically a complete psychological breakdown. Well, that’s what it’s like for normal men. The Squeeze’s nickname used to be Emelda Marcos he has that many pairs if shoes’

I actually didn’t even get to do proper shopping because we wandered into a gallery where everything screamed:
“You absolutely need this.”
And by “this,” I mean several thousand dollars worth of art I now have to spend the rest of the trip pretending I responsibly walked away from.

The old part of town is still ridiculous in the best possible way. Lanterns everywhere. Tiny streets. Random smells drifting out of doorways. Tourists sweating through linen. Small children driving scooters better than most Australians operate cars.

Then we came back to the hotel where we did what all exhausted travellers eventually do — sat around drinking and floating in water pretending that counts as recovery.

Tonight’s schedule:

Massage.
Dinner.
Probably more drinks.
Potentially more poor financial decisions tomorrow.

Cheap cocktails while watching the Squeeze

Vietnam has rapidly become a cycle of heat, confusion, cheap cocktails, and watching your partner casually hand over thousands of dollars worth of dental work like he’s ordering a sandwich.

Today started with a trip into Da Nang because apparently his teeth have now entered what I can only describe as a full-scale renovation project. Not maintenance. Reconstruction. We weren’t “going to the dentist.” We were attending a summit on the future of his mouth.

The funniest part is how relaxed dentists are here. In Australia, they stare into your soul before telling you a filling will require “ongoing management” and the GDP of a small country. In Vietnam, a tiny woman the size of a garden ornament cheerfully waves you into a chair, rebuilds an entire molar in thirty minutes, and somehow you leave with cleaner teeth and emotional stability.

Meanwhile I sat there pretending I understood any of it while hearing occasional drilling noises that sounded medically concerning.

Back we came to Hoi An where priorities immediately returned to normal. I went for a massage, which in Vietnam means being folded into shapes not approved by human anatomy while someone half your size walks on your spine with complete confidence. Honestly though, after twenty minutes you start believing they may actually know things Western medicine doesn’t.

Then shopping. Tiny market stalls. Lanterns everywhere. Heat thick enough to drink. Bought t-shirts for the grandkids because apparently that’s now what holidays are. Not adventure. Not culture. Just wandering around saying things like, “Do you think Hunter would wear this?” while sweating directly through your clothing.

And now? We’ve reached the final form of tourism.

Poolside.
Several margaritas deep.
Completely ignoring the concept of time.

The great thing about Vietnam is nobody seems particularly interested in pretending life should be harder than it needs to be. You eat. You drink. You wander around. Someone fixes your back. Someone fixes your teeth. Somebody hands another cocktail.