Hanoi, Memory of a lifetime

Introduction

So back when I went to Ho Chi Minh with Prabowo and friends in July or June, I felt the urge to take another trip to Vietnam, because apparently my old coworkers which I used to work with in Money Forward now lives in Hanoi. So, I decided to go there, from the afternoon of Saturday, October 4th 2025, until the day of October 8th 2025, Wednesday. It was one of the bests. Current condition, I’m so tired from the trip I had a sore throat, I think i got flu or something.

The Going Flight ✈️ and Little Hanoi 🛖

I took the VN593 flight going to Vietnam, I didn’t know that the bus that goes to the airport actually runs, so I take the A47X directly, luckily I didn’t WAIT. So right after I come down from my room, the bus is there lmao.

Arriving there was really quick because the station is just right in front of Innocell, where I stayed, right to the Airport. Maybe it’s a new arrangement, but it’s really nice because it passes through science park, and I get to go to the Airport in about 1 hour.

Which is really time effective. Arriving pretty early, I had about 2 hours of wait time there, which I immediately thought of using the free premium lounge access from trip.com I had saved from the diamond member offer. I took that chance, of trying one of the most luxury things I saw people go to. HAHAHAHA.

Boarding to Hanoi was good, nothing bad, flight is good, weather is good, life feels too unreal at this point because I had no challenges, everything went really smooth.

And voila, I landed in Hanoi,

I found that the airport is very nice, it has mountains all around, the trip to the city was not very far as well, I think its only about 30 mins, so I wanted to order grab, but there are some people waiting outside holding a grab symbol. Me being a retard I said to them for the price, he’s a scammer I know, I say I pay first, and I don’t wanna pay extra. lmao. After that he said wait for 5 minutes.

And then guess what?

ANOTHER PERSON CAME INTO THE CAR AHHAHAHA

So he told me he was a local, haven’t gone home for 6 years in Czech Republic, he told me story about being a student there, studying economics for 3 years, didn’t made through, then continue studying CS, life’s hard there he said, in Prague, but he said there is something called little Hanoi, apparently there are lots of other fellow Vietnamese there?

So it’s kind of cool, I also paid the same price with the grab one + I get the chance to talk with a local who speaks fluent English during the trip from the Airport to the city. His name is Đạt.

HAHHAHA so crazy name, I cant even type it. He talks about Hanoi is full of pollution, dust, but there’s always something special here, If you wanna explorer the niches things in Hanoi, you need an entire 2 weeks being there.

Anyways, nice meeting you, I don’t even think that might be a scam taxi after all.

The Initial Walk 🚆

So arrived there, He told me to stay at his house, but I could barely understand his address, because it was in Vietnamese, I wish I could’ve shown you the address in Vietnamese, but it would dox him lmaoo.

Anyway, the address is something like

234C 89f 281 Ba dinh dinh Ba dinh dinh adoi

^ not real address but something sounds alieny~ 👽 like this.

And, then I replied

lmao, he gave up and we decided to meet at the Japanese embassy in Vietnam, which is about 750 meters from his house.

After that, we decided to walk about 6 minutes-ish to a really fancy Vietnamese restaurant around there, and voila, that was my first meal in Hanoi.

For future reference: this is the address of the restaurant I went to

Tiệm Cơm Thu Hằng, 36C P. Phan Kế Bính, Kim Mã, Ba Đình, Hà Nội 100000, Vietnam

The menu was really nice, it was like some veggies, some fried peas(?), and then mutton(?) and FROG(?) I barely recall what I ate back there, but I remember the taste was really flavorful, the sweet was sweet, the salty was salty, the sour hits hard, and it’s one of the TASTIEST food I’ve tasted in a while.

Ok, I haven’t told him about my blog, so I’m just gonna put his name as Dragon. my friend’s name is Dragon. But anyway, he told me story about his current life, his office is close to where he lives. And it’s really nice~!

He asked me whether I need beer.

🐉: What you want to drink?
😈: I don’t know, let me take a look at the menu
🐉: You want some beers?
😈: umm maybe
🐉: (Speaks gibberish Vietnamese) ngoc dong mut seup seup <- not real Vietnamese
😈: OK nvm, ive been sober for a while now, im not drinking
🐉: Really? you don’t drink
😈: OK I’ll just order this pomegranate juice
🐉: OK, (orders again)

After a while, food started coming

🐉: You wanna try my beer?
😈: Hahaa noo, I’m good, try this pome juice
🐉: Sips

🐉: WTF, ITS SO FUKGING GOOD

🐉: WTF, SO GOOD

Actually diet tips, avoid carbs and fill yourself with protein. But I’m just telling this yet I still munched all of the rice noodles that was served. At the end, two sticks of ice cream were served, but we both don’t eat it. Dragon said: “I was motivated because of your story”.

But actually none of those story was accurately 100% true, it was a bit fabricated in order to keep my motivation high to stay on my proper diet while on a trip. Like:

• I’m not totally sober, I still drink once in a while
• Even though I didn’t proper meal a lot, my snacking is super crazy
• I didn’t RUN that much, because I was like running in a pace 8 or 9 minutes lol.

Mid Autumn! 🌕🌚

Ok after eating we both were full, we walked around, at this point unlike traveling solo, I followed Dragon for the entire trip.

The road is super full, Dragon met his highschool friend, they chatted a bit and we continued walking.

🐉: You wanna come in?
😈: Umm.. yea sure
🐉: Really? it looks fucking hot
😈: Yea, you are right
🐉: Yea it looks so crowded as well
😈: Maybe let’s take a look a little bit
🐉: OK Let’s go inside
😈&🐉: walks 6 steps
🐉: I think it’s too many people
😈: Yea, okay let’s just get out of here

Lmao, ok so we ended up outside and didn’t walk to the crazy huru hara crowd. Walked around, went to train street.

It was really nice. I didn’t see the trains passing though, but I still remember how there were so many cafes around. It was a really long walk, at the end of the trip. We decided we want a cup of coffee and drink. But I’m afraid Dragon was too tired for the day. Apparently Dragon had already booked for the club that we planned to go at 11 PM.

😈: Should we go this one?
🐉: No i think it’s too hot
😈: How about this one?
🐉: yea still no
😈: **walks a bit more **
🐉: You know that girl in the cafe says “Fugg You” in Vietnamese after we leave?
😈: o really? hhahahhaha

And that was it, we had really fun walk around the book festival, we walked around the lake and saw some people selling stuffs.

Club And Dance Machine 🕺🪩

I hate going to clubs for specific reasons, and those are:

• I can’t control my drinking problem.
• I am a dancing machine. I dance.
• I love cute girls.

So we went to this bar, the name is track24, we partied so hard, We got a shisha (it was cheap compared to Hong Kong!)

One thing that intrigued me was the ice cube in the urinal, it was apparently discovered by Dragon that the water system was clogged or doesn’t work, and this is to prevent it being smelly so the water keeps flowing! 💥 Mind blowing!!

But as I peed, I melted lots of them LMAO.

Dance was super crazy, We partied hard until 3 AM, I went around the club and got offered so many free drinks. In total, I think I got like 9-12 shots, I can’t recall, but then again, one tips when going to the club.

Never get drunk too much if you like dancing~!

HAHAHAA

Don’t understand at all what they were saying but the party was really insane. Some pop songs played hard, there are korean songs as well. DJ is good, crowd was really weak tho, compared to Bali’s club.

And just like that, My first day in Hanoi is spent.

After we go home, our body smells like smoke. I think we went to Circle K first, before coming to the club, I got myself 2 chicken breasts and bird’s nest drink. Back at Dragon’s place, we set the bed together and eventually it’s set up real good as its a air mattress. The instruction was in Chinese and we had a hard time understanding how to set it up.

The Morning of Phở Bò! 🐄 Moo Moo and Plup Plup

After every storm, a cold breeze passes, nothing better than a warm beef pho noodle. Rice noodles are never my favorite. But one thing I like about pho is the noodle is very thin and each layer absorbs flavor.

I didn’t order, but Dragon ordered for me hahaha. Nevertheless, it tasted so good. It’s a perfect bowl of pho!

Phở Khôi Hói 50 P. Hàng Vải, Phố cổ Hà Nội, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội, Vietnam

For future references here’s the place where I eat. Oh, I also remembered there was this fried bread stick, I think the name is Gwai? gwui? i can’t recall. But basically its ca kwe WOKOKWAOKWA.

Anyway, we were walking around and it’s already very hot, so we decided to settle for a warm cup of coffee, we got the traditional egg coffee, I also went to Miniso to purchase sunblock because apparently I left it at home lmao.

🐉: What are you doing
😈: Taking videos
🐉: But why you take it after you’ve stirred it?
😈: No I already took pictures before

Prison Museum, Military Museum and KFC Salad 🥒

After that, we went to the prison museum, some lake temple and everything. I don’t really remember what we were talking about, I think we talked about racism, and some race that we hate hahahaha, we went to Vietnam Military History Museum, and there we bought a coffee. We talked about whats our favorite drink, I think Dragon said he likes coffee and he drinks it every morning. Unlike me, usually I only had my whey protein and oatmeal for breakfast, or sometimes. I would eat salad and chicken breast.

I also mentioned how the Vietnamese people are insanely fit, and they are not obese, unlike people from Philippines. I said: “but they are excused, because pinoy food is SO FUCKING GOOD”. I love the food so much, I’d come back there. We also developed internal joke every time bowl of raw vegetable appear we would be like “omg, eating grass again, are we goats?” But we always ended up finishing it 💀. Because we both love it so much.

After that we crossed the street and walked around the mall in the front of the museum. The mall was not crowded at all. WE get in and the first thing we looked at is McDonald. I was curious because as far as I know each country’s mcDonald is different. So I’m a bit curious about Vietnam’s McD. I went to check the machine and it was like.

🐉: What are you doing?
😈: Checking McD
🐉: You want to eat McDonalds?
😈: Sure, can
🐉: Really?
😈: Yea I’m good with this
🐉: No, it’s better not
😈: Oh ok
🐉: But I kinda miss eating McD
😈: ok let’s go eat then
🐉: No, let’s get Vietnam food

Lmao, we walked for a while, looking for a proper restaurant, and in the way of going around I met this

I said “WTF, KFC kok ada lalapannya ANJING”. Dragon be like 👁️, what are you saying, and I took this picture full of amazement how their KFC has raw salads 🤣

Anyway, we ended up eating some traditional Hue restaurant, it’s really nice, and the food is really greaet

Add the end, we ate this dessert, which is similar to mung bean in slurpy soup. After that, we come back to Dragon’s house, figuring out how to properly fill in the bed, and rest for a while 😀

The Single Allegation 💀

Every thing was good, the mooncake my office gave me I gave it too long, because I don’t really like mooncake. We decided to give it to Dragon’s parents.

Dragon’s parents look like a very sweet couple in their 60s. They talked in Vietnamese, but I’m pretty sure it was to scold Dragon, who’s a single 29 y.o guy. They asked me how old I am, I’m 23, but that doesn’t help. Age is just a number but NOT HAVING A GIRLFRIEND hits hard. They said they would’ve offered me a dinner if Dragon said he would come with me earlier, but there isn’t any informations so they didn’t prepare anything.

After that, we visited this michelin restaurant which only have 1 menu.

Dragon and Goat food.

The stove came in, and I looked at the things they put in the middle of the stove, it looks like an orange jelly, salmon like. I was joking whether we came to a sushi restaurant.

So I wanted to cook, but I can’t use my chopstick because I’d hold the stove and my hand crossed. I’m confused af, we both confused af.

🐉: Oh
😈: Oh shit I can’t cross my hand while cooking it
🐉: umm maybe make the saucepan balance
😈: I can’t it’s too empty
🐉: umm, maybe hold the stove with your right hand and chopstick left hand?
😈: ok good idea trying
🐉: ?
😈: doesn’t work.txt
🐉: Ummm
😈: me doing magic thing

🐉: OHHH WTFF ICPC GOLD MEDALIST

Super good food, in Hanoi, people eat the shrimp paste too! (Belacan)

After eating, we walked around and visit the People’s building

Cockroach 🪳

We gone home, I mentioned about how Dragon have electric toothbrush, and I use electric toothbrush too, while I was chilling a cockroach appears from the toilet. I screamed. Dragon hit it with sandal once, and then I screamed because I said, BE CAREFULL!!! IT CAN FLY.

He HITS it again, cockroach walk outside, and then he hit it again, but this time it flips, and bam. Dragon smash it with a box lmao.

And then we forget it, he said let the cleaning lady clean it.

PS: the next day the cleaning lady didn’t come and we talked about how her expression gonna be like “WTF is this guy doing how is there a dead cockroach under the box”

We also talked about where I should go tomorrow, I’m planning to go for a 2 days 1 night trip to Ha Long Bay, but apparently my ordered was cancelled because 6th of October apparently there’s a big storm hitting the sea. So I ended up buying the Full Day Trip to Ninh Binh and full day cruise trip Ha Long Bay on 7th of October!

If you hoist the typhoon number 8, tourist cannot go home and cannot come because the transportation would stop. If you don’t hoist, the transportation will be flooded and you risk the casualties. This is a very funny meme I found when the typhoon is close to the national holiday lmao.

The Tour to Ninh Binh 🚵

Today we start a new day, it was 6th of October 2025, I’m waking up very early to attend a tour, I went to the Opera House and be picked up first there, taking about 2 hours, I went to Ninh Binh, we stopped for a while to drink some snacks, I ordered Avocado smoothie and it was really thick and good, I also enjoyed the chicken breasts and drink I bought two days ago, and then we visited the Pagoda, the Bai Dinh Pagoda. Apparently, the Buddha is cast in solid bronze, and plated with gold, it weighs 100 tons. I also visited the bell, and saw 10 thousand small buddhas and like 500 buddha carved stone(?)

It was raining when I visited this place, so the tour actually gave us the rain coat, the poncho.

After that, we had buffet lunch, the food is good, I tried to fill my plate with much proteins, but failed horribly because the snacks are really good. And I feel like the meats are cooked in a way that it contains lots of oil and addition.

Eating is done, now we gone to the next place. Time is 1:53 PM, we arrived at Tam coc, the place where we supposed to ride the man rowed boat where we can enjoy the view, see the mountains and go through the caves. I met Candice (African American) from US and Mikhaella from Romania. I took the boat with them, so there were 3 of us, of which i sit in the front while they both sit at the back.

The view was really nice, we saw mountain goats, we greeted other boats, and we went through caves where we have to duck.

The boat is about 1 hour, and we talked to each other, they are sharing stories about when they moved what they do. something that goes.

When I moved from XXX I invited my friends to my house and I told them to take anything that you want. If they gave me money, that’s nice, but if no it’s ok, I decluttered my thing and I don’t really have to do anything because they help me clean my house.

That one tip was very memorable in particular, which probably I’d like to try some day. After the trip, I bought mixed fruit crepe, and peeled pomegranate cup, and 1 whole pomegranate.

The crepe was terrible, inside was only banana and mango, and the skin is not crispy.

But still, the view was so amazing!

Viking and More Food 📯

going home, it was about 6PM, I bought a sandal, so called the “Size 44” for 25k dong. Because my shoe is wet, and I have to dry them. So this time I didn’t stay at Dragon’s house. Reasons:

• Because tomorrow I’ll be having a tour
• Private time
• I move to the old quarter area thinking it would give me more accessibility if I were to walk around Hanoi (apparently I don’t have enough time to go around)

After that, I tried to dry my shoes using a hair dryer and before leaving for dinner, I filled it with toilet paper. After that, Dragon and I went to BaMi house to get some good food.

I drank the Soymilk, and we ate the special Banh Mi. It was really goooodd! Dragon himself got the duck meat and pork liver banh mi. Right after, rain poured down so hard that we can’t go to our next destination, so we ordered some more food, which is the chicken leg Banh Mi, and ordered fermented rice.

🐉: Do you want to try the dessert here?
😈: The tapai ketan?
🐉: What tapai?
😈: The fermented rice wine, we call it tapai, we usually make it with cassava
🐉: Oh yea? it’s a traditional dessert
😈: We have it too in Indonesia

After the food, we waited for the rain to relax a bit and we went to another dessert shop which sells pudding

I bought extra egg caramel pudding too.

🐉: Where you wanna go after this?
😈: IDK
🐉: Clubbing?
😈: I swear to god, NO
🐉: hahaha, then where should we go?
😈: shopping mall?

While we enjoy our dessert, we talked about DotA, and he tells about not playing it back home and he always go to net cafe to play it, we ended up going to the net cafe!!! HAHAHAHA the net cafe name is viking.

We enjoyed a good 15 minutes walk to the net cafe while I was wearing my small sandal, it was fucking terrible because apparently the size 44 doesn’t fit because my feet is wide. Before getting in the net cafe, I went to the supermarket nearby, trying to find chicken breast. But cannot find the cooked one.

I had a hard time registering because i was using my special domain email, me trying to read the Vietnamese word for the registration form is funny too, Dragon found it was hilarious and thinking i was stupid and being goofy.

🐉: Press that green button one
😈: Green button? (sees no green button)
🐉: Oh or the blue, IDK im color blind
😈: AHHAHAHA

We played 2 games, first game we almost win, he plays Necrophos and I picked skywrath mage, and the second is flopped, he picked QoP and I picked oracle. After that, I went home to relax and sleep. before going home, I found a closed store which claims they open 24 hours.

Bad Hair Day and The Trip to The Cruise 🛳️

I woke up really nasty this day, my hair is messy and I was so sleepy. The breakfast I had is very good, so I was staying at Hanoi Vision Premier Hotel, I remember the morning was raining pretty hard, I worn the shoes of mine which I had dried last night.

They picked me up using a white bus, I saw a pinoy girl, Taiwan girl sitting in front of me (they are solo travellers), some indian family, and a family from China. This father from China is so gross, he keeps on sneezing from the morning until we end our trip. I hate him lmao. I’m still upset that there I feel like my flu was because of him 😡.

I brought my whole pomegranate i bought in Ninh Binh yesterday, and the travel was really nice. When we reached the cruise, the weather is cloudy, less wind, but no rain. I saw some cruises around actually bunch of them,

Our bus has 18 people, to make things easier, the guide separated us into groups of 3, I sit with the solo travellers and an Indian family (mom, son, daughter). It was known that this mom is an influencer with 200K+++ followers on instagram lmao.

Food in the cruise is pretty nice, when we arrived, it’s already 12:10, so we had our first lunch, and it’s buffet, I love how we got unlimited mussels and shrimps. I love them, I’m allergic to shrimp. After eating like 15++ of them, of course my entire mouth itch, but it was worth it LMAO.

There is not much story to tell inside the cruise. But the sit arrangement is like

Windows | Mom Son Daughter         [Dining Buffet table]
Windows | [    Table     ]   
Windows | [    Table     ]
Windows | Me Pinoy Taiwan

Something like this the things that I can recall is

• You can open the windows but apparently a staff told me to close it right after.
• The Taiwan girl had bad English comprehension. I explain to her a sentence in CHINESE, AND AFTER SHE ONLY TALK TO ME IN CHINESE. NOT ANYMORE. She assumes I’m proficient at it while I told her 我中文不好，很垃圾，不那麼好，會說一點. But she proceed to talk to me in FULL HSK 5. I’m so done. Never will I flex my Mandarin again.
• the Pinoy girl was apparently come to Vietnam with her friend, but idk why she come alone
• The son looks like this chess prodigy, my instinct said he plays chess, mentioned it. Truly plays chess.

• The Taiwan girl is cute, but I think she’s on her 35++

• I brought my pome (Lựu) in, not knowing when to eat. Apparently it was discovered that it was pome season in Vietnam.

• The daughter speaks proper english, studying abroad. bout to enter uni. Her mom has perfect english accent, but not really good at speaking english. Apparently their dad is very busy, so its only they 3.

• The guide name is Willy and Kenny. Willy is on her 34++ too I assume, it was known later that he has 2 children and a wife living very far, he only comes back home like once or twice in a month because he’s very busy.

• I took lots of picture outside, btu the rain comes after i go out for 3 minutes.
• The cruise has 3 floors, the second floor doesn’t have buffet, and the top most floor has this jacuzzi / hot tubs.
• I met a cute french girl staying at the top. She’s travelling alone, by today (12 Oct 2025) she should be in Bali.

Titop Island 🏝️

Our first stop from the cruise is the titop island, it has nothing much but a beach and a view point from above. I hiked quite fast, about 5 minutes apparently. It was very close, just 400 steps of stairs. The view on top was nice. Nothing too spectacular. I talked quite a lot with the french girl I mentioned before.

Also when coming down from the viewpoint, I come down with her. I met some of the walkers that goes with me from the ground, they haven’t reached the view point yet. But all the way down, I keep saying:

• 很近
• Very close
• 1 More minute
• 10 more steps
• Almost arrived.

Just to make them stay motivated. Heading down, I enjoyed the coconut. Asked the seller to open it, but turns out the coconut was too old for the meat to be consumed. On the beach, I met Seemachal, architect, 31 y.o, with his wife, they’re nice, we talked about life, anime, and camera. He told me DJI camera is better for lowlight performance, he uses motorola phone!

The Speedboat and The Cave🚢

After the titop island, we go back to the boat, the guide were asking whether each people would take the speedboat (250,000 VND) or the bamboo boat for (50,000 VND), I took the speedboat because the bamboo boat view in tam coc is already enough for me. Funny thing, It’s only us 3 (Seemachal, his wife, and me) which would g o to the speedboat.

Before entering, we were talking about which color of lifesaving jacket, initially i said “I don’t want the yellow ones, it looks dirty” So i took the blue one, but apparently the blue one doesn’t have the clipper, it couldn’t click basically. So we’re forced to take the yellow one lol.

I look like minion, the speedboat guide’s name is melody. Everything is nice, speedboat was really nice and everything was really crazy good.

After the speedboat, we went back to the cruise, and land into another island, the Sung Sot Cave, which means surprise cave. The guide keep saying that the hike is far or something and there would be no way back after the hike, so anyone who comes down need to walk until the end. I don’t understand why he said that because it was a very easy walk.

There was this one funny moment where willy the tour guide picked up this leave and says “yes, this thing is edible, we usually roll it with meat”, i mentioned: “Oh i see”, willy showed a picture of bulalot, and I said, ohh! I know, I ate this in Ho Chi Minh City.

Then I said: I thought when you say roll you use it to roll joint and burn it or use it as a pipe to suck on white powder💀💀

Apprarently the queue was really long because the tour from the day before was pended until today. After the queue, we went inside, there was a free photo booth that people can take picture. I saw kenny greeted his old friend (a cute girl) and finds out they were close friends back then. I asked everyone who wants to take picture with me at my turn to take the picture because I was alone, then a boy came up to me, and also the aforementioned cute girl that watches the booth also joins us hahaha.

We took the keychain and the boy said, “Thank you!”. “Yea, that girl was cute” I said, kenny (whose joining us when we were taking it) said she was his secret girlfriend. And then that boy said to me and be like

📯: WTF, I thought she is your girlfriend?
😈: No, I don’t even know her
📯: HAH?? OMG

Seemachal who was there told me like “Bro, you are giving that kid a lifetime trauma”. HAHAHAHAHA.

Winding Down 🚢

We went back to the ship, there was this performance by the local, we drank orange juice with some vodka, I peeled my pome and give some to Willy. The performance of this instrument, the girl that played it (not in this picture) plays it really well!

She played Madu dan Racun, and some other popular songs from another country I can’t recall. I think they checked the country from the manifest that was registered before and try to cover all passenger’s country pop music. After that, the trip back to the city is really nice, we chilled in the jacuzzi, talking about life. Life lessons learnt:

• Don’t desperately trying to chase love.
• “To be happy” in life can also just be a life goal.
• Money sure can buy happiness.

After the trip, I landed in the city, went to a bun cha restaurant, and had my last dinner with Dragon, when he arrived he was so wet because of the sudden rainpour. I bought some snacks at the Circle K, some cheese rice paper and cashew that I gave to the restaurant keeper and the tourists to try and taste. HAHAHA. They say it was spicy, “huai huai”.

We walked a good 15 minutes back to my hotel, while I bought a red tea and pineapple and mango chocolate as a gift to my office colleagues.

I went back to my hotel. The next morning, I travelled early to the Airport, had the last bowl of pho at the airport, and tried the coconut latte from starbucks.

What Hanoi Taught Me 🌆

Sitting at my room rightnow, throat still sore, body exhausted, I’m trying to make sense of what just happened these past four days last week. This wasn’t like my Ho Chi Minh trip. This was different. Messier. More real.

I think what strikes me most is how I didn’t plan any of this. Like, literally none of it went according to plan. My 2-day Ha Long Bay trip? Cancelled by a typhoon. My careful itinerary? not even made lol, and somehow, that made everything better.

There’s something about letting go of control that I’m still learning. At work, in life, I optimize everything. I calculate. I plan. But you can’t optimize friendship, can’t plan serendipity. That taxi “scam” that turned into a conversation about Little Hanoi in Prague? The cockroach incident that became an inside joke? These weren’t in any guidebook.

On Being Alone (But Not Lonely)

Dragon’s parents asking about his relationship status hit different. I’m 23, traveling solo, and yet… there’s this assumption that something’s missing.

Every solo trip teaches me I’m enough. That I can navigate foreign cities, make friends with strangers, survive on chicken breast and pomegranates, and still have the time of my life. The French girl traveling alone to Bali understood this. We didn’t need to say it out loud.

Food as Language

I can’t speak Vietnamese. Dragon’s parents can’t speak English. But we shared mooncakes. We ate phở together. We understood each other through food.

Every meal was a conversation. The michelin restaurant where we couldn’t figure out the chopstick-stove geometry. The KFC with lalapan that made me scream in Indonesian. The pomegranate I carried everywhere like a treasure. Even the terrible crepe taught me something: disappointment tastes universal.

Food is how you say “I see you” without words. When Willy tried my pomegranate on the cruise, when I shared cheese rice paper with strangers at Circle K, when Dragon ordered for me at every restaurant—we were speaking the same language.

The People Who Show Up

I think about Đạt, the student who studied CS in Prague and came home after 6 years. About Willy, who only sees his family once a month because he’s working these cruises. About Dragon’s parents, probably worried their 29-year-old son is too focused on career. About Dragon himself, who took his time to walk an annoying 23-year-old around Hanoi in the rain.

Nobody owed me anything. But everyone showed up anyway.

Connections we made weren’t transactions. These were humans being human. And I think somewhere between the nightclubs and the caves, between the phở and the pudding, I remembered what travel is actually about: connection.

What I’m Taking Home

1. Comfort zones are overrated. The best stories came from the unplanned moments.
2. Your body keeps score. I’m sick now because I pushed too hard. That’s okay. Some lessons need to hurt.
3. Authenticity > Perfection. The cruise people didn’t care that I traveled alone. Nobody cared except me.
4. “To be happy” is enough. That conversation in the jacuzzi—it’s okay if your life goal is just happiness. Not everyone needs to optimize, achieve, conquer. Sometimes being content is the goal.
5. Some places mark you. Bali changed me at 20. Hanoi changed me at 23. I don’t know how yet, but I know it did.

The sore throat will heal. The photos will fade. But I think I’ll remember the taste of the trip forever. The sound of Dragon laughing when I walked in that “size 44” sandals with hardship. The feeling of being 3 strangers in a rowboat, experiencing something together that we’ll never quite be able to explain to anyone else.

Hanoi wasn’t just a trip. It was a reminder that life happens in the unplanned spaces between your carefully constructed plans. And sometimes, the best thing you can do is just follow someone who says “trust me” and see where it goes.

Thanks, Dragon. Thanks, Hanoi.

And thanks to that cockroach for bringing us together in the most unexpected way. 🪳