I left my job a couple of weeks ago and immediately started booking flights.
I thought about hiking in Colorado, taking a cruise to Antarctica, partying in Ibiza and eating my way through Hong Kong. In the end, I purchased a ticket to Hanoi. I didn’t do much research – it just felt like the right place to go. I’d never been to Vietnam before, but it sounded wonderful: lush rice terraces, riverboat tours, lanes where you could drink sweet coffee inches away from a running train.
The trip started with misfortune and a healthy dose of my own stupidity. I made it to the check-in desk at Sydney Airport two hours before my flight was due to depart, only to find out that I had forgotten to check whether I needed a visa.
I ended up spending several hundred dollars to get an expedited visa and then dissociated for the rest of the day playing Witcher 3 and not talking to anyone.
Many games of gwent later, I was finally on my way. I put on the same outfit, went back to the airport, and boarded a plane 24 hours after I was originally supposed to.
First a pit stop in Ho Chi Minh City, where I was escorted to collect my visa, then several hours whiled away in an airport cafe, before transferring on to Hanoi.
I landed in the middle of the night. It was 30C and humid, so the moment I left the cool of the airport I felt like I was walking through lukewarm soup.
My taxi driver watched videos on his phone while he drove, and took an unannounced smoko on the side of the highway about 20 minutes into the journey. I was too exhausted to care, and what little of my brain was still operating was just happy to have made it to my destination. The adventure would really begin tomorrow!