A Trip to Vietnam

Intro

I took a long vacation in Vietnam over Korea's Liberation Day holiday in 2022. I had three broad goals for the trip, and this post records them through keywords and short notes. There is a little technology in the mix too.

1. Reset

Most of my days are usually filled with design work and personal projects. To properly reset during this vacation, I tried to avoid as much of my normal routine as possible. I stayed away from work messengers and design tools and focused on experiences I could only have in Vietnam.

• Massage
  • I visited four massage places over the course of the trip. I had never really had a proper massage before, so the whole experience was both fascinating and enjoyable. There were many styles and areas of focus, including hot stone, oil, Thai, and foot massage. I finally understood why people recommend getting one massage a day when traveling in Southeast Asia.
• Cooking class

• The cooking class was probably my favorite part of the trip. I cooked alongside a local chef in Phu Quoc and then ate the Vietnamese dishes I had made. Preparing the food was fun in itself, but the chef's stories throughout the class made it especially memorable. He wove his philosophy about food into the dishes we were cooking and told the stories with real flavor. When I booked it, I wondered why a cooking class needed four hours. Once we began, I understood how long it takes to prepare four dishes from scratch and finish the meal. Fortunately, I enjoyed the whole process.
• Water park

• The cable car to Hon Thom Island in Phu Quoc leads to an enormous water park. The attractions felt comparable to other water parks abroad, but there were relatively few visitors for the size of the facilities. We barely had to queue and could try almost everything, then end the day relaxing in the pool.
• Grab
  • Grab is similar to Kakao T in Korea. Prices in Southeast Asia are generally low, but tourist markups are not unusual. Grab made it easy to get around without worrying about being overcharged. The Offers section had discount coupons, which made long-distance rides 10–30% cheaper. Grab also offers delivery and other services. Spotting BAEMIN, the Southeast Asian delivery service run by Woowa Brothers, was another small bit of fun on the trip.
• Google Maps Timeline

• GPS restrictions make this feature difficult to use in Korea, but Google Maps Timeline is extremely useful abroad. With location permission enabled, it organizes where you were and when throughout the trip. I already use Google Photos heavily, and because it integrates well with Maps, I also liked seeing the photos I took at each destination directly in the Timeline.

2. Relax

I tried to leave as much room as possible for slow, unhurried time. A friend traveling with me had researched good places in advance, which made the rest even richer. Prices in Vietnam felt roughly one-third to one-half of those in Korea, so we could enjoy a wide range of experiences without too much pressure.

• A loose plan

• Work stayed busy right up to the trip, so partly by choice and partly by necessity, I planned less than usual. That may actually have made the trip better. We made spontaneous, flexible plans for the same day or the next, and the experiences we chose that way turned out well.
• Swimming pools
  • We stayed at three places, and all three had a pool. I started making real use of them at the second and third hotels. My favorite thing was simply floating on a tube, looking at the sky, and letting my mind go blank.

• We booked progressively nicer accommodation as the trip went on, and it was interesting to see the pools grow in size and quality too.
• Vietnamese food and coffee

• I already liked pho, but otherwise had no strong feelings about Vietnamese food. I had enjoyed it here and there in Korea without knowing much about the range of dishes. Traveling gave me the chance to try many more, and most suited me well: several kinds of noodle soup, chả giò, bánh mì, morning glory, bánh xèo, lobster, cà phê sữa đá, unfamiliar aromatic leaves, seafood, and more. Booking both the cooking class and a local-experience program was definitely the right call.
• Shisha
  • There are no particularly good shisha spots near where I live, so I rarely go. On vacation, though, I wanted to slow down with shisha and a cocktail. The experience was a little less satisfying than I had imagined, but it still made me want to seek it out occasionally back in Korea.

3. Read

I do not read as often as I would like, so I carried my iPad around in the hope that I would at least read during vacation.

• I meant to read a lot while relaxing, but only finished one book near the very end of the trip. I even packed a portable keyboard and mouse in case I wanted to write something down, but all the other activities above kept me busy and I returned without using either once.
• Apparently, reading at a resort does not happen quite as easily as I imagine.

Outro

Even though I left with a looser plan than usual, the trip was excellent overall. It was not simply that having no plan was better. We were lucky that spontaneous choices such as the cooking class and local experience turned out so well, and although it was the rainy season, the weather was good for most of the trip. I did not manage the reading I had planned, so next time I will need to create a little more motivation for it.

ⓒ 2022. SangHyo Yee, All Rights Reserved.