Day 5
On the 5th day of my travel through Vietnam, I made up my mind to prepone my flight and leave. I stopped only because I couldn’t access my AirAsia account.
It was strange that I felt this way because that day had actually been a good one. I had climbed Múa Cave - an exhilarating experience. I had made a friend and gone boating on the Trang An river with her. It was the first time in a while that I felt socially connected.
Things were definitely looking up but I felt an overwhelming, unexplainable urgency to end the journey. It manifested as a headache that I blamed on the heatwave.
All of this was in Ninh Binh. Tam Coc to be precise. A place that looks like walking into the sets of Jurassic Park. (I found out later that it is actually the shooting spot of Kong: Skull Island). A place so magnificently beautiful and at the same time, weirdly, filled with Pizzerias and Indian restaurants.
When I tried for the third time and still couldn’t prepone my flight, I got up and went for a walk. I went to the highest rated Indian restaurant and ordered a cup of ginger tea but even that became a task. I asked them to add a lot of ginger and they assumed I wanted black tea. Then they thought I wanted it strong. In the end, I cancelled the order and asked for masala tea. No additional notes. It came with heaps of sugar but at that point, I was ready to settle for anything. I took my time drinking it, slowly savouring it and listening to Pehle Bhi Main playing on their speakers. I remembered how more than a year ago, 6 strangers and I screamed the lyrics to this at the top of our lungs in Mussoorie. I was instantly transported to that moment.
By the time I finished the cup, I had made up my mind to continue the trip and not prepone. I decided to cancel one of the destinations I was planning to visit.
The switchover from before and after the heavily sugared tea really surprised me. It was too sudden, too sharp. And I started wondering if it was really just the tea.
Day 13
The next time I experienced that kind of switchover was on the last day of the loop - day 13 of my journey. This one was more dramatic.
My day started at 6am. I was riding 60km north from the central base and then 87km southwest and uphill, to the highest point in Cao Bang. This was not ideal. Most travellers break this into segments - staying overnight once in the north and then again in the west. I did not want to do that as the points in between did not interest me. I didn’t want to tick places off like a checklist and was customising the loop on the go.
Maybe not my best idea. 🤦♀️
To make it worse, that particular day brought relentless downpour. Not the on-and-off kind that I had gotten accustomed to. It was around 12pm when I started the uphill stretch. There were landslides along the way so I was on high alert when I started. Very soon I was exhausted. The intermittent rain on the previous days gave me breathing room to reset. That was not the case now.
I was better geared this time - not just a raincoat but also rain covers for my pants and shoes. They worked well enough at keeping me dry from 6am until now. Rain started seeping into my shoes and my dry fit top was soaked through. It was day 3 of my period. I was cold and irritable. I was losing patience hoping the rain would let up at least for a minute. I started losing consciousness. It wasn’t that I was sleepy. I don’t know what that feeling was, except that I was very aware of losing focus and my eyes were closing involuntarily. The third time it happened, I knew I couldn’t (and shouldn’t) continue like this.
I had progressed too much to stop and return now. My phone was at 2%. The scooter’s petrol was at one blinking bar. I was still going uphill. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed - I had been religiously fuelling up and checking everything regularly. But everything was suddenly, all at once, out of my control.
Looking back, I think I felt defeated. But I didn’t have the luxury of time to dwell on my feels.
I had 4km to go before the next juncture, where I could take a detour into a village instead of continuing uphill. I stopped at the first coffee shop I spotted. I walked in dripping wet, unsure if they would be annoyed. They welcomed me warmly and gave me a cup of artichoke tea. I put down my helmet and bag. Removed my raincoat, left the rain covers on because I had no energy and could only function at the bare minimum.
I ordered salt coffee and fries, thinking that combination would keep me awake for the rest of the journey. While waiting, I took out my power bank and tried charging my phone but it wouldn’t - “liquid detected”. I’m surprised I didn’t panic more. Maybe because I didn’t really need it for directions - even though the journey was long, there weren’t many detours. I asked them if they had an iPhone charger to try again. They didn’t but another customer did and he graciously offered it. It worked! I could feel myself starting to regain my bearings.
Soon the coffee and fries arrived. I really took my time with them - not just to savour but to delay going back into the storm. I realised that even though pretty much everything went wrong, not everything did. I was grateful to have found this coffee shop - a place to pause for a bit.
After about half an hour, I had a playlist ready. I was wide awake. I put my raincoat back on. I fuelled up at a gas station nearby. I was ready.
Part two of the ride uphill was drastically different from part one. I was hopeful and genuinely excited. I kept stopping to take in the beauty around me - something I hadn’t done that day at all until the coffee shop.
I noticed how extreme this switch was. The rain hadn’t stopped. I was still getting drenched. Externally everything was exactly the same.
I’m not sure what to attribute it to. I noticed it when I was creating the playlist at the coffee shop - it was hopefulness. When I reached the cloud point, 15km before the peak, where the fog engulfed the road, it was breathtaking. That moment alone made everything worth it.
And when I finally reached the peak, just me and not a single soul around - no foreigners, no locals. Surrounded by hydrangeas. That feeling was indescribable.
It really was all worth it.
Maybe it was the tea. Maybe it was something more profound.
Both times, attributing my outlook shift to the tea or coffee is probably not it. But something did change in those moments when I was holding a cup of the sugary ginger tea or the salt coffee.
Maybe it was the pause they offered. A breathing room to be present in the moment, without planning or trying to solve or pushing through - just existing for a bit.
What I took away from this was that the difficult parts weren’t really “obstacles” to conquer. They didn’t need fixing. They were just… there. And maybe I just had to walk through them.
Once the noise quietened, the next steps came so naturally. It was just obvious. Calm. Light.
Or maybe it really was just the tea and coffee xP