By Olivia Vieira
In this first blog post, I wanted to focus on the challenges and victories we’ve experienced since departing for Vietnam. There have been a ton of events, so I’m going to try and condense these stories into SparkNotes versions, but no promises.
Luckily, I’m not on this adventure alone—I have a pho-nomenal travel buddy, Natalia. You’ll see her in pictures, and she will be posting as well. Our journey started off a bit bumpy. We got to the airport bright and early, only to have our flight to Vancouver cancelled. We had to wait in a two-hour line to check back in and get rescheduled for new flights and to add to our sleep-deprived brains, we barely made it to our connecting flight in Vancouver, even after running through the airport. The remainder of our flight was rather uneventful; the biggest news was that on our 10.5-hour flight, we had three meals and another one on our final flight. This brings us to Hanoi.
We decided to fly into Hanoi because, at the time we booked our flights, it was $800 cheaper each to fly into Hanoi and out of Ho Chi Minh than directly into Da Nang. It also gave us an opportunity to see more of this lovely country. Hanoi was relatively tame compared to what was coming. The biggest takeaway was to ALWAYS use the Grab App and never hop on a bike without checking the prices first. We made that mistake and ended up paying 50,000 VND each and tipping on top of that when it should have been 38,000 VND each. Oh and rainstorms/thunderstorms are spontaneous and nothing like you have ever seen before – it rains in every direction. We were only there for two nights, then flew to Da Nang, and this is where we really struggled.
Upon arriving in Da Nang, we were wide-eyed and in awe of how much quieter it was, but then we began thinking, what if it was too quiet? As the car pulled up to our Airbnb, we didn’t really know what we were looking at. We looked around the deserted stone streets and empty convenience store, puzzled at where our Airbnb was. After exploring a bit, we realized that it was around the store, tucked away from view. We finally checked in and began unpacking, but that activity was soon interrupted as we noticed bugs, mysterious globs of jelly, and strong odours. The Airbnb security/maintenance/exterminator came up to our room not once, but twice, to spray unknown chemicals to kill the bugs. They did not die… So we put the unpacking on hold and decided to get food. We wandered around for what seemed like hours but could not find anything of interest (whether it be price, options, etc.). So despite the listing advertising the building as “in the Heart of Da Nang,” it felt as though we were isolated in a dark alley. On our second trip out that night, we found a grocery store and bought packaged instant noodles (these were our saving grace). When we returned to our Airbnb around 9 pm, we realized that the building’s front door did not lock, and our multi-purpose security guard was MIA. Scurrying up to our room, we had to think long and hard about our next step: do we stay here and try to make it comfortable, or try to cancel and find a new place to live? The night of August 25 consisted of us getting hangry, upset, and wanting to go home. But that night, we did end up contacting Airbnb to alert them of our concerns, which started the process of trying to cancel and get our Airbnb partially refunded.
The following day, we went out and scoured the Da Nang beachside area for listings within our price range. We would go into hotels and ask to see the rooms and message Airbnb hosts to arrange a viewing. This opened our eyes to the fact that many residential places in Vietnam (hotels, apartments, condos, villas), even if they are labelled as hotels, are not to the same level as in the West. While looking, we were informed by Airbnb that our host had agreed to a partial refund, and we would have to leave the following day. Unsure of what to do, we contemplated this decision as nothing we had seen that day was any better than what we currently had, besides the location. That was until Hiba and Bianca, two of our fellow Vietnam TABers, messaged us saying they had asked their building if they had any rooms available, to which they responded with “Yes!” We went to look at the building and loved it, but they wouldn’t have availability until August 29, and it was only the 26th. We decided then and there to take the room and move out the next day into a hotel until we could move into our permanent Da Nang home.
It is now September 5, 2024, and we have been living in our permanent Da Nang home for one week. (For those of you who are interested, it is called the John Boutique Villas, and we would highly recommend it). It is such a relief not to be living out of a suitcase and constantly moving around (within the first week of being in Vietnam, we moved four times).
I look forward to seeing what other adventures are around the corner, especially since we are starting in the schools next Tuesday (September 10), but hopefully, none are like the kahuna we encountered at the start of our trip. The moral of the story is that even when it seems as though there is no way out and everything is dark and sad, there is light at the end of the tunnel (sorry if that’s too cliché). If you push through those unbearable dark times, there is a chance for happiness and amazing adventures. Luckily enough, we pushed through and now have an unforgettable story to share (and amazing food to eat).
“It’s not how we fall, it’s how we get back up.” – Patrick Ness
*Sorry that was a lot longer than I intended it to be.