The Year of the Dragon

The first swim of our trip back to Vietnam happened at an airport, in a country we had not technically entered.

The pool on the wrong side of immigration

A layover at Singapore's Changi Airport turned into a spontaneous swim in an outdoor pool. The pool sits on the roof of Terminal 1, run by the Aerotel transit hotel inside the transit area, which means you can be in the water without ever passing through Singapore immigration.

On a website with "layover" in its name, I should say this plainly: it was definitely a first for us.

Going back to the place that got us through

Living through the pandemic in Vietnam had its hurdles. Boy, did we make the most of it anyway, and we came out the other side with a list of favorite memories we had been waiting to share with some of our favorite humans.

This trip was that list, relived over two weeks with family we love.

Tết, and the dragon puns

First, Jay and I dove headfirst into the chaos of Ho Chi Minh City and rang in Tết with locals. The year turning over was the Year of the Dragon, which brought with it a barrage of dragon puns so bad they were good.

A small thing I love: Vietnam's zodiac does not always match China's. The year that had just ended was the Year of the Cat in Vietnam and the Year of the Rabbit in China. On the dragon, everyone agreed, which left nothing standing between us and the puns.

Saigon, take two

After a hop to New Zealand and back, stop two was Ho Chi Minh City again, the city "formally known as Saigon." (Formerly, if we are being technical, which we are: the National Assembly renamed it on July 2, 1976.)

This time it was a family fiesta. Mopeds. Culinary escapades at AnAn, which in 2023 became the first restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City to earn a Michelin star. District walks. Reunions with family and friends.

And market shenanigans, which in our family means the million dong challenge. Each of us gets one million dong, about forty US dollars at the time, and a theme (hats, say, or clothes) and spends it at the market on another member of the travel party. Then we meet at a bar and hand over the results.

Tunnels, snakes, bees and kumquat tea

The days out of the city brought history at the Cu Chi Tunnels, and art.

Down in the Mekong Delta came some unexpected encounters with snakes and bees (because, why not?). We swapped stories over kumquat tea and tropical fruits, soaking in the rhythm of life by the river.

One rock, two endings

Next, Dad and Kimie, my bonus mom, headed off to Ha Long Bay, then reunited with us in Ninh Binh, a place new to all of us and entirely our friend Tor's recommendation. Bike tours, cooking classes, prawn fishing. Every moment was a treasure.

Here is the part I did not appreciate until later: Dad and Kimie and Jay and I were looking at the same kind of landscape. Theirs was just underwater.

Both places are tower karst, which is what limestone becomes after a very long time in a very wet climate. Rainwater picks up carbon dioxide and turns faintly acidic, and faintly acidic water slowly dissolves limestone, working down through every crack. Give it enough time and the rock between the cracks is all that is left, standing up as steep towers and cones with flat valleys between them.

At Ha Long Bay, the sea moved in. UNESCO describes the sea advancing over and retreating from that limestone again and again across geological time, and the valleys between the towers ended up as seabed. The result is some 1,600 islands and islets, and UNESCO calls it the most extensive and best-known example of sea-invaded tower karst in the world.

Ninh Binh's version, the Trang An Landscape Complex, stayed on land. Its forested towers rise up to 200 meters, and the flat valleys between them flood every rainy season, which is why people call it "Ha Long Bay on land." UNESCO adds a detail I find oddly moving: Trang An is fed by rain alone, cut off from the rivers in the country around it. In 2014 it became Vietnam's first World Heritage site listed for both its nature and its culture, partly because the caves hold evidence of people living here for more than 30,000 years, and partly because Hoa Lu, an ancient capital, sits inside it.

Between Dad and Kimie's boat and our bikes, we covered both endings of the same story.

Lanterns, marble and a pizza

Hoi An lit up our souls with its lantern festival, fulfilling a dream I had harbored for a hot minute. The town holds it on the 14th day of every lunar month, the night before the full moon, in an old town UNESCO lists as an exceptionally well-preserved Southeast Asian trading port of the 15th to 19th centuries.

Da Nang charmed us with the Marble Mountains, five limestone and marble hills each named for one of the five elements (metal, water, wood, fire and earth), and with sunny beach days. Not to mention the obligatory stop for Pizza 4P's, a Vietnam essential. Yes, it was started by a Japanese couple in Ho Chi Minh City in 2011. Yes, we crossed the planet and ate pizza. I stand by it.

Sapa, above the clouds

And finally, Sapa stole our breath away with its Hmong villages and cloud-hopping adventures, shared with newfound friends against landscapes that were, frankly, showing off.

If you go

• Changi's pool is at the Aerotel transit hotel, Level 3 of Terminal 1's departure transit area, near the D gates. Hotel guests swim free; everyone else buys a pass at the door. Check the current price on Plaza Premium's site before you go. Clear immigration first and you cannot simply walk back airside.
• Tết follows the lunar calendar, so the date moves every year (in 2024 it fell on February 10). Check it before you book anything.
• Cu Chi is not in the Mekong Delta. The tunnels are northwest of Ho Chi Minh City and the delta is south, so they are usually separate day trips. There are two tunnel sites; Ben Dinh is the closer and busier one, Ben Duoc is farther out.
• Ha Long Bay is about 165 km from Hanoi. Ninh Binh is roughly 90 km south of Hanoi, so the two pair well with a Hanoi base.
• Hoi An's lantern night is the 14th of the lunar month. Look up the lunar calendar for your dates; the first full moon of the lunar year is said to be the biggest.
• The Marble Mountains are about 7 km from downtown Da Nang, on the road toward Hoi An, which makes them an easy stop between the two.

Home, at its best

Family travels are supposed to be complicated. Ours was togetherness, discovery and endless laughter, and I think I know why. We were not showing them a destination. We were showing them a home, the one that got us through the hard years, finally at its best.

We are grateful we got to share our global home with the people we love, and to etch these memories with them.

Xin chào, y'all.