“I feel like we’re Indiana Jones right now,” I said to my husband on our first night in Vietnam. “We grabbed the treasure and now the boulder is chasing us. But we’ll get out unscathed, just like Indy did.” He laughed and agreed. Only a couple days previous, we made the decision to continue with our trip despite the rising concerns of COVID-19.

Rollercoaster Ride Prep

When our daughter was in grade ten, we decided that a big family trip was in order before she graduated in 2020. We had never been abroad with the kids despite our desire to. Who knew what life would hold after our eager-to-spread-her-wings daughter left the nest?

As we watched her prepare for her grad year, and our son prepare for grade eight, we became more committed to our goal. We visited a travel agent, brought home travel magazines, and agreed to go into a tad more debt.

When we finally decided on our destinations of Vietnam and Cambodia and booked our trip, it became real. And then, it became surreal when the news of COVID-19 came out.

There were a couple times I cried like a baby. Our emotions were on a full-tilt rollercoaster ride:

Woohoo, we’re going to Southeast Asia!

Oh shit, there’s a nasty virus?

I can’t believe we’ll finally get to see Ha Long Bay and swim through the caves!

A cruise ship is on quarantine?  

This YouTube video on Angkor Wat is amazing. It’s going to blow our minds when we see it in person!

We cannot sneeze, or cough, or even breathe in a weird way in the airport or on the plane, do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME?

My slightly more pragmatic husband suggested a couple times that we cancel and take our losses. I never threatened divorce, but in my worst hour, I did threaten to leave him behind. (Most would say I wear rose-coloured glasses, but few know how nasty I can get when someone tries to take them off.)

We had a lot of support to continue forward—things weren’t looking too bad at that point. But we also received some bewildered responses. And I get it, judgements were rising alongside fear, which made our decision more difficult still.

However, while I prefer peace, I will swim against the current without hesitation when my intuition is urging me forward. Every morning when my alarm would go off at the exact time the COVID-soaked news would come on, I hit snooze and tucked my head under my pillow like an ostrich putting its head in the sand. Go away! I would snarl from under my pillow.

While getting our travel vaccination boosters, we sought comfort in our nurse who understood the investment of time, energy, and emotions that we had put into planning this trip, as well as our commitment to keep ourselves and others safe. She confirmed that travel to our destination was still considered low risk and if we stayed sanitary and aware, we should be fine. I wanted to crawl into her lap and sob tears of gratefulness—her words were the security blanket I craved amidst the doubt.

Perfect Birthday

Soon, we stood in the airport with our kids, giddy with excitement. Despite the odd mask (and my sweet, concerned mother-in-law squeezing us goodbye as though sending us off to war), things seemed normal. It was a few hours away from my birthday and I couldn’t think of a better way to bring it in. When the clock struck midnight in the Vancouver airport, my family gave me tiny and/or edible gifts. We bathed ourselves in hand sanitizer for the tenth time that evening (interspersed with aggressive hand washing) and indulged in the treats with raw, cracking hands while waiting for our flight.

Though our flights went off without a hitch, the plane rides felt unusual with all the flight attendants, and most of the passengers, wearing masks. Upon our arrival in Vietnam, we continued as over-friendly, somewhat oblivious Canadians, poking our heads around the plexiglass shield to get closer to the guard asking for our passports and health declarations, only to be scolded back behind the shield. But at last, we had made it!

I have an exhilarating memory of exiting the airport in Hanoi, Vietnam, and breathing in the humid, warm air. It was in stark contrast to the remaining winter weather of home. Our foreign surroundings were enlivening.

• 

Our driver took us to our hotel in downtown Hanoi as we stared wide-eyed out the taxi windows at the foreign sights.

Masks Masks Everywhere

As soon as we were settled into our hotel rooms (2 people per room and the rooms were large!), my husband hit the streets and returned, excitedly holding up a handful of masks. Vietnam sold masks everywhere and they came in a great assortment of styles (plaid, spandex, winged, Hello Kitty-themed…).

Another pronounced shift was the cost of things; the masks were going for under $2 and meals so large we couldn’t finish them, for $5 each. We felt rich spending millions of Vietnamese dong ($100 Canadian = around 1.6 million dong).

“I didn’t have any dong to pay for the masks,” my husband said, “but I told the woman I’d come back.”

We soon learned that the Vietnamese people were very trusting. In the first restaurant we ate in, we didn’t have enough cash and they didn’t have a debit machine, so we gave some rudimentary hand signals and said “ATM”. The server (also the cook, I believe) nodded and went about doing other things. My daughter and I waited at the restaurant, feeling obligated to leave our warm bodies as collateral, though the server took no notice.

• 

Crappy Wrapping Paper

My phone began to ring. It was our tour operator, Mike, who asked to meet us in our hotel lobby so he could tell us how things were unfolding. With the world shifting day by day due to the virus, we knew that our travels could be impacted, so we paced the lobby until he arrived. Mike gave us a gracious welcome and then, without holding back, gave us our first hard punch to the gut: the Vietnam government closed Ha Long Bay. Our eyes widened and we went silent.

For those of you who haven’t been to Ha Long Bay or seen photos, I’ve put one below. Viewer warning: you will feel our pain. 

• 

I felt so much for my husband in that moment—this had been on his bucket list since he was young. We were supposed to have left the next morning on an overnight boat ride in Ha Long Bay and like that, it was gone. Our brains worked hard to quickly mourn the old plan and shift to the new one Mike had in store for us.

And there it was: a gift in really crappy wrapping paper.

The Indiana Jones boulder rolling behind us, shifting our route without warning, instantly obligated us to soak up every drop of our experience. Everything was so fascinatingly different from our own: the people, language, food, smells, ways of life, climate, gestures, fashion, architecture. And we understood—though at the time, still denied—that it would all be gone faster than we had hoped and planned.

As we looked out our hotel lobby window, the fact that we were in Vietnam stared us in the face. Despite the disappointing change in plans, the rolling boulder kept us in the moment. The streets of Hanoi continued to buzz with activity, oblivious to our sudden disappointment, and were ready to scoop us up and deliver incredible experiences (even for my husband who ventured out at 4 am the next morning).

Plan B: Sa Pa

The next morning, we woke early in time to have breakfast and head just a few blocks away where a bus would pick us up and take us to Plan B: the mountain town of Sa Pa, about a 5 hour drive away. Easy peasy.

But one of my fatal downfalls is that I aim to arrive right on time, never early, and I absolutely should not have been keeping my family on track to leave the hotel restaurant and get us out the door to the bus. It was a seven-minute walk, so ten minutes would be sufficient, right? Though the hotel clerk told us to turn left (or was it right?) down a particular street (Ngo Nguyen Huu Huan or Ngo Cau Go?), we spotted a tour bus parked to the right with several North American-looking passengers getting on, confusing lost travelers like a siren’s song.

We ran for it, only to have a man point us in the other direction. Profanities flew as we ran in the other direction, backpacks galloping on our backs and suitcase wheels vaulting across sidewalks. And then, our nightmare came to life: the ass-end of a tour bus waved us goodbye.

But as it pulled away, another tour bus that had been in front of it revealed itself. The gods had been gracious! We sprinted to the driver who didn’t hide his amusement with the rattled Canadians. As he nodded that it was the bus to Sa Pa, we exhaled and sheepishly got onto the bus, putting our shoes in a plastic bag as requested.

Why, you may ask, did we need to put our shoes in a bag? My husband and I have traveled to Turkey where the buses are deluxe Mercedes-Benzes and this bus rivaled it in terms of comfort. There were two levels of seats, three rows wide, that were like beds with adjustable backrests in which to fully relax and enjoy the view or the free wifi. It was about 80% full, many travelers were still pushing on as we were.

Honking Great Ride

The bus ride was rousing, not only for the scenery we saw as we climbed up the twisting mountain roads, but also because we feared for our lives. We quickly learned, as pedestrians and as passengers, that horn honking is extremely common in Vietnam—it’s part of their language.

Stop signs? Why bother. Street lights? Almost non-existent. Horns? Ignore them and go. Go now? Yes! Hesitation is your worst enemy.

The bus driver passed dozens of vehicles on blind corners in the rain and fog, honking as though it would create some sort of magical, protective shield. We held on, hoping that we wouldn’t make it to the front pages of the Nguoi Viet Daily News.

Sa Pa was gorgeous, sort of like a Whistler of Vietnam. When we arrived, a woman stood outside the bus with a sign that read Borhaven. We followed her a few blocks down the street to our hotel, she waved goodbye, and left. It astounded me that in the Vietnam culture, everyone worked in tandem, picking up where another left off. Their networking and connections seemed fluid, we had nary a blip in our trip when it came to logistics. (This was likely also due to the work of Mike, our tour operator as well. I highly recommend him and his tour company, Go Asia Travel, as well as Tourradar who we booked the trip through.)

Sa Pa gave us so many delicious surprises that allowed the disappointment of missing Ha Long Bay to quickly dissolve. From the magical Cat Cat Village and waterfall, to the terraced rice fields, we were jaw-dropped the entire time. We had an adorable, feisty tour guide named “Xia”. She explained that she didn’t know how to write as she had no formal schooling, but spoke 4 different languages (including that of the Sa Pa people who speak their own language and dialect).

Sudden Swarm

On our first walkabout, on the way to Cat Cat Village, the growing concern with the virus became apparent as Vietnamese officials swarmed our unsuspecting tour group in the middle of a street and asked us all to fill out health declarations. (Though we had filled these out online before we left Canada, we were required to do this several more times throughout our journey.) A news camera and several regular cameras recorded us as we scrambled for our passports and pens.

Further down the road, our temperatures were taken before entering Cat Cat. I could see the stress on my husband’s face as they put the thermometer to his forehead, beads of sweat showing him no mercy. (At one point on our trip, someone had to take his temperature twice because he was on the high end of normal.) Visions of quarantine haunted us at every temperature-taking stop.

Topless and Confused

At the end of our hike, we stopped at a bakery and indulged in several incredible goods. French bakeries are common in Vietnam due to earlier French colonization. And later that evening, my kids and I pampered ourselves with herbal tea baths, and my daughter and I in a one-hour full-body massage for approximately $18 each. As we continued to feel rich in the Vietnam economy, we always tipped well. We also felt badly for the businesses that relied heavily on tourists, which appeared to be almost all of Sa Pa. This was a place usually packed with tourists and now, the streets were almost bare.

The large spa was empty and we had our choice of any time slot. The workers came to the spa when they had appointments and then left, doors unlocked with no one present. (My son learned this when he was left in his tea bath for far too long, so decided to wander the spa looking for staff, but found no one.)

After my daughter and I got out of the herbal baths, two tiny Vietnamese masseuses awaited us in another room. One was in her mid-30s and the other, mid-20s. They instructed us to take off our bathing suit tops, which we did.

It’s no different than in a pool changing room, I told myself. Except that… they’re staring at us, unflinchingly, with profound fascination.

My daughter and I laughed to ease the awkwardness and were about to dive onto our massage beds, chests first, when the women began to clap and cheer. Either we were the first ones to ever actually take off our bathing suit tops upon their request or this was their way of boosting their half-naked guests’ self-esteems.

If they weren’t so damn cute and friendly, I may have done a turnabout and left. But it soon became apparent, as they gestured with their hands at our larger North American frames, that they were excited by the difference between our sizes (likely more so with my 5’10” frame versus my daughter’s 5’6” frame). I wasn’t sure whether to feel self-conscious or celebrated. I lay down and giggled with my daughter as the older of the two Vietnamese women leapt up onto the massage table, straddled my back, and dug in with the strength of a lumberjack—I decided to feel celebrated.

Village Women

The next morning, we were off on another hike led by Xia. The hotel provided us with rubber boots, so we knew were in for some mud. As with the day before, it was extremely foggy, so we were hoping it would clear by the time we reached the terraced rice fields.

Some women from the smaller villages joined us on our slippery hike, often helping us down slopes where we struggled not to fall on our asses while they navigated the terrain with the ease of mountain goats. They were very curious about our ages and how old I was when I had kids (as were the women who gave our massages). Their eyes widened when I told them that I had my kids at the ages of 28 and 32. “So old!” they giggled and in impressive English, explained that the Vietnamese women usually had their children in their late teens.

The fog cleared just as we came to the summit, which revealed breath-taking mountains covered in terraced rice fields. It was such an unexpected gift to be there and see this incredibly unique landscape that hadn’t been a part of our original tour.

Several elementary-school aged girls followed us as we passed through tiny villages, persistently trying to sell us bracelets. Xia had asked us not to buy anything from them as the income they brought in kept them out of school; if we were to buy from the women, the money would better help the villages as a whole. Needless to say, at the end of our hike, the women pulled handmade items out of their bags and I pulled out my wallet. Due to the dwindling tourists, it felt good to support them.

We left Sa Pa after 2 days and headed back to Hanoi. We felt the heavier rumbling of the boulder behind us each time we checked the news on our phones when we got into wifi. So when the kids looked online for a lunch destination and found a Michelin-Star restaurant that was nearby, we dialed up and made reservations. My son and I are Top Chef fans and this was on our bucket lists.

So there we stood, in the lobby of the fanciest restaurant we had ever been in, in our hiking clothes. The server swept us by a table of people in formal attire (the only other people in the restaurant) and tried to pull out our chairs for us. We awkwardly fumbled between wanting to let her seat us and feeling as though we should do it ourselves. As I stared down at my two napkins (one wet, one dry) and my 3 sets of cutlery, I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman struggling with her escargot tongs. But the servers were extremely gracious and seemed to enjoy that we fumbled and laughed our way through the meal.   

Night of the Comet

After the meal, we wandered around the city streets for a bit. If you’ve seen the mall scene in Night of the Comet (80s apocalypse zombie movie), you’ll understand the eeriness we felt when entering the Louis Vuitton Trang Tien Plaza, a giant luxury mall. A guard outside took our temperature and directed us to use the hand sanitizer dispenser. We were awe struck upon entering the massive structure with six floors—no one else was around. We soon spotted two other older tourist couples, but other than that, it was only us.

I tried not to think of zombies as my husband begged my daughter and I to get on an escalator so he could take a photo of us from the top floor looking down, to show the emptiness. It was yet another sad reminder of how much the virus was already impacting the economy. But we reveled in our crazy, unique experience that we would likely never again see in our lifetimes.

Justin’s Announcement

Only four days after our arrival, as we were leaving Hanoi on an overnight trip south to Danang, Trudeau announced that all Canadians should get home before they may not be able to. We woke to friends and family encouraging us, via texts, to come home. We all looked at one another, sweaty and overtired in our tiny train sleep cabin, and silently nodded our heads in defeat. It was time to depart and abandon our remaining 10 days. Oddly, we were okay with stepping out of the way of the boulder and being grateful for all we had squeezed in. I won’t say I didn’t have tears, but we knew that heading home was the right (and at that point, least stressful) thing to do. How much stress could getting home be?

Booking Nightmares

I texted our tour operator to ask that, upon our arrival in Danang, our driver take us to the airport rather than to our hotel. (I can’t imagine the added stress if we didn’t have Mike to arrange things in the background.) At the airport, we tried to hunt down a Cathay Pacific kiosk so we could get our flight changed to leave asap. It was closed—kiosks were only open a couple hours before each flight. We finally spoke with another airline that said there were no flights out of Danang back to Canada.

We panicked. The boulder was back on our path and at our heels. We asked them if we’d have a better chance of flying out of Ho Chi Minh City given that it had the largest airport in Vietnam. They didn’t know, but said there was a flight to Ho Chi Minh City the next morning with 4 spots left on it. BUT we had to go to the domestic side of the airport to book it. We ran (you read it before: galloping backpacks and vaulting suitcase wheels).

(Later, upon looking at a photo, below, that my daughter took of my husband as we spoke with the airline reps, I can see why one of the reps took pity on us and called us back, saying that she would find a way to reserve the 4 seats for us until we made it to the domestic side of the airport.)

Once our flight to Ho Chi Minh City was booked, we breathed again. The short ride to Hoi An, where we still had our hotel booked for the night, was along a beautiful oceanside.

Before enjoying the city, we headed to our rooms to book our flights out of Ho Chi Minh City back to Canada. I went onto my phone and found flights immediately—I cheerily told my husband to get ready to head to dinner.

But as I went to book the first flight, it had filled up by the time I entered our information. What? My heart began to pound. Apparently every other tourist was getting the hell out of Dodge as well. I identified another flight that would work, but again, it filled by the time I made it to the booking page. I called to my husband as my heart thumped hard in my chest. He sat beside me as I continued to tap frantically on my phone in search of flights.

As much as a few extra weeks, maybe months, in Vietnam didn’t seem like such a bad lot, we knew it would wear thin as the pandemic heightened. Hotels and businesses were closing, and soon, there wouldn’t be many places for tourists to find refuge. We had already been feeling the tense energy building with the locals, some covering their faces and frowning at us. The Vietnamese we spoke with didn’t hold back on chiding the British who they stated brought the virus to their country (I believe via a Vietnamese woman).

At last, a flight was available with 6 seats remaining, and I had made it to the payment stage. I excitedly punched in my credit card number, but suddenly, a foreboding red screen popped up. Something wasn’t processing. Didn’t we have enough room on our credit card? What was going on? My amazing sister-in-law, who had been our main source of COVID-related news on our trip, was the poor soul who first popped into my head.

“Call your sister NOW!” I frantically shouted at my husband. “See if we can use their credit card and we’ll pay them back!” He dialed her up, neither of us realizing it was 2 a.m. in BC. A groggy sister answered the phone and scrambled to get us her credit card number. But upon punching it into my phone, the red screen ridiculed us once more.  

“Should I call Mom?” I heard her say to my husband through the phone. Now realizing it was the middle of the morning there, I shook my head ‘no’ and began to cry. I didn’t want to stress out my mother-in-law, we’d accept whatever fate was ready to hand us. Our daughter walked in as I sat on the hotel bed, slumped over in a defeated pose.

“We’ll figure this out, Mom. Let’s try it on my phone,” she said. I shook my head ‘no’ – what good would that do? Tap-tap-tap, “What’s the card number?” Tap-tap-tap. “There, does that mean we’re booked?” she said, showing me a screen with a confirmation number on it.

Hoi An: Tailoring and Lanterns

Stress free once more, we ventured out into the warm night air of Hoi An. It held the perfect laid-back vibe we needed. It’s a small city on a river, next to the ocean, and as the night sky darkened, silk lanterns lit up everywhere.

One of my daughter’s and my wishes before coming to Hoi An was to have a hand tailored outfit made—the tailor shops there are abundant and extremely affordable for exquisitely made clothing. It’s part of their tradition as a trading port on the silk route. So when we came across the first tailor shop at 7 pm, we looked at one another and sighed, knowing it was one more thing we would miss out on. But a young woman was still in the shop and encouraged us to come in and have something made. My daughter shook her head, saying that we were leaving the next morning. Not a problem! They would make whatever she wanted and we could come back in an hour to pick it up. I was more than happy to bow out and watch my daughter excitedly pick two outfits and the fabric she wanted for each while the tailor took her measurements for a jumper and a summer dress.

It was the perfect last night in Vietnam. A bright, beautiful bow was tied up over our crappy wrapping paper as we ate gelato and wound through the gorgeous lantern-lit streets while we waited to pick up the tailored outfits.

As we had to leave at 5 am the next morning, before the hotel’s breakfast was served, the staff thoughtfully wrapped up a breakfast to go for each of us. We headed outside for our ride to the Danang airport as my son started his Fitbit timer to see how long it would take us to get from the hotel doorstep to our home doorstep. On the ride, as the sun was coming up, we watched people on the beaches dancing and doing Tai Chi. It was a final tug at our heartstrings.

Journey Home

When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, though not flying out for another 10 hours, we checked the departures screen before settling in:

All we could do at that point was laugh. Things had worked out for us so far and as I had predicted on our first night in this incredible country, we would get out unscathed.

It took us 54 long hours from door to door. But as with the entire trip, knowing that our journey would soon end, we set aside fatigue and sadness, and made the best of everything. We ate fun food, snoozed, people watched, and bought gift shop paraphernalia as we made our way to Tokyo, Seattle, and finally, Kelowna.

We mentally prepared ourselves to be grilled about our health on our way back to Canada given some stories we had heard, but the closer we came, the more relaxed things became. We went from all masks and temperature-taking to almost nothing. Each time we made it through a checkpoint with no questions, we looked back wondering if we had missed something. Not that I’m complaining it was a flawless, peaceful trip home, it was just interesting.

The plane from Seattle to Kelowna held only about a dozen of us, so they had to strategically place us for proper weight distribution. When we landed in Kelowna, a border guard came onto our plane and announced that we had won the lottery to have made it home. For so many more reasons that he knew, I believe we did.

We went into this trip hoping that our kids would return to Canada with a greater appreciation of other cultures. But given the way our trip unfolded, we also had hard and fast (but mostly fun) lessons around resiliency, decision-making, problem-solving, gratitude, and living in the moment. Even from the time we self-isolated for 14 days upon our return until now, the learning keeps on coming (though our problem-solving looks more like: how to diffuse a scrap in less than 10 seconds).

Sure, it may be that I now choose to see the rolling boulder as a gift, given that our trip was cut short. But I’m okay with that. Maybe it lets me mourn the loss of what could have been and take the beauty from what was.

~

Interesting Note: There have only been 268 cases of Coronavirus in Vietnam and zero deaths (as of the date of this publication).

Big thanks to Debora, my amazing friend and coworker, for giving me the idea to write about our trip on my blog site. It was fun to get back here for a short stint and take a break from my seemingly never-ending work editing my novel.