There's a particular kind of stubbornness I have, which I can only describe as an addiction to the prefix "re-." If something didn't work the first time, I don't shrug and move on. I want to re-try it, re-open it, come at it from a different angle and see if it behaves better the second time around. Vietnam owed me a re-something. My first visit, to Hanoi, followed months of looking at gorgeous photos of the country and building expectations no city could realistically survive. Hanoi didn't survive them. But the failure never quite felt like Vietnam's fault, more like I'd shown up in the wrong city, in the wrong mood, at the wrong hour of my own patience. So this trip, to Da Nang, Hue, and Hoi An, was partly an attempt to reopen Vietnam for myself, and partly just a craving for sea air. Turns out those two goals travel well together.
Da Nang
Da Nang, right away, refused to play the villain I'd half-prepared for. Wide beaches, waves loud enough to erase everything else, and a general sense that nobody here was in a hurry to impress anyone, including me. I hiked up a mountain full of monkeys with startlingly red backsides, and somewhere between the silence and the smell of the forest, something in me finally exhaled. Later, at the Golden Bridge, fog rolled in thick enough to swallow the view everyone comes for, and instead of feeling cheated, I found myself looking down, at my feet, at the small stuff. Turns out bad weather is an excellent editor: it cuts the obvious shot and leaves you with the interesting one. Da Nang, if I had to guess, is for people who don't need a place to perform for them.
Hue
Hue greeted me with a sky that had clearly given up. Grey, drizzly, unimpressed with my arrival. Then I walked into the Imperial Citadel and found it full of people in traditional dress, holding umbrellas in one hand and phones in the other. Something about that combination, centuries-old costume next to modern rain gear, made me laugh a little and then just watch. The colors under that flat grey sky looked more like themselves somehow: the reds redder, the yellows more insistent, like they were compensating for the weather on everyone's behalf. I didn't rush through Hue. I don't think it lets you.
Hoi An
Hoi An, on the other hand, is trying very hard, and mostly succeeding. The problem is that everyone knows it. Beautiful streets, genuinely excellent banh mi, and enough tourists to make you feel like an extra in someone else's vacation video. Strip away the crowd, mentally, and it's a lovely little town. With the crowd, it's a lovely little town wearing a name tag. I found my own version of it in the gaps: a door left slightly open, a shadow falling just right on a yellow wall, someone walking past who had no idea I existed.
What this trip actually taught me is that Vietnam has enormous potential, but it doesn't hand it to you at the door. You can't approach it looking for postcard polish, because that's not the deal on offer. You have to lower your shoulders, stop comparing it to the photos you saw before you arrived, and let yourself become a small, temporary part of the place instead of a spectator standing outside it. Once I stopped waiting for Vietnam to impress me, it started to. I left Da Nang certain of one thing: Vietnam is not boring. I'm not done re-opening it yet.
