Vietnam: The plan
On an idle summer afternoon in 2022, right after Bijo had given notice at work and I was, as ever, lamenting that I had office every evening, we were walking down First Avenue after lunch. Or maybe coffee. That's not important. We were talking about taking a trip in a few months and about where would be doable. Options tossed back and forth included Puri, Digha and Mandarmani, and I think Darjeeling,but I'm not sure. Then Bijo had a stroke of genius, saying if we were going to take a week or so to travel, why not visit somewhere outside the country, somewhere considerably cheap, like, Vietnam? I had never had a single thought about Vietnam as a place one could go on a leisure trip. For me, the terms Southeast Asia and vacation, taken together, always implied that someone was talking of Thailand. I was awestruck, faced with the concept that Vietnam was indeed a place to visit. As we do, Bijo and I, suitably excited about a "project" and armed with very little geograph