Every couple has that one trip they remember forever.
Not because everything went perfectly, but because it was the first time they truly discovered what travelling together meant.
For us, that place was Nha Trang.
By the time this journey began, we had known each other for only a few months. Most of our conversations had taken place over text messages, interrupted occasionally by dinner or coffee whenever our schedules allowed. We were comfortable with each other, but there was still so much left to learn.
It was her idea to travel.
She wanted to show me a different side of Vietnam—one beyond the busy streets of Ho Chi Minh City, the charm of Hanoi, or the beaches of Da Nang. She believed the country’s true beauty was hidden in the places between the famous destinations, and Nha Trang was one of those places.
I didn’t know much about the city.
She knew almost everything.
Having visited Nha Trang several times with her family, she already had a list of beaches, cafés, seafood restaurants, and hidden corners she wanted me to experience.
Naturally, I questioned almost every recommendation.
I told myself I was simply curious.
She insisted I was just being difficult.
Years later, I have to admit she was probably right.
At that point, neither of us realised that this ordinary weekend trip would become one of the most memorable journeys of our lives.
The Journey
Planning the destination was easy.
Planning the journey was another story.
Our biggest disagreement wasn’t about where to stay or what to eat.
It was about how to get there.
Like most Vietnamese people, she preferred flying. Domestic flights in Vietnam are affordable, quick, and convenient. Spending almost an entire day on a train simply didn’t make sense to her.
I saw it differently.
Growing up in India, train journeys had always been more than transportation. They were experiences in themselves. Some of my favourite childhood memories had been created while sitting beside a train window, watching landscapes slowly change from one station to the next.
I’ve always believed that journeys deserve as much attention as destinations.
Airports move you from one city to another.
Trains allow you to watch a country unfold.
After a great deal of convincing—and probably more stubbornness than necessary—I finally persuaded her.
It would be her first train journey.
As the night train slowly pulled away from Ho Chi Minh City, we settled into our seats. We spent the evening talking, watching each other’s expressions, and occasionally looking out of the window as the lights of the city gradually disappeared behind us.
The further we travelled, the more beautiful the journey became.
Although trains had been part of my life since childhood, Vietnam’s railway surprised me. The coaches were clean, well maintained, organised, and remarkably peaceful. The stations were small yet efficient, and every railway staff member we met was polite and welcoming.
But what truly stayed with me was the scenery.
For hours, the train followed the coastline, passing green mountains, rocky cliffs, fishing villages, and endless views of the sea. Every few minutes, the landscape changed, making it almost impossible to look away from the window.
The journey from Saigon to Nha Trang became just as memorable as the destination itself.
We arrived in Nha Trang at around eight in the morning.
Our hotel check-in wasn’t until later, so she smiled and said, “I know just the place.”
She took me to Bake Boy Café, one of her favourite cafés in Nha Trang. Over coffee and freshly baked pastries, she told me stories about the city while I quietly watched the morning unfold outside the window. It wasn’t just a café stop before check-in—it became my introduction to Nha Trang. Even today, whenever someone asks me about cafés in Vietnam, Bake Boy Café is one of the first names that comes to mind.
As always, she handled everything else with ease—booking the Grab, checking the hotel, and making sure our day went exactly as planned.
I simply enjoyed the coffee and followed along.
Around eleven o’clock, we finally checked into our hotel. It was a cosy studio apartment, beautifully maintained and incredibly welcoming. One thing I have always admired about Vietnam is its hospitality. Whether it is a luxury hotel or a small family-run apartment, people genuinely make you feel at home.
After taking a cold shower, I made what I believed was a perfectly reasonable decision.
“I’ll just rest for twenty minutes.”
Those twenty minutes turned into a proper nap.
She wasn’t amused.
She had brought me all the way to Nha Trang to explore the city, while I seemed far more interested in sleeping than sightseeing.
I don’t blame her at all.
She is incredibly disciplined. Breakfast meant breakfast. Lunch was always on time. Dinner was never skipped.
I was exactly the opposite.
I could happily eat breakfast at dinner time and dinner after midnight without thinking twice.
She liked plans.
I preferred spontaneity.
She believed in schedules.
I believed the day would somehow work itself out.
On paper, we couldn’t have been more different.
Yet somehow, those differences never became obstacles.
Instead, they became the beginning of our story together.
Me & Her
Places are beautiful, but it is the people, conversations, and emotions that stay with us long after the journey ends. This story is no different.
When I finally woke up from my “twenty-minute” nap, she was sitting beside me, quietly scrolling through Facebook on her phone.
She looked at me, smiled, and said, “Finally.”
The lazy traveller had woken up, and we could finally begin exploring Nha Trang.
She had already rented a scooter for the day. Like everything else on the trip, she had planned it well before I had even finished stretching after my nap.
Our first stop was a small roadside café.
She ordered her favourite, Cà phê sữa đá—Vietnam’s famous iced coffee with condensed milk. By then, I was slowly developing a taste for it myself. Back then I still preferred regular coffee, but watching her enjoy every sip somehow made me appreciate it a little more each day.
Watching her proudly introduce me to her country, I quietly promised myself to complain a little less and simply enjoy the journey.
I didn’t realise it then, but that was probably the moment my affection for her quietly began to grow..
Nha Trang itself is a relatively small city, making it perfect to explore on two wheels.
We rode through its streets without any particular hurry, stopping wherever something caught our attention. We visited a peaceful pagoda overlooking the city, spent time at cafés by the sea, and simply enjoyed the freedom of having nowhere specific to be.
By the evening, we found ourselves at Sailing Club Nha Trang.
Most people visit it for its beachfront location, live music, and lively atmosphere.
I had an entirely different reason.
The menu had Samosas.
Not just any samosas, but some of the best I have eaten anywhere in Vietnam.
I stared at the menu for a few seconds, just to make sure I wasn’t imagining it, and immediately ordered two.
She couldn’t stop laughing.
Even today, after knowing my completely unreasonable love for samosas, she still teases me by calling me the “Samosa King.”
That evening, with a couple of beers, samosas, and a pizza on our table, our conversation slowly became more serious.
Until then, we had mostly spoken about everyday things.
That night was different.
She spoke about her parents, her siblings, her nephews and niece, her childhood, and parts of her life that she rarely shared with others.
I discovered that she could speak Japanese, Mandarin, and English fluently.
So technically, whenever she gets angry, she has three different languages to scold me in.
Thankfully, I still don’t understand at least two of them.
Jokes apart, the more she spoke, the more I admired her.
In the early days, making jokes around her was surprisingly difficult because she believed almost everything I said. Sometimes I wondered if Vietnamese people were simply too honest to expect someone to be joking.
Or perhaps she just hadn’t learned to understand my terrible sense of humour yet.
After dinner, we walked along the beach.
The waves rolled gently onto the shore as the city lights reflected across the water.
Without saying very much, we sat down on the sand.
She rested her head on my shoulder.
I held her hand.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
We simply listened to the sound of the sea and allowed the moment to speak for itself.
Looking back now, I realise that some of the most beautiful conversations in life are the ones where nothing needs to be said.
Beyond the City
The evening by the sea had changed something between us.
It wasn’t a dramatic moment or a grand confession. There was simply a quiet comfort that hadn’t existed before. We laughed more easily, spoke more freely, and the awkwardness that often accompanies a new relationship had slowly begun to disappear.
The next morning, we decided to explore Nha Trang at a slower pace.
There was no itinerary.
No rush to tick attractions off a list.
We simply got on the scooter and let the city introduce itself to us.
She became my guide.
I became her passenger.
Together we wandered through different corners of the city. From the giant granite rocks of Hon Chong, to the ancient Po Nagar Cham Towers, and the coastal roads leading towards Cam Ranh, every stop revealed a different side of Nha Trang.
Yet what I remember most isn’t a particular attraction.
It’s the freedom.
We stopped whenever something caught our attention—sometimes for coffee, sometimes to admire the sea, and sometimes simply because neither of us wanted the ride to end.
By evening, I thought we had seen everything she wanted to show me.
I was wrong.
The following morning, she suggested we leave the city altogether.
Our destination was Doc Let Beach, nearly sixty kilometres north of Nha Trang.
Unlike the lively beaches of the city, Doc Let felt untouched. Its soft white sand, crystal-clear water, and peaceful atmosphere made it feel like a world away from the crowds. We spent hours walking barefoot, taking photographs, laughing at our terrible poses, and enjoying the rare luxury of doing absolutely nothing.
From there, we continued towards Gành Phong.
The coastal road itself became part of the adventure. With the sea on one side and rolling hills on the other, we stopped more often than we had planned, simply to admire the view and capture a few photographs.
On our way back, we stopped at the Lương Sơn Mountain Pass Viewpoint, one of my favourite places in Vietnam.
High above the coastline, colourful fishing boats drifted across the water while the lush green landscape of Ninh Vân Bay stretched endlessly into the distance.
A small café overlooked the cliffs.
We ordered two glasses of Cà phê sữa đá and a fresh mango salad.
There we sat for what felt like hours.
Coffee in our hands.
A cool sea breeze on our faces.
Fishing boats moving quietly below.
Neither of us reached for our phones.
Neither of us felt the need to keep talking.
Today, I couldn’t tell you every word we spoke that afternoon.
But I remember exactly how it felt.
The freedom of riding without a destination.
The peace of sitting above the sea.
And the quiet happiness of discovering Vietnam—not just as a traveller, but alongside someone who had slowly become far more than a travel companion.
After the Journey
Every journey eventually comes to an end.
Ours didn’t.
At least, not in Nha Trang.
The next chapter of our adventure was already waiting. We were about to board another train, this time heading towards Da Nang—a story for another edition.
But before we left, I found myself thinking about something unexpected.
Whenever I travel, I usually return remembering places.
The mountains.
The beaches.
The cafés.
The food.
This journey was different.
For the first time, I wasn’t thinking about the destination.
I was thinking about the person who had shared it with me.
She had taken leave from work simply to spend those days together.
She had trusted someone from another country—a person she had met only a handful of times—with a journey hundreds of kilometres away from home.
At the time, neither of us thought much about it.
Only later did I realise how much trust that decision carried.
For me, it was never something to be taken lightly.
It was an honour.
Travelling together isn’t about finding perfect destinations.
It is about discovering another person’s habits.
Learning what makes them laugh.
Understanding what annoys them.
Finding comfort in silence.
Accepting the little differences that once seemed important.
Nha Trang gave us all of those moments.
We laughed.
We disagreed.
She laughed at my obsession with samosas.
I tested her patience with my “twenty-minute” nap.
She introduced me to Vietnamese coffee.
I convinced her that train journeys could be just as beautiful as destinations.
Some memories made us laugh.
Others quietly stayed with us.
When we boarded the train to Da Nang, we didn’t know where life would eventually take us.
We weren’t making promises.
We weren’t trying to predict the future.
We were simply happy with where we were.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
I’ve returned to Nha Trang several times since then.
The beaches are still beautiful.
Bake Boy Café still reminds me of that first morning.
The road to Doc Let is just as peaceful.
I’m sure Sailing Club still serves those wonderful samosas.
But places have a funny way of changing over time.
Or perhaps it’s the people who change.
Either way, every time I return, I realise I wasn’t really searching for the city.
I was searching for a feeling.
The feeling of that first journey.
Some people remember Nha Trang for its beaches.
I’ll always remember how it felt to see them for the first time through someone else’s eyes
Thank you! You are sweet more than any Candy in this world!
Thank You Em!!
Apart from your romantic and lovely story as a couple, there’s one more thing that really deserves attention—your love for samosas! 😂
Honestly, comparing you with Motu would be much more appropriate because the moment he smells a samosa, he flies straight towards it! And since she has already given you the title of “Samosa King,” I think we can proudly give you another title too—“Motu!” 😂
Because when it comes to samosas, you two are definitely on the same level! ❤️🥟 🫣🫣🫣🏊
Hehe! Samosa For Life.. Thank You For Your Nice Comments Sisso!