Travelling with a purpose

I was watching a documentary about Vietnam while enjoying my store-bought pizza, extra mushrooms. This was the second-best thing that happened to me today. The first was falling asleep on the couch with a new book in my arms, as a rainy storm raged outside. I’m sure you can picture exactly what I’ve described. I’m trying to slow down my weekends, as they should be.

In the documentary, they showed videos from a train street in Hanoi, apparently a very famous one. The appeal is that a train passes through a narrow street where there are cafes on both sides with outdoor chairs- as opposed to some sort of barrier between them. It’s exhilarating and slightly dangerous. But exhilarating for sure. As the train approaches, everyone takes out their phones and film the train coming through the little street cafes. It is a cute shot. I can perfectly picture myself taking a nice photo of my coffee with the train. I think this is the whole point of why people go visit the train street. Because, in reality, it is just a train. Do these people see a train for the first time in their lives? I’m most certainly sure not. But probably they’re seeing this unprotected and unsafe train atmosphere intertwined with the little cafes for the first time, hence the appeal.

I wonder who thought of taking a photo of the approaching train on that street for the first time. Because once again I’m most certainly sure that when that train road was built, no one thought it was special- until one tourist took out their phone and captured it out of nowhere. Then it clicked to them: we can make money from this place. They made the cafés extra cute, probably with better service on the street and English-speaking staff around.

Imagine being a conductor on that train. You know for sure whenever you pass through that little street, there will be tens of cameras facing towards you. I imagine being a conductor is not the most exciting job in the world- simply because no one notices you. We usually interact with the person who checks the tickets, and that’s about it. It's very rare that I’ve seen a conductor on business. But this is different for the train street conductor.  Imagine them getting dressed for the day in the morning, and looking in the mirror to fix their hair, knowing there will be lots of Instagram photos of them later on. Do they feel any different? I know I would. What an amazing turnout for an extremely normal job.

Since yesterday, I checked a lot of Instagram reels and YouTube shorts for Vietnam (did you notice how short my attention span is?) but got sick of seeing the same places in every single one of them. When people travel to a certain destination for a limited amount of time, they usually visit the most tourist, well-known and appealing places, which is the most understandable thing in the world. I do more or less the same- with a little twist. But then this brings us to the next point. If you were to travel to the exact same spots which every other person in the world also travelled to, why on earth would you go there in the first place? To have the exact Instagram shot on your page? Most likely. Then this brings us to the next question, what is the ultimate purpose of travelling? What really are we trying to achieve here?

Seeing new places? You can see them online, given you’re mostly interested in the touristic areas and there are millions of shots of them online. To experience different cultures? If you were only to go to touristic places to engage with the people there, they are probably going to be foreigners like you. Moreover, the treatment you’ll receive will probably be the tourist treatment. To try local food? I mean, you can find pretty much any cuisine in London- or bigger cities. I know it's not that authentic, but it does the job. No, no, no, it's about the ‘vibe’—but what exactly does that mean? Someone created this word and now all of a sudden we use it left and right, ‘we’re here for the vibes.’ Excuse my French, what the hell is a vibe?

This is a topic I often debate with myself, especially when writing my book. I like arguing, in general, and I like to challenge myself with contradictory ideas which also come from myself. But for this topic, I am yet to reach a conclusion. For the time being, I may seem to stop my urge to book a flight to Vietnam, but if I go one day, I wonder what my authentic motivation will be to be there and how many cliches I will be indulging in. I root for all of them, you know, I have faith in me.