Relax at An Bang Beach
Take A Break From Vacation
I feel a little silly admitting that vacations are exhausting, but the way my husband and I do them, they can be. Seize the day, or Carpe Diem might as well be emblazoned on our foreheads because we try to squeeze every ounce of experience we can get out of a place, while we find ourselves there, and leave little to no time to decompress from life or even allow ourselves to process our travel weariness.
Don’t Forget to Take a Break!
In previous posts about our time in Vietnam, I outlined a specific day to relax and maybe go to the beach. Not knowing in advance how wonderful they would be, I didn’t want to commit ourselves to this activity prematurely.
However, the day came and the hotel we were’ staying at, while not directly on the beach, offered free shuttle service to a private beach.
As a side note, I had initially intended to book us a hotel on the beach and then use a shuttle to bring us to the center of Hoi An each day, but we ultimately switched the arrangement and I’m SO glad we did! There’s very little to do out at the beaches.
An Bang Beach
Holy smokes, this place was just what the doctor ordered for two weary travelers! The sand is soft, there’s (oddly) no seagulls, and in general very little tourist development. It was quiet, the service was amazing, and as per usual, the food scrumptious!
Have a chat
If soft sand, warm gentle breezes, and refreshing drinks aren’t enough for you, you’re guaranteed to be entertained by your fellow beach-goers. In general, most caucasian westerners you see wandering around aren’t Americans (it’s a bonus in my mind), but native English speakers tend to gravitate toward one another almost as if by supernatural forces outside of our control.
It’s with this “attraction” in mind that we met several interesting couples visiting from England, one such couple we ran into a second time later on during our trip while in Ho Chi Minh City.
Conversations had while traveling abroad, are my favorite conversations, and rarely, do I walk away without a feeling of having been enriched by it. Getting outside of your everyday patterns, stepping back from your normal social circles, and discussing “life,” becomes a super-charged experience when you’ve put yourself in a place to truly listen to what others have to say. The magic of travel is actively stripping yourself of the barriers of opinion that we clothe ourselves in, removing the trappings of our security by way of total immersion within worlds of like-mindedness, and where different opinions have no oxygen to live.
Take a break, have a chat, and see how you grow and change as a result of fresh air, other opinions, new experiences, and allow your perspective to shift.