The city greeted me before I learned its rhythm,
a quiet woman on the shore,
stepping out of the soft morning light
to show me a picture of myself
watching the sunrise I came to find.
It felt like Da Nang saw me
before I learned to see it properly—
as if the sky introduced us
and she simply delivered the message.
Later, a stranger from Ecuador fell into step beside me,
a wandering soul with too much curiosity
and not enough roots.
We walked until the day cracked open into night—
past streets humming with motorbikes,
past boats in the docks,
ending the night lying on the sand, watching the stars
scatter themselves above us,
pretending the evening meant something.
The next day he rent a motorbike,
even though he never ride one before,
followed me to another city,
and let the wind decide our direction.
But adventure has a way of revealing intentions,
and eventually I learned
he was only borrowing moments,
not offering any of his own.
Not every story is worth a second chapter.
There was a girl after that—
soft-spoken, easy smile,
who led me into a café hidden in the city
surrounded by unexpected greenery
like it belonged to another world.
The place served nothing but drinks,
yet it offered peace I didn’t realize I needed.
The forest drank the silence for us,
and I found myself immersed in deep and fun conversations,
in ways that felt unplanned,
like a new friendship taking root
without asking for permission.
Marble Mountains gave me another surprise—
a man who said he wasn’t Filipino,
but slipped when he compared Bana Hills
to Enchanted Kingdom.
I laughed because familiarity always betrays us.
He laughed too, relieved to be found.
That night, I met a woman
whose presence filled the room
as if she held her life together
with force and fire.
Kind, but sharp-edged—
the sort of soul who makes you
aware of your own softness,
aware of every part of yourself.
I spent the night in her orbit,
wondering how many versions of me
I was shedding in this city.
Bana Hills came with heavy rain—
the kind that blurs everything
you hoped to see.
I changed my plans
to escape a storm
and still ended up inside one.
Most places were closed,
the wind too wild,
the sky too heavy.
I didn’t get to see it all,
But maybe some experiences
are meant to remain unfinished.
Somewhere between
the fog and the cable cars,
I crossed paths with two warm strangers
from far away—
quick stories, shared wonder,
easy laughter,
a brief kindness before we drifted off
in different directions.
And then came a familiar accent from home,
someone whose interest lingered
past the mountains and the mist,
reaching out even after I flew home.
And then—
the beach again,
as if circling back
to where the story began.
A foreigner beside me,
both of us wanting the sky—
paragliding, jet ski, anything that felt like flight.
They wouldn’t let me go alone,
said the wind is too strong that day.
He asked if we could go together,
offered to pay for everything
just to share the moment.
Kindness from a stranger
took me by surprise
in a place I thought I was learning
on my own terms.
Vietnam held me gently,
then wildly,
then honestly—
with people who entered for a moment,
people who stayed a little longer,
and people who didn’t know
they would mark me at all.
I came there searching
for a break in my routine,
for space to breathe.
Instead I found pieces of myself
scattered across a coastline
that kept pulling me back—
to its sunrise,
to its stories,
to the way it reminded me
that even alone,
I was never truly unseen.
blackplume 