This email finds you, most likely, halfway through the third meeting of the day. Someone has said the word "circle back."

Someone else has muted, unmuted, and then muted again. The pastry you bought at 9am is still sitting there, quietly going stale, and you're wondering, genuinely, whether it's socially acceptable to eat lunch at 11:24am. 


You reply to a message. You forget what you were doing before the message. You reply to another one. Somewhere in a group chat, a friend has sent a photo from Hoi An. You've looked at it four times. You haven't replied. There is nothing to say except that you want to be there and you are not.

Here is what that photo is not showing you.


Most people see Vietnam through a bus window. You won't. You'll see it from a bicycle, a kitchen table, a bamboo basket boat, and the back seat of an open-top jeep crossing the Hai Van Pass. You'll cook with locals in Hoi An, drift through floating markets on the Mekong, and sit at dinners that keep stretching longer than planned.