Mylene Sherrin is raising a willful border collie and caring for chickens, sheep and a garden on Salt Spring Island, Canada. She loves to ramble, to adventure to faraway places, and to sip good coffee.
I think of rambling as proceeding without a goal, purpose, or direction. When my husband Mitchell and I travel to a new place, this is how we like to explore.
We learned a thing or two about different kinds of rambles during a recent trip to Vietnam. We visited because our son, Noah, was working there while his partner, Michelle, was doing research for her Master's Thesis in Urban Planning.
Our travel style is to set small daily goals, like finding a great coffee shop or a vendor selling yummy deep-fried sesame balls. Each day we would set off, picking our way through busy streets and tiny winding alleys until a place called out to us.
I say "pick" our way because, in old Hanoi, the sidewalks are crowded with vendors selling everything from dragonfruit to live roosters and snails. They also accommodate pop-up restaurants with sizzling pans of delicious-smelling foods and preschool-sized plastic stools and tables for customers. Hundreds of scooters are parked six abreast, filling every inch of rambling space.
Despite these challenges, we walked for hours, moving from the street to the sidewalk with scooters weaving around us. This is how we picked our way through Hanoi's sensorily overstimulating and fascinating landscape. It was a barrage to the senses of endless honking, unfamiliar smells, and so much happening everywhere.
Crossing streets was an adventure. The scooters and motorcycles moved like a river that cannot and will not stop for crosswalks. To cross, one has to embrace their fear and confidently wade into the moving traffic flow while the vehicles part and flow around you as if you are surrounded by a mini force field.
Eventually, we’d discover a coffee place that piqued our interest, sit on a tiny stool, and watch the world go by. Once, we watched a guy load thirty cartons of eggs onto the back of his scooter without tying or securing them and then dart off in the crazy traffic to deliver them.
We rambled aimlessly every day, with no particular destination in mind, drinking in every fantastic detail and loving every moment.
Michelle's parents joined us from Toronto, so we invited them to join us to explore the nearby village of Bat Trang. Bat Trang is a pottery village with hundreds of years of ceramic history, and much of the dishware in Vietnamese homes and restaurants is produced there.
When we arrived in the village, Mitchell and I started to ramble in our usual fashion, choosing the way by which twists and turns looked most enticing. We found ourselves meandering through a huge pottery market, then exploring our way down some ancient, narrow alleys, where peeking through doorways, we could see dozens of small pottery factories with people at potters' wheels and loading kilns. We had big grins and Rob and Sheila in tow.
Suddenly Sheila exclaimed, "Are you sure we are going the right way" with an anxious look on her face. I was perplexed. How could there be a wrong way? But Sheila seemed increasingly uncomfortable while she urged her husband to consult Google maps.
To quell this uneasiness, we picked a destination and set out to find a cold drink at the Pottery Museum. I realized then that there are many ways to travel and that only some enjoy an aimless ramble.
The following week, we traveled with Rob and Sheila to Central Vietnam and adopted their style of travel - planned and researched, with designated visits to points of interest. We saw some amazing things and learned a lot about the history of many wonderful ancient places.
Of course, we also took plenty of time to ramble on our own to meander wherever our hearts drew us, proving there are so many beautiful ways to ramble.
If you’ve been to Vietnam, we’d love you to share your experiences, travel advice, or trip notes in the comments.
READ MORE > Ramble Log, Rambler Cafe Blog
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