261GRAND DESIGN
Dine at La Maison
1888 (left), then
relax on the terrace
(below right)ECO CHIC
Stay in a
bungalow in
Black H’mong
village, Sa PaELLEExplore
that all changed last year when Mum came from
our family home in Merseyside to London, where
I now live, to take me out to dinner. As we cracked
open a second bottle of wine, we talked about the
expectations that society places on our respective
generations. For me, that means I should be thinking
about settling down and saving up for a house. For Mum, now 57,
it’s often assumed all that is left is retirement. So, there and then, we
decided we weren’t going to let other people dictate how we lived our
lives. In keeping with family tradition, it was time for a new adventure.
A month later, we’d booked a 12- day backpacking trip to Vietnam.
We were drawn to Southeast Asia, as neither of us had been, and we
wanted to share a new experience together. Vietnam ticked all the
boxes: it’s big on culture, it’s cheap enough to do a mix of fancy and
budget hotels, and we both love Vietnamese food. We were to start
in Ho Chi Minh City, fly up the coast to Hoi An and Da Nang; take
a one-hour flight to Hanoi, the capital, enjoy a night’s boat ride in Ha
Long Bay, and end our adventure with the trek in rural Sa Pa.
I admit, I had my reser vations. In the past five years, I hadn’t spent
more than a week with Mum. What if we had nothing to talk about?t’s around midnight on our last night in Vietnam.My mum and
I crawl into bed inside our bamboo bungalow and switch off
the light. Outside, coated in darkness, sprawls a sweep of green
rice fields in the Muong Hoa Valley, northern Vietnam. Just as I close
my eyes, the sound of scuffling outside the bungalow pierces the
silence. ‘What’s that?’ I whisper to Mum, grabbing her hand. ‘It’s
nothing,’ she replies, unconvincingly – a noticeable hint of hesitation
in her voice. Moments later, we are standing on the bed; my mum
holding a kettle, as I shine my phone towards the door with one hand,
while the other tightens its grip around a metal fork. Whether we plan
to eat or maim our ‘assailants’ is yet to be seen.
Hours before, we had been trekking the 1Okm here from the pretty
but tourist-packed village of Sa Pa, around 325km
northwest of Hanoi, trudging our way along winding
paths, past grazing buffaloes. We were walking
alongside a group of local women, the Black H’mong
dressed in indigo-dyed embroidered jackets and
leg warmers, who come with you through the fields
in the hope you might buy bracelets or scar ves at
the end of the route. They aren’t official guides, but
they’re friendly and it’s a good way to support women
in the area and do some international bonding
Despite the babies strapped on their backs and
the sticky heat, the H’mong women nimbly hopped
from one muddy ridge to another as we tried to keep
up. I watched Mum holding hands with one, chatting away in simple
English about how we ended up in Vietnam, and felt a rush of pride.
My family has always been adventurous. When I was six, my parents,
my brother and I moved to Western Australia. My dad was a GP and
decided to take a sabbatical. My mum was a lipspeaking interpreter,
and she taught us the English curriculum from Monday to Wednesday,
then we went to the local school on Thursdays and Fridays. Weekends
involved car trips to the Outback, lying like sardines in the boot of our
Volvo at open-air cinemas, and daring each other to eat witchetty grubs.
Longer trips meant kayaking alongside a whale and its calf in the Indian
Ocean or swimming with sharks at the Great Barrier Reef. When it
comes to holidaying with my family, normal has never been an option.
As I reached my twenties (I’m 27 now), the desire to travel en famille
ebbed away in favour of adventures with friends and boyfriends. ButELLE.COM/UK September 2O19InterContinental DanangInterContinental DanangEco Palms HouseInterContinental Danang“ WE WEREN’T
GOING to LET
PEOPLE DICTATE
HOW we LIVED
OUR LIVES. IT
WAS TIME FOR
an ADVENTURE ”I