The taxi showed up at least half an hour early. Of course I was already standing at the door with bags packed. Kindred spirits, me and that driver. Two people who believe in being early for everything, saying nothing about it, and getting on with it.
Suvarnabhumi at 2am is one of my favorite versions of any airport. Empty enough to chill, but alive enough to watch. I had no phone, no book, no music. Just a seat on the floor and a few hours before the 4:30 check-in opened. That is exactly how I like it. There’s a specific kind of calm that comes from knowing you are where you need to be, with nothing to do but sit in it.
At the check-in counter I met two women from Perth. One of those instant connections where nobody has to try. We checked in and ended up in the lounge together. Champagne, Thai coffee, coconut pancakes. A proper goodbye to Thailand with strangers who didn’t feel like strangers. Then we said farewell the way airport friends do, knowing we’d probably never see each other again, and that was fine. That is its own kind of beautiful.
I took the train to my gate and waited out a mildly delayed flight. No drama. Just the quiet transition between one country and the next, which for me is always more mental than physical. Thailand was already behind me. Saigon was about to start.
And Saigon started exactly the way Saigon starts.
At the airport, a woman at the taxi stand promised they would use the meter. I got in the car. The man behind the wheel immediately said 355,000, no meter. I said let me out. You have to hardline it every single time. You give an inch here and you have lost the entire negotiation, the entire dynamic, and possibly the entire trip. He stopped. 300,000 ok? Then he got out of the car and another driver got in. Just like that. No explanation. No introduction. The new guy had no idea where I was going. For the third time, I gave my hotel address.
He was not friendly. I tried. I asked questions. I smiled. I got nothing back. But as we pushed through the traffic, which was relentless from the airport to District 1, bumper to bumper the entire way, I started to soften. I started to remember what driving in this city actually feels like, how it grinds people down, how every fare is a fight with the road.
Then he pulled out his phone and used the translator. The message said something about gas prices going up because of the war in the Middle East. He was not complaining. He was explaining. And something shifted in me.
I have history here. Four years of history. And not all of it was gracious. Way too many times, I lost my mind in screaming matches with various Vietnamese over whatever injustice I felt was happening in the moment. Taxi drivers, landlords, shopkeepers. They can feel so transactional, so indifferent to whether you exist beyond the money you represent. It is a huge departure from the peace and sincerity I had just left behind in Thailand, where people go out of their way to make you feel welcome even when they do not have to.
But I decided, sitting in that traffic, watching the motorbikes weave around us like water around rocks, that I was going to start this trip differently. Good karma. No screaming matches. No losing my mind. Just acceptance that this is how Saigon operates, and I am the one who chose to come back.
At the hotel, I gave him 350,000. More than his second offer. Less than his first. Because I did appreciate the ride, and because I was trying to be the version of myself I had just decided to be.
Then he helped me get my suitcase out of his trunk and completely destroyed it. The wheel flew off. Just snapped clean away. I looked at it. I looked at him. I said no worries. I meant it. I knew the suitcase was on its last trip anyway.
So there I was. Bottom of the hotel steps. Broken suitcase tilted on three wheels. Him, happy with his 350,000, already pulling away into traffic. We will never see each other again. He was the first person to welcome me back to this city, and he did it by overcharging me, refusing to communicate, and breaking my luggage.
But he also drove me through streets that are now aggressively lined with hammer and sickle banners and Vietnamese flags, block after block after block, just in case I forgot what ideology I was returning to. Saigon does not let you arrive gently. It does not ease you in. It hands you your broken suitcase and says figure it out.
Twenty years since my first arrival. Four years of living here. And now, standing on those steps with one wheel in my hand, I am back.
20march26
