The following morning, we woke up, refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to explore the beaches and caves along the bay. My mother decided to sit out this one, so it was just me and my cousin, who was also on this trip. Little did I know that we’d be put into one of the slim kayaks and told to fend for ourselves. Unenergetic, unfit, and fearful that I was, I wanted to back out. But, egged on by my cousin, I managed a few strokes before I felt utterly exhausted. That was, in fact, how I felt almost every day back home, after returning from work. But there, I had a family to cheer me up and lend me a helping hand. Here, I was in the middle of infinite vastness, with no one to steer the kayak in the direction we were asked to move in! My cousin was equally at sea. We could see the beach at a distance, but neither had the skill nor the energy to get there. On one hand was the fear of being left in the lurch, on the other was the overwhelming sense of failure.
Yet, we refused to give up. I closed my eyes and thought of my mother. Despite her niggling health issues, she had the willpower to come to the trip, hop, skip and jump from one boat to another—for which even I was a tad scared—climb steep stairs and enjoy every moment. I knew she wouldn’t like to see me give up midway. Even the people of Vietnam, after generations of war and trauma, never gave up their fight to live on. How could I accept defeat? After several bouts of starts and stops, we finally managed to steer our kayak to the most beautiful beach. In the crystal clear water, we could see the reflection of our relieved and satisfied faces. We had undertaken a journey into the unknown, on a kayak we didn’t know how to navigate. So the pleasure of achievement on reaching the destination far exceeded the pain of our travails.

The claustrophobic Cu Chi tunnels
In the next leg of our journey, I was far more confident and ready for more exploits on land as well as on water, just like the local people. In Ho Chi Minh city, I bravely crawled through a part of the narrow, claustrophobic Cu Chi tunnels, built during the Vietnam war. The network of tunnels formed a veritable underground village replete with a hospital, dining room, kitchen, and workroom. The 200-kilometre long tunnels were so meticulously built that the Americans could never capture the Viet Cong based there, despite their strenuous efforts.
Once we were out of the tunnels, I felt a tremendous sense of achievement as not only had I powered through my claustrophobia but also successfully put aside my fear of the unknown. The experience on the Ha Long Bay and the crawl through the tunnels made me internalise what my mother always says: “Fear is all in the mind. You have to face it to win over it.”
The Vietnam trip will remain the most memorable holiday with my mother. Besides it being visually and gastronomically fulfilling, it was spiritually uplifting as I learned how a small shift in our attitude can help us defeat our fears