As I felt the plane descend into Hanoi I felt a clench in my stomach.
I was meeting Brian for the third time and I hadn’t seen him in four months. Each meetup in a different country, on an adventurous journey into ourselves and our budding new possible multi-continental romance.
Brian is a 30 year old British man who I met in Peru last September while we were both traveling solo. The two of us recently came out of serious relationships and were prioritizing independence and self discovery over dating. We had a shared love of the outdoors, traveling and a desire to become fluent in Spanish. And interestingly enough, we were both planning to take a work break to see the world while we were both young and fit. We couldn’t deny our strong magnetic connection and shared values.
A night that started with us floating into the hostel bar before getting an early night, ended with us having a four-hour conversation, getting tattoos together and making out passionately outside my 12-person dorm room until midnight. His flight back home to the UK left several hours later and I had a 4am wake-up set for a massive hike to Rainbow Mountain.
He said slowly, gripping my face before sending me off, “I will see you again.” Something in my gut told me I would even though we lived on different continents.
And lo and behold I did.
The four hours together in Peru felt like days. Feeling a bit bold, I invited him to visit me in Brooklyn. Two months later he was boarding a plane headed across the pond. I opened my front door to a man whose face and smell was unfamiliar, and here stood a woman he’d gotten to know in voice messages and seen in half-rushed selfies.
Dinner was ready, the table set with fresh flowers as an extra touch, and a few beers in the fridge to ease our nerves and extremely sweaty palms.
The week together was a fairytale set in the magical city I’d grown up in and for Brian, a far away place he’d only known from television shows and films. I showed him my favorite parts of the city, we sampled the city's finest assortment of pizza slices and dumplings, and ended each night in each other's arms battling against heavy eyelids for one more kiss under my comforter.
The feeling of something akin to love was bubbling in my chest.
He felt it too, but he told himself it wasn’t realistic. And it really wasn’t. We lived on different continents after all and neither one of us wanted to be in a long distance relationship.
When he got into his uber for the airport I felt this intense withdrawal. We needed time apart to see if this was a real connection and not just the conflation of the New York high with a brief and passionate holiday romance. I was playing the character of girlfriend, a role I had missed after my relationship ended eight months prior.
I had another proposition for him, this time to visit me in a country I’d never been to before.
I was going to be quitting my job in two months and was planning a five-month backpacking trip across Asia. I knew I’d be in Vietnam in March, the same time Brian was starting his one year sabbatical.
He was hesitant. He was planning to be speaking Spanish everyday, traveling from Mexico down to the tip of South America for 365 days on his own. A travel buddy didn’t quite fit into the plan, nor did a girlfriend - especially one in an entirely different time zone.
Would he trade al pastor for banh mi?
I walked through the arrivals exit and there he was ridden with jet lag but still grinning from ear to ear with a bouquet of flowers.
We hugged, unsure whether it was appropriate to kiss after so many months apart. His offering reminded me of the care package he sent me months prior when I battled a miserable flu the week before Christmas.
A giant bouquet of roses showed up at my fourth floor apartment in Brooklyn with a note that read, “roses are red and violets are blue, I want you to know I can’t stop thinking of you.”
Swoon.
Being given flowers by a romantic interest feels delicately romantic and as my dad would say “old school.”
A declaration of admiration. A peace offering. And I am absolutely here for it.
Over the course of three weeks backpacking together from Northern to Central Vietnam our connection grew stronger, surprising the two of us at how our feelings had sprouted little wings.
Over Vietnamese coffees and piping hot pho we’d talk about previous relationships, where our families came from, what made us come alive. There wasn’t a secret between us, a topic we hadn’t touched on.
We’d wake up on a weekday, roll over and plan our day around soaking in culture, trying local food and going on a new adventure or lazing around at a coffee shop or going for a scenic bike ride. All options were acceptable.
How lucky were we?
Waking up beside him felt like the constant I needed amidst a rotation of hotels, homestays and hostel beds in places I’d never heard of until coming to Vietnam.
The four letter L word was finding its way to the tip of my tongue. Slow down.
As we trekked through a village on the Vietnam-China border we met a New Zealand couple whose story inspired us. They were university sweethearts who were traveling the world together and were planning to move to the UK without either of them having a job lined up, visas or much money.
Then on the same trip we met another couple, this time an American-Israeli one who were years younger than us. They met in an online chat room during COVID. The guy lived in Tennessee and the girl lived in Israel. They were only 17 years old at the time. They messaged for one full year before meeting up in Greece, the only place they could go with the travel restrictions. The meeting went so well that the American guy packed up his life in the States and moved into the woman’s family’s home in Israel. She was in mandatory military service and could only see him on weekends. Wow, thats dedication. Now they’re four years into their relationship and are traveling the world enjoying their hard earned savings while they figure out what’s next for them.
We poked at the two couples plans, shocked at their decision to move across the world to try something so new and risky for one another. The New Zealand couple answered every one of my quizzical questions with “we’ll never know if we don’t try.”
Brian and I laid beside each other on our seven-hour sleeper bus ride to Hanoi imagining a world in which we did try. Even if it meant sacrificing and changing our plans and maybe one day moving to another country in order to be with each other.
Well that’s what you do for someone you love.
But it felt far too scary to say that word out loud, to declare my feelings first even though I could feel it coming up like word vomit. I held it in for another two weeks until the moment we were standing in front of a taxi with a trunk full of his belongings.
He kissed my forehead gently before he uttered the following words slowly and deliberately: “I can’t hold it in any longer. I love you, India.”
He was off to the Philippines and I was continuing on in Vietnam.
I ran back to my hotel room and booked a flight to see him again next month. This time I was traveling for him. This time to a place neither one of us had been to before.
Seoul.
This is sooo swoon~worthy!!! ❤️🔥 what an exciting love adventure!!
I love a good travelling love story! The way I met and got to know my boyfriend was very similar. Wonderful, so happy for you! ✨