Days in Da Nang

Digital Nomads, Travellers, and lucky/unlucky moments

There’s lots to talk about today so strap yourselves in!

First things first, I’d like to remind you to hug your loved ones, call the people you care about, and generally take a minute to recall the fact that strange, unexpected shit can happen and take people off the mortal coil in the blink of an eye.

On my third day in Da Nang, I returned to my hostel and met a very unlucky (or very lucky) Brit by the name of Luke. But his friends call him Apple. Or Lukey. And let me tell you, Lukey looked fucked up. His forehead was bruised and swollen, covered in stitches, scrapes, and cuts, his arms were much the same, and he appeared to have a low-level current of electricity running through his right arm the entire time we talked.

Lukey was fortunate enough to be travelling through a green light with his scooter on his second day here when a local woman went through the red light and collected him, leaving him in a coma for three days. They are waiting on the tests to determine whether he has long-term brain damage, but they are both alive. Lucky? Unlucky?

As he told me his story my eyes were burning with tears (I can feel them welling up behind my eyes as I type this out too). He played a song that his mum had sent him after he got out of the hospital, and it was all about coming home. I couldn’t help but imagine that if he didn’t make it out of that coma, the homecoming the song was referring to might have been an entirely different beast.

Despite - or perhaps because of - this turn of events, Lukey was wildly positive and optimistic about life. We only got to have one conversation, but he reminded me how important it is to be grateful for what we have, when we have it (life included), because it can be snatched away in the blink of a non-attentive local eye.

The only other interesting tale to come from this hostel was again a cautionary one.

Moritz, my roommate, returned around 5am after a night on the gas. He made the most peculiar sounds I’d heard from a drunk person, like an animal, limping and wounded, and I thought it was the weirdest thing.

When I saw him the next day, I asked what he’d been up to and he told me that he got jumped by five locals not 200m from the hostel. He’s a pretty tall German guy and they were 20-something Vietnamese kids, so he punched one of them and ran away, losing nothing but suffered a few scrapes in the interaction. The whimpering animal sounds made sense. Despite the safety and security a place may offer, shit gets wild after midnight, and you need to do more than just keep your wits about you in the smallest hours of the day (or night).

Turning away from the craziness now, I want to focus on the amazing kindness of people.

My usual approach to establishing myself somewhere new is to find my cafe. I’m looking for local staff, a mixture of international/local customers, and you know they gots to have The Beans! You can take the boy out of Brunswick, but you can’t take the coffee wanker out of the boy, so I still want to enjoy my coffee. I also don’t want to be greeted by a sea of Apple logos and airpodded ears.

When I found ‘Hi Cafe’ it fit the bill. The waiter (also named Hai) complimented my hat and told me I look like a cowboy. We talked about Da Nang, his interest in music production and hip-hop, where I’ve been, and what I’m looking to do. When I mentioned that I was looking for a place to stay, and how much I had been told I might need to pay, his eyebrows shot up and he said ‘No bro, I can find you something for half that, that’s too much’.

And then he did it. These weren’t idle words. He actually did it!

He went out of his way to get in touch with a couple of local listings, organised to take me out to the apartment to make sure they didn’t try and screw me around, and got me a beautiful apartment a few minutes walk from the beach with a view of amazing mountains. And he refused to take anything for his efforts.

Hai is of the opinion that ‘we are all human, we have to help other humans’. He also thinks that ‘when people take advantage of tourists, it makes all Vietnamese look bad’. So he happily took the time out of his day, both online and in person, to help this tourist not get fucked over by the local property market, purely because of his internal principles.

This is why I love travelling. For every instance of fear, terror, or heartbreak, there are a thousand instances of someone going out of their way to do good, simply because they want to. I’m reminded that the narrative of fear, doom, and general gloom is an aberration, and kindness and charity are absolutely thriving in this world.

The last thing I would like to touch on is an important distinction that is appearing before me: the difference between Digital Nomads and Travellers. I haven’t spent too much time with Digital Nomads, and haven’t built a picture of them as a collective, but I’ve met a few more in recent weeks and I’m seeing a form. Travellers I know well.

I went to my first Digital Nomad event and had a conversation with two women who were blown away by the fact that I’ve been living overseas since 2019 and had never attended such a thing. ‘Where do you meet people? How do you make friends?’ they asked. ‘Outside, where I am, in conversation’ I replied.

I confess, this is a talent and it’s fair to say that it bestows a certain degree of privilege to my travelling escapades. Earlier in the day, after bumping into one of the aforementioned women, I reflected on how, in just six days I felt like I already had a healthy, diverse, vibrant community around me. This is, for me, what normal reality looks like when I’m living in international places.

I believe this is the nature of the Traveller. The Digital Nomad seems to want to find community and belonging exclusively among the Digital Nomad community. They don’t appear interested in local integration. The Traveller, however, is interested in understanding local culture, trying to integrate where possible, and engages with different communities.

The Traveller is open, and so finds other people who are open. The Digital Nomad appears closed when their laptop is open, and closed when their airpods are in. Which, from what I’ve seen, makes up a vast amount of time.

Digital Nomad events (discovered online, never in person) are where they connect with one another to discuss the current sociopolitical climate, their jobs, and other ‘not that interesting to yours truly’ topics.

I opened the topic of Digital Nomad versus Traveller with the first two women and determined that the Digital Nomad still adheres to a mindset of fear, whereas the Traveller has a mindset of trust. And this creates a world of change.

Later in the night, I stumbled upon a Russian woman (‘with a Korean background, to explain this’ she said, gesturing to her face. She was fucking hilarious and this was the high point of the night) who didn’t strike me as a Digital Nomad. We shifted to the side and spoke for hours, before walking to the beach to continue our conversation with our feet in the ocean.

At some stage I asked her whether or not she considered herself a Digital Nomad or a Traveller. She thought for a moment, before replying ‘Traveller, definitely’. That returned a Guilty On All Charges conviction in my mind for the collective known as Digital Nomads. They’re not bad people, they’re simply not my people.

As I put this piece together the following day I had an interaction with a couple in the cafe. We got on like a house on fire. They’d been living together in Da Nang for two years, so I asked if they ever go to Digital Nomad events. Jay replied ‘No, I don’t really like those events to be honest’. He lived in France (and learnt French) then lived in Spain (and learnt Spanish) and has all the trimmings of a Traveller. He also plays frisbee, so we’re friends now. Classic Traveller behaviour.

That’s it for people interactions, and I guess that’s about it for the post. I’m having a very good time in Da Nang. It’s got a very nice vibe, the weather is better than Chiang Mai (for now…) and there’s plenty to do. Plus you can score a meal for less than $2 which always goes down well. The downside is that cash is multiplied by 1,000, so I’ve not been able to track my spend that well and can’t report in on it. But I tip that I’ve spent maybe $350 this week. Early days, big expenses. That’s how it is!

Alright, it’s time to sweat profusely while walking slowly. Catch y’all on the flip.