📍Hoi An, Vietnam
There's something magical about wandering through side streets at night, far from the crowded tourist zones. It's when I let my feet, and especially my heart, lead the way that I stumble upon the most authentic moments of my journey.
The Vietnamese night strips away the everyday masks. As I pass through narrow streets, I can see into locals' homes - literally their entire living room. What they're watching on TV, the small carpet, the bed without a mattress. This isn't voyeurism - it's a window into lives not designed for foreign eyes.
Life here flows in the open street, and nighttime only amplifies this. I saw a backyard where a mom was spraying her three children with a hose in a small inflatable pool. Their laughter carried across the street, and I immediately found myself smiling along. What a pure moment of happiness - the kind that needs no translation or explanation.
I spotted a baby crib next to a toy motorcycle in another tiny room, but one big enough to actually ride. This is part of Vietnamese culture - preparing children for the chaotic roads from a young age. After all, here everyone's on motorbikes - it's part of the natural landscape of life.
Then I noticed a group of elderly men sitting outside one of the houses, all shirtless, drinking tea and cracking seeds. Music flowed in the background - something that sounded both familiar and completely foreign. Funny how the mind searches for connections, even when there really aren't any.
This sight amazed me. How much strength these older people in Vietnam have. How active they are, working, living. I'm used to seeing our parents' and grandparents' generation in Israel living relatively comfortable lives, in protected tranquility.
Here it's completely different - they work until their last day, certainly not by choice but out of necessity, because there's simply no alternative.
On street corners, on bridge ledges, sat elderly women selling goods. They're not the ones shouting loudest at tourists - they're the ones with wide smiles showing one tooth, maybe two at most, displaying what little they have while sitting on the ground, hoping someone will see them, that someone will stop.
There's something contradictory about this exposure. In Israel we build walls - we live in closed apartments, gated communities, private lives well-protected from strangers' eyes. Here life flows outward, exposed to every passerby.
Maybe it's poverty that forces exposure, or a communal culture born from necessity. Maybe it's simply a different way of life - one where the boundaries between private and public blur. But there's a special beauty in it - an authenticity that can't be faked, life that doesn't pretend to be something else.
These nights remind me why I love to wander. Not because of attractions or recommended restaurants, but because of these moments - when real life unfolds after the tourists go home, and when I can peek into the true soul of a place.
This is what won't appear in any guidebook, and exactly why it's so precious to me.
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