Ending a series of more than 10 years of continuous work without "breath", Mr. Pham Kien (35 years old, Ho Chi Minh City) and Ms. Nguyen Thi Nhu Ngoc (35 years old, Lam Dong) decided to take a long vacation that both had cherished for a long time.
Starting to realize big dreams
The trip of Ms. Ngoc and her husband was started in 2018 and is scheduled to start in early 2025. Therefore, during the preparation time, the couple carefully planned and prepared each thing one by one, most importantly the finances and health of each person.
At the end of 2024, Ms. Ngoc resigned from her management job in marketing. By April 2025, Mr. Kien also stopped his graphic design work. 12 years of knowing and loving each other, the couple has always been "in harmony" in each step of their other half's "transformation".
Ms. Ngoc said: "Previously, every day we worked so hard that the feeling of ourselves was just like a circle repeating itself, life was mainly caught up in work. We both wanted to explore and look at the world, expand our worldview and accumulate more life experience for ourselves. We hope that when we return, we will have new perspectives and ideas for work, as well as know how to cherish everything in life more.
The luggage they carried with them was a large backpack weighing about 20 - 30 kg containing necessary items for the trip and a smaller backpack for easy movement.
For Mr. Kien and Ms. Ngoc, besides finances, one of the most important luggage is health because in this trip, the couple traveled through many types of terrain, changing weather, and mainly traveled by train and car.
Both are very active in exercising regularly not only for the trip but also forming good habits for daily life such as meditating, breathing, jogging, martial arts to defend themselves...
Ms. Ngoc revealed: "My husband practices at the gym and I practice Yoga and dance, besides, I also often sleep early and get enough sleep. Thanks to that, during the trip, there are places over 4,000m high or when trekking up to 4,700 - 4,800m, both are okay. During the trip, we still occasionally spend time jogging and doing short exercises.
Moment of vibration
In July 2025, the couple started departing from Ho Chi Minh City on the Thong Nhat train to Hanoi and arrived at Lao Cai border gate to go to China.
For a month in a billion-population country, they continued to visit Pakistan for 26 days, Afghanistan for 12 days, Uzbekistan for 28 days, Tajikistan for 12 days, Kyrgyzstan for 17 days, Kazakhstan for 8 days, Turkmenistan for 4 days and are currently spending quite a lot of time exploring Iran, expected to be about 45 days.
Currently, for them, Afghanistan is the country that leaves the best impressions. Due to the political situation here, besides the worries, when deciding to visit this country, both experienced a feeling of adventure.
Although the facilities here are not modern, and the people are friendly and simple. The two of us are often invited to drink tea, fruits, nuts, cakes and candies..., even sometimes we buy things but people refuse to take the money, even though life is not very prosperous," the Vietnamese female tourist shared.
Ms. Ngoc added: "Thanks to that, we realized that the more nothing in hand, the more comfortable people are to give away. For example, not knowing what tomorrow will be like and not having anything to lose, so they are honest, liberal and brave even in harsh and difficult conditions.
The natural scenery of Afghanistan is mainly desert and ancient ruins on the Silk Road. Because they travel by bus and car, both of them have the opportunity to admire the rudimentary villages with earthen houses and mud. People, horses, donkeys, children with muddy hands falling through the window...
One of the most memorable memories is the journey of more than 800km from Herat to Mazar-i-Sharif. However, due to brake failure, the car stopped in a small village along the road.
Many children came to our stop with curious eyes. We chatted and lent cameras to young children to take selfies. Then, a moment later, almost all the children in the village flocked to see the camera, whoever was bolder wanted to hold it and Mr. Kien showed them to take a look. Looking at them, I felt the innocence, simplicity and suddenly in my heart I felt so much love for this life. Perhaps that is what made us nostalgic for Afghanistan," Ms. Ngoc confided.
The country that my wife and I want to set foot in the most in the process of cherishing the plan is Iran because this is a country with a long history and still retains many cultural and historical traces in famous cities such as Shiraz, Yazd, Isfahan...
The Vietnamese female tourist expressed: "We are all fascinated by the ancient Persian architecture, which is both beautiful and has mysterious colors. What surprised me quite a bit is that Iran in real life is much more modern than previously imagined, especially the capital Tehran. Not only that, other major cities also have subway systems.
Mr. Kien and Ms. Ngoc's journey to explore the world has not stopped. They still want to set foot in many more countries because that journey to step out into the world is also a journey to understand themselves, to understand their own companions.
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