By then, the internship had officially wrapped up in early April, but I stayed in Saigon with friends until the end of the month and into early May because 2025 was the 50th anniversary of reunification and the city was building toward a huge march. That story belongs to another quest. This one starts on a much stranger morning.
Somewhere around April 20, Hnhat and I woke up, looked at the day in front of us, and decided it needed a side quest.
The planning meeting was extremely sophisticated. Hnhat went, Chán, đi đâu chơi không?
I asked, Đi đâu?
He said he knew a place, I kept asking Chỗ nào?
and eventually he hit me with Đảo Thạnh An, search thử đi.
That was apparently enough of a plan for both of us.
He brought up Thanh An, the only island of Ho Chi Minh City, a place he had visited nearly a year earlier. I opened the map and immediately realized this was not some untouched tropical mystery. It looked lived in. Crowded, even. Which, honestly, made it more interesting.
In my head, getting there involved a dramatic ride beside the Soai Rap River, container ships, maybe a crocodile cameo, and a serious expedition vibe. Reality was much simpler: around two hours on the road through Can Gio and Rung Sac, then a boat.
The ride through Rung Sac ended up being one of my favorite parts of the whole day. It was just green in an almost unreasonable way. We did not stop for photos there, which is a little tragic, but being surrounded by that much mangrove and open road was ridiculously satisfying.
See Thanh An on the mapOn the way, we also passed a warship out of nowhere, which was not on my mental bingo card, and Hnhat somehow managed to take a lotus photo that had absolutely nothing to do with the trip but still deserved to make the album.
Once we reached Can Gio, I learned an important detail: there was no big comfortable ferry waiting to carry us and our bikes across. The real ride to Thanh An was a small boat. Bikes stayed on the mainland.
So we parked, climbed on, and immediately understood the situation. This thing was packed. Imagine twenty to thirty people squeezed into a small boat and you get the picture. We looked less like tourists and more like two guys making a very committed questionable decision.
About thirty minutes later, we arrived.
My first impression was that Thanh An was smaller and busier than expected. Not a hidden paradise. Not rough either. Just a small island where regular life was happening, which I ended up liking more than I thought I would.
There was a market, some shops, a few places to eat, and enough movement that it never felt abandoned. At the same time, it was clearly not some overdeveloped tourist spot. It sat in a nice middle zone: visitors could show up, but the island still felt like it belonged to the people who actually lived there.
The people were friendly in that comfortable way you get in places that see outsiders sometimes but are not built entirely around them. The prices surprised me more than the scenery. A can of Sting for 10,000 VND felt almost suspiciously cheap, and the seafood was good enough that I stopped asking questions and just enjoyed the win.
Life there seemed calm. A lot of adults were fishers or running small shops, cafes, and food stalls. There was a primary school, middle school, high school, a clinic, a police station, and all the basic things you would want for normal daily life. For an island that small, it felt surprisingly complete.
One detail I found weirdly cool: I barely noticed any visible cables. A lot of the electrical setup seemed to be underground, which made the place feel cleaner and more organized than I expected.
Also, shoutout to Hnhat for most of the photos in this chapter. Man really ended up doing accidental documentary work before the clinic subplot kicked in.
Scenery-wise, Thanh An was not the most beautiful island I have ever seen, but it still had its own charm. The stone seawall circling the edge became both a walking path and a viewpoint, so we spent the afternoon wandering around it and doing absolutely nothing useful.
Then we made the deeply intelligent decision to go swimming.
At first, it was fun. Also suspiciously empty. Nobody else was in the water except us, which should have been a sign.
The problem was hidden just below the surface. There were rocks and oyster shells everywhere, and they were sharp enough to turn a casual swim into a medical side quest. I barely brushed against them and learned my lesson quickly. Hnhat was less lucky.
At first, when he hit it, I did not think it was that serious. Then he lifted his hand up out of the water and it was full of blood. That was the exact moment my brain went from eh, maybe it is just a cut
to oh shit, oh shit.
We rushed back to shore, I helped pull him out, and in the process managed to collect a few scratches myself. An older man nearby saw what happened, stepped in fast, and helped get him to the clinic before either of us had time to pretend this was still a funny story.
The clinic itself was small, just a normal local one, but it got the job done. Final result: seven stitches, two numbing shots, and later both of us needing tetanus shots too. Honestly, at least now I feel a lot calmer around rusty guitar strings and old nails.
We stayed on the island that night anyway and ended up sleeping in a restaurant rest area with exactly one bed for both of us. Not the most spacious arrangement in the world, but after everything that happened it was more funny than awkward.
We headed back the next day and officially logged it as one of the most random adventures of the year.
We went out because the day felt too normal.
We came back with sunset photos, cheap Sting memories, and seven stitches.
That is a solid side quest.