Vietnam, Up Close

Actor Maanvi Gagroo traded scripts for street food, cruises, and coffee on a birthday trip to Vietnam

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There are birthday trips that feel indulgent, and then there are ones that rewire how a person travels. For Four More Shots Please! actor Maanvi Gagroo, Vietnam did exactly that. “I’ve realised that every birthday I want to take time out just to travel,” she says. “For the longest time, my trips were always connected to work...but I’d never travelled with the express purpose of holidaying.”

With most of Southeast Asia already ticked off, Vietnam sat high on her wish list. Her partner, actor Kumar Varun, a self-declared Vietnam loyalist, nudged things along. “He said, ‘I can keep going back to Vietnam — let me plan it.’ But of course, I made my own list too.”

GETTING LUCKY

Their journey began in Hanoi, a city that immediately announced its presence with a stroke of serendipity. "We landed on 2 September Vietnam's Independence Day-completely unplanned!" Gagroo says. "Before even sitting down for breakfast, I bought a Vietnam-flag T-shirt because everyone was wearing them.

It was really lovely to be part of that." Hanoi became their base: wandering the French Quarter, weaving through night markets, sampling (late chef) Anthony Bourdain-approved restaurants and tackling what she calls her "coffee checklist"-egg coffee, salted coffee, condensed milk coffee. "All of it," she emphasises.