The Patty project

We met David at Dirty Fingers in Da Nang.

The restaurant had been recommended to us the day before by an Aussie tattoo business owner we’d randomly met — because travel is like that. One conversation leads to another place.

Eli and I were sitting facing the road, menus open, watching the chaos of Vietnamese traffic move past us. Scooters weaving. Cars squeezing. Horns constant. It’s mesmerising once you stop trying to understand it.

David sat down at the table beside us — more beside me than Eli. We exchanged polite smiles but didn’t immediately start talking.

And then it happened.

A motorcycle and a van collided directly in front of us.

The sound stopped everything.

We all gasped at the same time.

A young woman hobbled across in front of the restaurant, visibly shaken and injured, trying to steady herself. Traffic slowed but didn’t completely stop. A few people rushed toward her. For a moment, everything felt suspended.

It’s strange how quickly life can remind you how fragile it is — and how that reminder can soften strangers.

That shared moment — that collective intake of breath — broke whatever invisible barrier existed between us.

David turned toward me.
I turned toward him.
And the conversation began.

David is from Washington in the USA and he had been in Vietnam for almost six months.

He came to see if he could retire there.

He is sixty-eight.

Two failed marriages.
Three grown daughters.
No strong family ties holding him to America.

What he did have was a Harley Davidson motorbike — his true love, as he called her. Letting go of that part of his life was one of the hardest decisions he’d faced. He was storing her at a mate’s house for twelve months before deciding whether to fully release that identity.

I remember thinking: sometimes the hardest thing to part with isn’t a person — it’s a version of ourselves.

David had lived a full life.

He shared about a near miss with crime and imprisonment when involved with a motorcycle club in his thirties. About starting his own business. About the responsibility of keeping work available for his employees. About retraining for a diploma at fifty after a near-fatal workplace incident.

At sixty-eight, he had decided to learn how to skydive.

His reasoning?

“My brain needs adrenaline.”

If the Harley wasn’t coming to Vietnam, something else needed to feed that part of him.

David laughed when he told me he was a “talker.” Eli laughed too — because he knows how easily I can start up and hold a conversation when I’m curious and engaged.

What struck me most wasn’t the adrenaline.
It wasn’t the motorbike.
It wasn’t even the skydive.

It was this:

David was still searching.

Still reflecting.
Still questioning the life he had built.
Still learning from locals.
Still unlearning ideas about success, competition and status.

He spoke about working himself into exhaustion back home. About trying to be the biggest and the best. About chasing something that, in hindsight, didn’t actually matter.

And here he was, in Vietnam, living simply. Observing. Listening. Beginning again.

I asked him if he could have imagined, twenty years ago, living in South East Asia.

He said no.

Life, it seems, doesn’t always unfold in straight lines.

We spoke for almost two hours. We wished him a happy birthday for the next day. Then Eli and I left for our 5pm tattoo session.

Later, Eli smiled and said David reminded him of an older male version of me.

I wasn’t offended.

I took it as a compliment.

Because what I saw in David wasn’t recklessness or regret.

I saw courage.

Courage to re-evaluate.
Courage to relocate.
Courage to let go of identity.
Courage to begin again at sixty-eight.

Every country we visit, I seem to meet someone travelling alone.

And almost every time, they say something similar before we part:

“I’ve never told anyone that before.”

Maybe it’s the distance from home.
Maybe it’s the anonymity of travel.
Maybe it’s knowing you may never see each other again.

Or maybe it’s just what happens when two humans are fully present.

Travel, for us, isn’t just about destinations.

It’s about conversations.

It’s about observing.
Listening.
Learning.
Witnessing lives unfolding in different ways.

And sometimes, it’s about being reminded that reinvention has no age limit.

—
#PattyAndEliTravelDiaries
Da Nang, Vietnam