When I first visited Vietnam 10 years ago, I experienced a bit of shock transitioning from two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the middle of the mountains and rice fields of Northern Thailand to the lively traffic and nightlife of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

That feeling of culture shock was quickly replaced with a sense of comfort and belonging starting from the first slurp of 75-cent from a random street side vendor on a rainy weeknight. In that moment, with my body hunched over a bowl of soupy noodles at a plastic stool and table with my fellow Peace Corps comrades, I was dreaming about nothing but the next meal in this new sense of home.

Almost 10 years later, and I’m off to Vietnam again! Along with the tasty memories of my first trip, I’m also relying on Vietnam episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s “A Cook’s Tour”, “No Reservations”, and “Parts Unknown” for culinary guidance. Similar to Bourdain’s adventures, I want to sip on cold beers while messily eating snails sautéed in chili butter, freshly grilled prawns, and crab claws at a roadside stall while motorcycles zoom past. I want to unwrap a newspaper and bite into a bahn mi fully-loaded with pate, sliced meats, pickled veggies, and maybe a fried egg, with the yolk dripping and the crusty bread crumbling into food confetti. I want to slurp an obnoxious amount of noodles, experience a caffeine high from Vietnamese coffee, walk through motorcycle traffic and live to tell the tale.

Like Anthony Bourdain, I’m going to Vietnam to be a dreamer and float on a cloud. And by “cloud”, I mean the fluffy interior of a freshly baked Vietnamese baguette.