DSV’s Journey to the West

Welcome to DSV’s Journey to the West (DSV Tây Du Ký), I must inform you before you continue to read: this is not a review or experience sharing of a self-organized trip, it’s more than that, because this trip is somehow considered feels like a DSV miniature.

Meet the squad

Here is a team of 6, 6 DSV residents, 6 men who joined the trip looking for something unusual. And this is the very first time they travel together, which makes the journey even more interesting.

From left to right: Tuan – best laughter, Duong – best eater, Linh – best driver, Quy – best lover, and the happy couple with hearted-arms: Son – best entertainer, Tai – best joker.

The similarity in their personalities is that they’re all introverts, calm, well-organized, young (spiritual age) and curious… Besides building great software applications, discovering new places, new people and gaining new experiences are also one of their hugest passions.

Getting ready

Mr. Trieu Duong, our Project Manager first has the inspiration to summon a squad to travel through the west of Vietnam one day, he wanted to have at least one memorable trip with other fellows (besides company trip), to get to know more about them.

Looks like a meeting, yes it is, a meeting to check out the travel way on GG maps 🙂

They started the member recruitment from 2 weeks ago and then scheduled the timeline and routine. Tra Su Cajuput Forest – An Giang, Tra Vinh province, and Ben Tre province were the chosen milestone in their 3-day-long journey to the west. 

On the road

Top 3 keywords for the trip: Fun, Tired (on willing), and Understanding.

The journey started from 5:30 am from DSV office house and made it to the first destination – Tra Su Cajuput Forest – An Giang at 12 pm. It’s one of the most beautiful forests in Vietnam and it’s even much more spectacular as they’re not expected that.

“Our spirit is to experience and feel the scenes and the atmosphere by the most organic way we could, which means no phones, no cameras, of course we took pictures, but it’s just a few compares to other trips to such a beautiful forest.”

Some said it feels just like a group on a honeymoon, sounds so sweet (but gay). And thanks for such a long time working together at DSV, they’ve already known each other’s personality well so there’s no surprise or misunderstanding along the way.

The next day, the team was 20 kilometers away from the Cambodia boundary and they decided to go to the next destination which is not in the first plan, Cambodia. But when they arrived at the boundary, they were sadly informed by a soldier that passport is required to enter the neighbor country, and for sure they all forgot to bring it along. And below is what they do then:

Stopped by, took a selfie at the border of Cambodia, and… that’s all!

Not just that, their funniest challenge happened when Tuan’s bike was out of fuel, Son – with great experience of “gas suction” by a tube, tried to suck the gas from his motor to Tuan’s motor, so both would have enough gas to make their way back to HCMC. For those who haven’t experience gas sucking before, it’s a real tough one that you could ever imagine, especially for the smell of gas, and certainly it took real effort and a good temper to go through the situation with smiles on over their face.

Mr. Gas Sucker

Well, those may sound unlucky and annoying experiences, but If I was there, I bet I’d hear waves of laughter and jokes for sure. As a daily working day at DSV, you can turn all the hard stones into a silly joke and then laugh through them easily.

What have they gained after 3 days floating on western rivers, except for the significant sceneries and delicious cuisines?

It’s the memory when Tai told Son “I’ll come to sleep with you tonight” (oh just take it literally)

It’s the memory when Tai’s family treated everybody so so well in their first time visiting

It’s the memory when the team had the chance to see more hidden angles of some of the DSV residents, saw where they’re born and raised, knew more about their family, experience the difference in culture and personality of each other even just in small details.

It’s the memory when “It feels just like a DSV miniature!” – Linh.

Every moment is a beautiful piece of memories. There was so much fun. We need more of this, and absolutely there’ll be more. Hey brothers and sisters, let’s mark the DSV name on your next journies, and make some more memories to remember.

Truc Thuy Minh