The quest for global ranking has motivated higher education institutions (HEIs) in Vietnam to increase the number of international students in their enrolments. However, little is known about experiences of current international students in Vietnamese HEIs. This article offers a mosaic of international student experiences (ISE) in a Vietnamese-taught course offered by a Vietnamese university. The data show that teaching staffs play a crucial role in the satisfaction of international students, however, services and physical facilities are areas that need significant improvement. It also discusses other interactive aspects of ISE before presenting the case of an international student with disability to show how international mobility, aspiration, and personal determination can navigate him through a journey that was nothing short of extraordinary. This article is also to answer the recent scholarly call for a more geographically diverse and transformation-centred ISE literature, which is believed to remain relevant in the future.

Student mobility has become a global phenomenon with an upward trend in the past two decades, and Asian countries are becoming important receiving countries. Such phenomenon has been increasingly investigated producing a growing body of literature on Asia-bound international student mobility. However, while some countries stand in the spotlight of international student scholarship, other lesser known destinations remain underrepresented. This article provides an exploratory effort to examine factors that attract international students to Vietnam, a country which has not been visible on international student mobility landscape as a receiving destination. The study employs push–pull factors framework and a mixed methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods (n = 94) to examine the push–pull factors that influence the decision of international students to choose Vietnam as the destination country and a Vietnamese higher education institution as host institution. Research findings show that major push factors include aspirations for new experiences, home country economic outlook and pessimistic job prospects at home. Regarding pull factors, at national level, bright economic prospect is the top pull factor attracting international students to a developing country like Vietnam, and at institutional level, the university’s reputation and its Vietnamese Studies and language programmes are the most important pull factors attracting international students to the university to study. Based on the research results, recommendations are proposed for higher education institutions in Vietnam and other developing Asian countries to attract international students with implications against the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.