Version 0.57 (Just Looking out the Window)

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04/24/19

Sitting in the lobby of the hostel, at a long table set against the large windows that look out onto the little square where this hostel and another, several restaurants, and the karaoke bar next door are situated. It is a quiet morning, late, nearly noon. A woman sits on a bench beneath the awning of a Korean bbq spot playing with her phone. Occasionally someone passes through the square: a tortured soul stumbling along the shores of hell, submitting to some past life’s sins. Creatures forced to endure these temperatures for eternity. The heat out here is incredible, and the humidity nearly so as well, and yet all the Thais are seen in jeans or long pants. The woman across the way even has on a denim jacket.

I’m amazed.

Though, if one were to drag them to the north or central U.S. during a winter they would not be able to put on enough layers to keep warm.

A cat has just crawled out from beneath a car. It looks a lot like the cat, Chibi, at the other hostel, Kamin Bird House, which I actually miss a bit. A lovely Japanese name for a cat. I like it very much. It is common practice that if you own a cat here you have its tail docked. Unless these cats are bred this way. I’m not sure what the reasoning would be (for the former, not so much the latter), so I suspect perhaps it it a particular breed.

I have just finished breakfast: simple “food” consisting of toast, bananas, and instant coffee. No plans for the day. Real coffee somewhere eventually, and “work”, and take a wander through Chinatown perhaps. A fruit seller has just setup shop in in a parking spot in front of the bbq joint. Immediately the woman under the awning gets up and purchases a bag of papaya or watermelon, and an employee of the restaurant makes a purchase as well. And just that quickly the fruit seller moves on. I though I might get a bag of something. Well, the city is full of these guys. I’ll find one later.

The woman at the check-in desk is watching a Thai soap opera. In it a woman is speaking while a melancholy guitar is plucked in the background. When I see people watching these things sometimes I wonder if they’re reliving a time in their past. An incident, maybe. Or a relationship. What is the draw to these shows that are so heavy with contrived drama? My mother used to watch this sort of programming when I was a child. All My Children, As the World Turns… I believe there were a few others, all with the same general premise, all quite dark, and dripping with an over-the-top drama and phoniness that one wonders how they could be taken seriously. Yet they all had their followings, and were all quite popular for a while.

Version 0.56 (What Does it Mean to Have “Seen” a Place?)

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04/22/19

Fresh crisis today? I don’t know.

That’s not exactly how I wanted to start this journal—so dramatically—though it was bound to be on something about feeling a bit lost, a bit without purpose (how many times have I written about purpose now?).

What the fuck am I doing in Bangkok? Honest to God I truly don’t want to be here. Maybe I really need to embrace some of the more touristic things, and head into the older part of the city and the areas near the river? Maybe I’ll be more inspired and motivated to photograph there? The heat makes any time spent outside miserable, though. It doesn’t help that in some sense I feel that what I am doing is a waste of time, that my photography is not appreciated, will never be appreciated, is unimportant, doesn’t matter (though why should it?). I have been feeling like an absolute trash photographer lately. The lowest of the low. I am a coward, too scared to face someone on the street and take his/her picture (not that that is a new feeling, but the intensity of it is). I feel like the dumb, white tourist offending the “exotic” locals by photographing them; every glance in my direction is discouragement. Maybe I just need a change of scenery in the city. Maybe I just need a change of head-space, a change of head, a change of brains. a change of self perception. Having moved hostel locations should help with that. The biggest problem here, though, is purpose, as I wrote in my third sentence. I have no purpose. The purpose of the whole trip is travel, and I’m not doing much of that. I take some sort of vehicular transport from spot to spot, mosey around the place, then move on. Can I really say that I’ve visited Thailand when I haven’t left the city of Bangkok? What does it mean to “see” a place, anyway? How much of a city or country does one have to explore to qualify as a person who may say he has seen it?

I’m writing all this in a smallish hall within which numerous food vendors are set up by the Thong Lo BTS stop. I’m at a bright, canary yellow table, sitting on a metal stool. All around me is a rush of people swooshing to and fro: vendors running out food and drinks, and visitors looking for an empty or near-empty table, or searching for a food stall that looks appealing. It’s all metal and plastic stools here, as it seemingly is at all street food stalls throughout Asia; and colorfully painted square metal tables; and white tile floor, definitely not right now very white. The aroma of food cooked or cooking or raw suffuses the space, and all those smells and aromas mingle together into one homogeneous scent of food unless someone walks by with a plate of something, which has a tendency to waft up right beneath one’s nose as it is brought past. Right now I smell cucumber or papaya, and some sort of meat sizzling on a grill, and I hear distinctly something crackling in a wok, mingling with the voices of those behind the counter. Mostly the space is a rumble of conversation pierced periodically by a passing scooter, the gait of a woman walking in heels, the bright high voice of a child, the tinking of silverware, the stacking of plastic plates and bowls, the low almost imperceptible rumble of a bus (or is that the sky train?) Fans and iced drinks are the only means of keeping cool in here, though occasionally there is a draft from outside that blows pleasantly into the complex. A couple sits at a table and laughs out loud together. He has just arrived, and brought her something, but their relationship I don’t think is what that statement might immediately cause one to think, and she walks out from behind a stall to chit-chat at a table and look through what he has brought. I like this place. It is for all peoples: westerner, easterner, and Thai alike. It’s not for the rich, it’s not for the poor. It’s for anyone who comes hungry, no matter what his or her place on the rungs of the social ladder.

Version 0.55 (Feeling Uneven, the Virtues of a Swamp, and More)

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04/21/19

I guess it’s Easter Sunday back home, soon. I’m living in another world now and have forgotten all but very little it seems. I live a very basic existence consisting mainly of eating, drinking coffee, sweating, sweating profusely, sweating through my shirt, looking for cafes to escape from the heat and the constant sweating, photographing, and trying to stay atop trades in crypto and analyzing forex charts. I feel lost much of the time here. I think largely because I am so far from busier parts of the city where there is more to do. A large part of my day is spent just moving from spot to spot. Much too much time, and so I feel like I’m not gaining enough from my time here, and thus I am disillusioned with the city. The suffocating heat isn’t helping. Haven’t yet decided if I move to a new hostel for a few days after my time at Kamin Bird House is up, or if I just pack up and move south. I would, I think, prefer to give Bangkok a bit more of a chance. It’s too easy to be disappointed by something after a couple of days of dissatisfaction, develop too quickly a poor opinion of the place, and then throw in the towel on it. Making hasty decisions is one of the worst things one can do for himself in developing an opinion on something. Give it time, and realize that it’s not going to change for you, and if you expect it to you’re only going to continue to be disillusioned, disappointed, and frustrated.

Pretty certain I’m lonely. Is this good or bad? What can I learn from it? I’m in love with being alive, but I feel less than alive right now. I feel beat down and uncertain. Why am I here in Bangkok? What am I doing? Truly and frankly I’m not doing anything. What am I supposed to do? I don’t even know that. I could be having a good time with a friend or certain other person. but again, and I’ve covered this ground before, I’m not traveling and I’m not accomplishing anything either. I’m unhappy with my photography and so I’ve lost the desire to shoot, and I’m sick of spending more time traveling to areas I want to visit and photograph than actually spending time in those places I’m visiting. I’ve had certain periods of brightness and they make this all worth it (it’s amazing the crap that a photographer will put up with for a single, satisfying image), but I’m stagnating right now. Can this be a good thing? I think yes. I KNOW yes, and I know yes simply because I’m honest and conscious enough to ask that question.

The swamp of my soul… this phrase has been flipping over in my mind for the past few minutes, I suppose because I am writing of stagnation. The world equates a swamp with negativity, with filth, stink, rot. Yet swamps are beautiful. They’re teeming with life, no less so, and often more so, than other ecosystems. So why the negativity? Many people talk, and have talked for centuries, of draining them and filling them in (and many people have done so; several of America’s large cities rest on what was once swampland). Very few say “this swamp is beautiful, a masterpiece of evolution.” A swamp is life disguised as death (a rather poor disguise in my opinion, but it has obviously fooled a great many people), which is a tremendous trick—many animals “play dead” as a way to fool predators. Unfortunately, in this case the predator is man who plays the role of scavenger and so has at it at the swamp anyway, destroying it completely. Humankind has no respect for the swamp. It doesn’t shine. It doesn’t glow. It doesn’t maintain a dry and comfortable temperature of 20-25 degrees celsius. It is often much hotter, with a humidity to match. It is impossible, or near so, to build on. In short it is inconvenient, and provides nothing of “value”, therefore it must be destroyed.

So, is my soul a swamp? Do I find it disgusting, repulsive? I think perhaps right now comparing my soul to a swamp is doing the swamp a disservice. I think a swamp right now is much fuller of life and beauty than my soul currently is. My soul though, right now, is waiting. It is a fertile field with the attendant nutrients and minerals needed for it to support life. It is merely waiting for a seed, hundreds of them, thousands, tens of hundreds of thousands; and a bit of rain (something else people like to complain about) before it may begin to blossom and proliferate with plant life, and become a habitat for other living beings, creatures small and large, fragile and delicate, beautiful and winged; and then it will bear fruit which it may then provide to others that they may do the same in turn, that we all may live more productively, fruitfully, satisfyingly, gratefully. But until then it is waiting with no less than a touch of stoicism, but not without a certain turmoil either.

Version 0.54 (Satisfaction for Now)

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04/17/19

Oh, my! It has been ages! (it is always ages these days.) Hopefully I will journal more now that I have no friends.

I am in Bangkok. This is unexpected because I had absolutely no plans to visit Thailand (well, that’s not true, obviously, but I had planned to do so in a different manner than I have—due to a holiday in Vietnam on the weekend of my visa expiration I was unable to book a bus to Laos, so a flight to Bangkok from Da Nang suggested itself as a prudent Plan B.).

I’m staying at a cheap hostel a few miles outside of the city center, away from anywhere tourists would visit and most expats would live. I’m doing this mainly because the hostel is near a cafe, Lonely Barista, the owner of which I’ve been following for at least two years on Instagram (yes, strangely, the owner’s Instagram and not the cafe’s Instagram).

So, what are my plans? Currently I do not have any. Just a few ideas. 1) Find a cheap bicyle and ride south to Kuala Lumpur, 2) work exchange at a hostel for a month, 3) walk and hitchhike south, or, 4) take a train.

In truth I have very little of interest to write here. Nothing since my last journal has left itself on me, has affected me or struck me in such a way that I feel I must put it on paper in order to explore it more deeply. I no longer wonder why I’m traveling, for it is merely living, and I do not wonder why I am alive, I accept that I am and find as much joy as possible in the being so; joy in joy, joy in sadness, joy in frustration, joy in anger, joy in pain, but joy in all things. I no longer wonder how will I get from this place to that place, or which place should I go next because all places are great places, so no matter where I go I know it is the best place for me then, and no matter how I get there it will have been the right way to get there.

I am excited for the future. I am content with the present. And I look back with happiness and satisfaction on my past. There is no better place for me to be.

Version 0.53 (Thinking Forward, Looking Back)

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04/11/19

Off to Hue for a few days with Huyen before departing for Laos. I’m not too sad to leave, but instead am happy to be seeing Huyen one last time, for it’ll be a couple months before I return to Vietnam. I am going to take a southerly route through Laos from Savannakhet to Si Phan Don, before entering Cambodia, then into Thailand, and onward to Kuala Lumpur for a work exchange, hopefully. Funny though—the sole thing that served as impetus, at first, to visit KL was a certain cafe, Merchant’s Lane, that I found on Instagram. Perhaps a silly reason for visiting a city, but I suspect Kuala Lumpur will have much to entertain me with in regard to the life of its people, subject matter for photography, and other cafes to explore.*

Anyway, my time in Da Nang has been an enriching experience. I’ve met some truly lovely people, and made a pretty good friend unexpectedly. I’ve certainly eaten a greater variety of food here than in Hanoi, and have also grown more comfortable being a foreigner not able to communicate with locals easily.

[Later]
I have just realized that I left my suit in a cafe in Da Nang and I am now on the train to Hue. I don’t know what to say for myself…..

Well, anyway (once again always thinking or saying or writing “anyway”), I’m on the train. There’s no changing that. The windows across the aisle from me open on to a vista nearly colorless. The horizon is a line so well blended and smudged that the division between sky and ocean seems almost nonexistent, as if all of us in the train are peering out into that void from which all life springs eternally. It’s what one might imagine parts of heaven to be like, but filled with a sense of deep tranquility and joy instead of trepidation over the fate of a suit. In an hour or so I’ll be in Hue searching for food, maybe, or just checking into the homestay and awaiting Huyen’s arrival.

*Perhaps it’s not such a silly reason, for everywhere that is a place, and anywhere, which is contained in everywhere, must be a place, must have something interesting contained within. I often think that I could throw a dart at a map and go to that place and find myself fascinated by it.

Furthermore, one’s “silly” reason for traveling somewhere could unbeknownst to that person open up a whole undiscovered world to him/her, and, after all, isn’t that half, if not most of, the point of travel? One’s reason for going somewhere isn’t important so much as the act of going is what is important.

This isn’t typically a blog that engages with its readers (few that it has), but what reasons have you had for traveling to a place? Have you ever thought them silly or ridiculous? Like no sensible person would ever travel hundreds or more miles to see or do this one thing?

Version 0.52 (Ten Minutes of a Morning)

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04/07/19

From the hostel this morning I watched a guy deliver large sacks of ice on a scooter to a restaurant across the street. Anything and everything is transported and delivered by scooter here: potted and unpotted plants, jugs of water, bundles of sticks, chickens in cages, songbirds in cages, propane tanks, furniture, cats, dogs, children, mail, tools, crates (which may be filled with anything imaginable). For most of this stuff one would think a car would be necessary at a minimum, but a pick-up truck or delivery van much more appropriate, but here, no. Anything can be strapped or some other way anchored to a scooter, and nothing beats a scooter for maneuverability, and no one beats the Vietnamese for their industriousness and ingenuity. Anyway, this guy delivers his sack to the restaurant, dropping it in a large cooler out front while the proprietor looks on. After this skinny little Vietnamese guy, with not an inconsiderable amount of effort, drops off his ice the proprietor fellow comes to the decision that he would prefer the other sack of ice, so of course they had to be switched. For what earthly reason that is, besides feeling like swinging his big dick around and popping his “BIG EGO” pin onto his shirt and giving it a good polish with his sleeve, I don’t know.

But as well, this proprietor had a couple of these little bird cages hanging from the canopy out front. These much-too-small cages, in which the single bird leaps back and forth from cage to perch to cage again with not even enough space to open its wings, like a mad man in a nut house. He’s not the only one, and it’s mostly the older generation, but it just seems another example of his hubris, or ego.

Version 0.51 (False Piety)

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04/04/19

Yesterday went with Minh to the colossal statue of Avalokiteśvara and the pagoda complex on Son Tra Peninsula north of the city. He tells me everything there is no more than ten to fifteen years old. I’m a bit incredulous about that, so I want to research it a little bit.*

In addition to the older Linh Ung Pagoda there was a brand new pagoda or shrine built on a nearby lot (the temple grounds are quite large). A very tall tower which the costs of must be fairly astronomical. Impossible for the monastery to afford I would think, but Minh tells me they get donations and sponsorships from large companies, similar to how in the U.S. so many sports stadiums and arenas are bank rolled by large corporations or banks, and thus, as a sign of their hubris and ego they negotiate with the city to have their name on the stadium. It’s unfortunate because I feel it sucks the soul right out of the thing, not that I feel there is much soul left in team sports; it’s basically just a transactional relationship between ownership and players around who gets paid what. This I find repugnant, or, if not repugnant, unattractive, and so I find myself repelled from popular team sports in general. The fact that this doesn’t exist is what draws me to ultra trail-running. I also happen to enjoy the act of trail-running myself. The biggest names in that sport are the easiest people in the world to find inspiration in, but not just inspiration to become a better runner or athlete, but inspiration in being and becoming a better person, for they all are compassionate, warm-hearted, empathetic, grateful, humble, sincere, human beings without the inflated egos of the stars of the popular team sports. In short, they’re just great people who, because of the notoriety they receive for being the athletes that they are, cast a broad net and pull many people into their life-affirming orbit. Nor is there a need for giant sports complexes to be built, thank God, or better and more advanced training facilities just to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak. There are only races to be run through some of the most beautiful natural places on Earth. So, I wonder if one day these temple complexes will be named after a sponsor or a donor of a large sum of money.

The fact that there is all this money that flows into these pretentious little palaces completely turns me off of them (except for the photographic opportunities afforded by the hordes of tourists who visit and make a mess of the place by leaving litter all over). They’re no different than the tacky mega-churches seen all around the U.S. Is it necessary to build something so tall? No, of course not. What is the purpose? If the spirit of a people lay in the height and size of a temple or church structure, then the city of Changzhou would have the most spiritual people, and the rest of the world would be struggling to catch up, to outspend ($38.5 million) and outbuild (~154 meters) the Chinese. These are not, unfortunately, structures built by the toil and sweat of the monks living on the grounds, or the populace of the city or town that might benefit by it, but are built by companies with cranes, employees, and huge bank accounts. There is no spirit. It’s mere commodity, and this is reflected in the tourists who visit them with their false piety, striking poses around the various Buddhas and statues of ancient sages, or anywhere there might be a beautiful view behind them. I saw a woman yesterday posing on the steps leading up to the main courtyard who stood with her back to the ocean hundreds of meters below and behind her. Her palms were pressed together against her breast as if in prayer or a bow, and I could feel my face flush in anger at her hollow pose. This woman was like an empty, rusted watering can which, because it can hold no water has absolutely nothing to give, serves absolutely no purpose. Place it in a corner of your garden though and it might look like a nice bit of decoration. If you get close enough you can see that it is useless. So much of this posing and posturing, largely by the Chinese and Korean tourists, I witnessed here that it turns my stomach (The fact that they leave their trash—snack bags, and plastic water and soda bottles—littering the grounds of the complex doesn’t encourage a friendly attitude towards them either.). But this of course makes it an excellent place to witness a strange, to me, sort of human behavior, no matter how repulsive it may be at times.

*the complex itself dates back to the nineteenth century, however parts of it have been renovated and rebuilt over the years, other areas are new as the site has been developed further, and the giant statue is only nine years old dating from it’s completion, or fifteen years old dating from when the first stone was laid.

Version 0.50 (Feeling Fortunate)

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Patiently waiting.

Waiting for the moment to strike. I’m not completely sure what I mean by that. I just know that there are countless places in the world I wish to travel to. But I would also like to open a cafe in Hanoi or Da Nang, and run a coffee farm in the mountains. Can I manage at least two (three if you count the traveling) of these things simultaneously? And how long will these desires last? I have a habit of getting excited over an idea only to not pursue it, or for the excitement to ebb away (which likely means that I wasn’t that excited about it to begin with). I suppose this is true for most people. That initial thought is like a rush of sugar or a jolt of caffeine, but if there is no way to sustain that energy and excitement it will be doomed to fail. The idea itself needs to be one which you want more than anything to nurture and cultivate, so that it continues to grow within you until you are able to mate it to some action, some physical impulse that sees its first steps, and then it must continue to be cultivated so that those initial steps lead to further steps and not just down a blind alley. From there, with careful nurturing it begins to take on a life of it’s own, but until then the idea requires much care lest it dry up and wither away.

A European House Sparrow has just flown down from a tree to the patio of the cafe. Such a pestilence! Can one go anywhere in the world without these damnable birds following? It pains me.

I’ve been meeting people and making friends since being here in Da Nang. It started with the lovely hostel staff, and extended to a kid I met one night at the market across the river who was looking for someone to practice english with. In return he said he would be willing to act as a sort of tour guide for me, asking if there were any places in particular that I wished to go, and perhaps I would like to be driven around on his motorbike. So the next day we took a spin up to the top of a local mountain that was hidden away in the clouds; and the day after that he, I, and a few other people went on an excursion to Marble Mountains and Hoi An. I feel very fortunate to have met such good and kind people who have introduced me to some very peculiar foods (from a westerner’s perspective) that I otherwise would not have tried, and have taken me around the Da Nang area with no expectation of anything given in return but for my company. Yet this sort of occurrence happens every time I travel. I can say that it’s not terribly surprising anymore, but it is not and can’t ever be expected, and so it goes without saying that I continue to find it a wonder.

There is an art museum enticing me that I plan on going to today. And then, since the weather is so fine, I think I may visit the tall Bhodisattva statue on the peninsula nearby.

Version 0.49 (A Zen Tale)

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03/30/19

Life seems so simple here. People are either throwing themselves into work (even if that means standing at attention while waiting for customers, like soldiers lined up waiting for the command to attack), or doing absolutely nothing; just sitting around on the omnipresent little stools, chewing the fat amicably (often with tea and sunflower seeds, or tobacco). This of course seems an obvious observation on the surface, for what do people the world over do? They work, then they relax. But as an American, the peculiarity I see is not so much in the doing, but in the when of that doing. Mostly Americans are all on the same, or very nearly so, schedule, meaning everyone is either working or not working at very specific times throughout the day. Here at times it seems as though half the population is doing nothing, and this in the middle of the day, while the other half is hard at work. Well, those are some thoughts and observations.

I suppose I could also say how much closer they seem to nature, and by this I mean the human animal in its natural state, simply eating, drinking, sleeping, socializing. I look at many of the Vietnamese as I walk around Hanoi, mostly the older generation, and I look at their dogs, and I watch their chickens strut about a garden or pick through a trash bag on the curb, and the similarity is utterly astonishing. I can’t get it out of my mind. Their behavior looks so natural, so completely free of pretense, of thoughts of needing to be elsewhere doing something. There is at times a sort of zen-like essence to it, like one old story that goes: There was once a disciple of one Zen Master having a chat with a disciple of another Zen Master. The first disciple was explaining to the second how his master could perform all sorts of miracles, such as, for example, performing calligraphy in the air with a brush as the characters appeared on a sheet of paper on the other side of a river hundreds of feet away. After recounting this and other supernatural feats he asked his friend what his master could do. The other disciple replied that his master could perform amazing feats as well. “As an example,” he said, “when my master is hungry, he eats, and when he grows tired, he sleeps.”

Version 0.48 (Mountain Slope Train Views)

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03/27/19

To Da Nang.

The train has begun winding along the coast, high above the ocean, beaches, and boulders that comingle in such a spectacularly dramatic fashion below. Between trunks of trees, homes, and shops I catch glimpses of a smooth, glistening blue expanse nestled in the arms of lush green hills reaching out into the ocean like cupped hands gathering up water to drink. Through the opposite window of the train are the green, cloudswept mountains of Bach Ma National Park, a place I may visit while in Da Nang (if the weather cooperates).

The train is moving along quite slowly here, creaking and groaning like an infirm, rheumatic old man, as if to provide us passengers with substantial time to enjoy these new surroundings and a song to listen to as well. Out in the bay small boats scoot, and empty fishing towers stand like men in waders looking for a good place to cast their lines or nets. Everywhere around this creaking, squealing monstrosity is thick, heavy vegetation—a jungle— broken up only by the occasional stream streaming and winding down the mountain to the sea, and small concrete tin-roofed structures, many of which are joyfully and colorfully painted.

In less than an hour we ought to be pulling into the train station in Da Nang, and I will disembark, likely into some very warm weather, and will be off to eat (I already have a place picked out), as it will be that time, and too early for me to check in to the hostel I have booked. And then…

And then?