Tag Archives: travel diary

Version 0.72 (The Berryfield)

Leave a reply

06/12/19

Back at The Berryfield, most certainly my favorite cafe in Hanoi. Up a narrow stairway to the second floor of a building, the first floor of which is used as motorbike parking in evenings, and as a kitchen and place to eat during lunch hour. The third floor is a roasting space.

The cafe is secretively tucked away down an alley off a side street off a main street a short walk south of the Old Quarter. On the second floor one finds the cafe, but no gargantuan espresso machine taking up counter space, and this leaves the intimate room feeling more spacious than it otherwise would. The owner says that he is not fond of the coffee produced by espresso machines, and so makes his “espresso” drinks with moka pots, a unique way for sure to be brewing specialty coffee in a shop. He also does pour-overs utilizing the V-60 by Hario. Opposite the counter where one would study the menu and order is a sliding door which opens onto a small balcony with tiny wooden stools and tables, enough to seat no more than four people I would judge. Photographs of landscapes of coffee growing regions adorn the walls inside, and a bench seat against the walls wraps around the interior with several square, wooden tables and a few more chairs free to move around, in order to create the seating environment of your and/or your friends’ choice. The music normally played, interestingly enough, has a folksy, country tinge to it; very obviously American (sounding at least), but thankfully not the same American pop music that is played in most every other cafe popular with the younger generation in Vietnam these days. The space is comfortable and intimate, cozy in a way, and the owner is a wonderful, quiet and affable man whose love of coffee, and relaxing, comforting spaces has helped him to create the perfect cafe, in my opinion, for enjoying a uniquely and carefully made cup of coffee. It’s unfortunate that it is so far from where I typically stay when I am here.

I’m already a bit exhausted with being back here in the city. It’s just the thought of being here for perhaps a month that gets to me. Perhaps I shouldn’t be thinking about it, but it’s a fact that I will have to be here, for I have to have my hookworm larvae shipped somewhere that I may retrieve them as quickly as possible. And it is necessary to get my camera repaired, and that could take two or three weeks for all I know. However, I still haven’t settled on an apartment. A decision I must make quickly for it just delays shipment of the larvae otherwise.

Version 0.71 (Brief Moments)

Leave a reply

06/11/19

A wind drifts over the lake, lazily, like the heat that wafts from an open oven. The supple, flexible ends of branches of trees sway in the dragon’s breath. Lotus blossoms protuding from the mud of the lake look like candle flames. And as the magenta giant sun falls away behind the clouds, the local bat population takes to wing. People are out, lounging in the shade or zooming around on scooters. Construction workers are busy laying down new tile for the sidewalks that line the perimeter of the lake, or hammering marble curbs into place. Daily there is something new to be seen here. The same same everyday. But different. The same motif painted in the same colors, but in different tones, like Monet’s Haystack, or Rouen Cathedral.

Version 0.70 (Feeling Ill, Ill, Ill, and One Last Memory of Kuala Lumpur)

Leave a reply

06/10/19

Haven’t written anything in a long fucking time. Fuuuucking Kuala Lumpur. That past month was a total disaster, and it’s rolling into the present. But why, Scott!? Why was it so bad? Because, at least for the moment, my health has suffered tremendously. Well, what happened with that? Well, it starts with M.S. (almost certainly after this recent episode, though I’ve never actually been diagnosed by a doctor) which I’ve likely been “suffering” from for sixteen years now, but have treated with remarkable effect thanks to the efforts largely of Jasper Lawrence, and others, until my last two weeks in KL. I mean my whole time there I wasn’t terribly happy or feeling good physically, and there are so many reasons for that—the dump of a hostel I worked at and slept in, the selfish manager who I worked for, the food that while delicious I could feel was affecting my health in a not positive way, and my time spent working at the hostel which limited the amount of time I could apply to more preferential things (while also preventing me from seeing other parts of Malaysia)—but the last two weeks, when I suffered from IBS for a week from something bad that I ate or drank, and then the “attack” that I had the night before my last day there that had me exhausted and sleeping through the day because I was so weak and so tired that I could do little but sleep: that is what soured my time in Kuala Lumpu the most for me. Oh, and I left my Patagonia jacket at the hostel.

At this point I don’t even think I have any memories that I wish to put down which, when I was considering a final journal entry from KL, I thought I might. Now, I think not. Or I just don’t care to. It could also be that I am exhausted due to my current condition.

There is perhaps one small anecdote which I don’t mind jotting down. On the night of my “attack,” as I was out looking for my supper, an Indian boy approached me asking if I would be so kind as to buy him a meal, just something cheap, maybe from McDonald’s? He was wearing a backpack hung loosely from his shoulders, and he sort of shuffled along in an odd sort of Quasimodo-like way, but he had these brilliant, glowing eyes that shone like two polished gems with an unquestionable warmth and friendliness. He kept insisiting on sharing his food with me—a generous gesture but one which I refused over and over as McDonald’s isn’t my thing (though I can’t say I wasn’t curious to try), but also because I just wanted to buy him a meal and be on my way, alone. However, he insisted on following me around, or rather, guiding me to various places he thought I should see. I’m not sure if his asking for food was a pretense for finding someone to while away the evening with, although I’m quite certain he was hungry as he scarfed his food like a half-starved animal (offering to share with me all the while) once we arrived at “The Place,” it seemed quite plain to me that he was lonely. “The Place” was the Sultan Abdul Amad Building, a late nineteenth century colonial government building with simple gardens, beautiful tilework, and numerous fountains, just across the Gombak River from the Masjid Jamek Mosque, one of the more beautiful and popular mosques in KL. It was unsurprisingly a peaceful place as the two of us were the only ones there, though he ruined it a bit by talking so much. He couldn’t stop telling me how kind I was, and then went on a long rant about how self-righteous the muslims in Kuala Lumpur are, and how the Chinese don’t care about anyone who isn’t Chinese, but how I was so kind because I bought him a meal and listened to him. He said he has not been able to work for a long time on account of some sort of illness or inury that he is only now recovering from. We continued walking together mainly because I was too nice to tell him to get the hell away. I only wanted to buy him a meal; I wasn’t paying for his companionship. And while he was a very nice guy, I simply wanted to be alone. Eventually I told him just that, that I wanted to be alone, no more and no less—to eat alone, and to walk alone. He told me several times how sad I looked, which, while not entirely inaccurate, was not what he was seeing. His interpretation of sadness in my visage was simply my desire to be without his company. It’s rather sad that in order to achieve that, my solitude, I had to insist on it in such a forceful way.

Version 0.68 (Daily Doings)

Leave a reply

05/24/19

I spend my days doing little. I’ve come to a sort of peace with being here despite the food causing some sort of inflammation—I can’t wait to get back to eating Vietnamese; I felt better in Vietnam than I had anywhere else in ages. I still hate the bathrooms here though: the awful combination of shower and toilet in one small closet-like space, and no towel at the sink to boot. I’m used to the lack of air-conditioning though; and besides, plenty of cafes around the city are air-conditioned.

Mostly my days consist of a cheap breakfast of toast with peanut-butter, jelly, and bananas (I bought my own peanut butter because I just couldn’t stomach the idea of ingesting margarine (THE STUFF IS STILL MADE!!!!) for more than the first few days I was at the hostel), and appallingly bad instant coffee; shooting the breeze with my co-workers and a particular longish term guest; then lunch; stop at a cafe for reading, writing, real coffee; a run through KLCC park fit in somewhere every other day; continual check-ups on crypto and forex charts; then work at night. It’s simple, on the whole enjoyable, and routine which means some level of comfort.

I dropped my camera off at Fuji’s repair center here for a price and time quote. Not sure I will have enough time left here to have the repairs done before I go back to Vietnam.

Version 0.67 (The More Modern, the More Destitute)

Leave a reply

05/23/19

Living, living, and living. Hardly writing I am. But am I really even living? Sometimes I wonder this. Writing can be living too, though. Yes?

Kuala Lumpur is a fascinating city (I wrote something similar in my last journal). It  seems to me like the melting pot of Asia. Chinese, Malays, and Indians being the predominant ethnicities here. Thais I think make up the majority of the minority. So, it’s sort of a melting pot, but not necessarily to the degree that one might say the United States is. I haven’t seen more destitute and homeless anywhere since leaving the U.S., though. It seems the more developed a country becomes the more poor and homeless, at least in its cities, it produces. And nuts. It produces more nuts too. This is probably an effect of being homeless, penniless, friendless, having to scrounge and beg for change or food, picking out scraps from trash bins, sleeping on a piece of cardboard on a concrete sidewalk beneath an awning, wearing the same filthy articles of clothing everyday. I recall walking along a sidewalk recently and passing a half-crazed looking woman, who nonetheless did not look poorly dressed, only to hear a crash and the smashing of glass bottles shortly after. I turned around to see that she had overturned a trash can into the street. Only a moment later a blue construction helmet flew out of the bushes lining the sidewalk, then out came this woman who simply proceeded to continue sauntering down the sidewalk like nothing unusal happened. There have been others too: the filthy Indian man sitting on the curb shouting at some imaginary figure—I can only imagine obscenities—the guy on the street corner yesterday, bent in half, face down on the concrete with a metal bowl in his outstretched hands; and the types one sees everywhere, sitting with a paper cup, faces passive, expressionless, barely a glimmer of life in their eyes, their bodies sunken into themselves like a torpedoed and sinking ship. This is life in a modern, developed city. Something I saw less of in Bangkok, and and saw none of my entire time in Vietnam.

Version 0.66 (Travel or Relationship?, Travel or Relationship?, Travel or…)

Leave a reply

05/16/19

Five days have passed and I haven’t written a thing. I can’t say that I’ve been that busy. Mostly I have been uninspired. The times, the two since being here in Kuala Lumpur, that I have written anything I find myself daydreaming about something unrelated mid-sentence, mid-paragraph, mid-journal…

Well, anyway, I’ve settled into a sort of routine here, and while I don’t love working at the hostel, I am able to find some joy in it. My co-workers are great, and the people staying here are friendly and likeable. Unfortunately it’s a volunteer position, and while it is a new work experience, new life experience, and a new skill which I can say I’ve learned, it is still only a work exchange. I am stuck here, still without a purpose. Right? So like the purpose of me being here is mainly to save money on accomodation while traveling, but because these positions are usually a one month minimum and because I’ve booked a flight back to Vietnam, despite wanting to see more of Malaysia, I won’t have the opportunity (unless of course I return), and of course this is all my doing because I don’t have to fly back to Vietnam. That Huyen has really put me in a pickle. Bloody women and relationships. The beautiful part of being single is the freedom to go anywhere and do anything one wants without the need to be concerned about the feelings of others (or the change in one’s own feelings). That sentence makes it sound as though I’m only going back to Vietnam for her feelings which isn’t true entirely. I also want to see her again, and see more of the country of Vietnam, but if we didn’t have plans to vacation in Da Lat I would not have just booked a flight a moment ago. I would perhaps travel elsewhere in Malaysia, or go to Indonesia, or India. Well!… I will have the freedom to do some of these things after my trip through Vietnam.

I’ve gone and looked at cryptocurrency charts for a second and thus distracted myself and I don’t know what I am writing about any longer so I guess this is the end. Sometimes I just want to wander off into the desert alone and disappear from society, from everywhere, everything. I’m so angry with myself right now for having got into this relationship. Of course this always happens with my feelings—the slightest glancing touch of negativity results in a cascade of frustration and anger at having allowed for this trip to go this way. I think what I need is some sort of spiritual retreat. I need to step away from the world for a while and recollect myself. This trip was supposed to do that, but having met this girl I feel I’ve been sucked into the world even further. Completely the opposite of my intentions. I’m not happy. I’m not enjoying this trip right now, and so my emotions are constantly oscillating between highs and lows. I’ve had it.

[bit later]
I left the cafe to take a walk, clear my head, and to get some lunch. I am now feeling fine. I work in two hours, but until then I will write a bit and edit some things.

Kuala Lumpur is an interesting city. You can pay as much or as little as you want for food, provided you know where to go for the cheapest stuff. My meals are usually no more than $2-$2.50; I spend more on coffee. My behavior has become that of a person who lives and works here, rather than as a tourst, which, in reality, is what I am doing. All that is missing from my routine is my usual running or cycling, though I’ve not cycled since being in the U.S. I do want to get out of KL to visit a few natural areas for hiking in the coming days.

Version 0.65 (The Chocolate Cafe, and What it Means to be Locally Anything)

Leave a reply

05/10/19

The hostel where I am working is next door to a craft chocolate shop. Finally popped in today for a brief visit while on my way elsewhere. Talking to the staff woman there it was interesting to hear her say “this is made with all local cacao.” It just took me a moment to process that because so often in the States I hear about this or that is local even if in reality the ingredients at least are not. Local chocolate and local coffee in the U.S. isn’t all that local. The process of turning the raw ingredients into a finished product may be done locally (local to the retailer, or the customer buying from the retailer), but chocolate (or cacao) and coffee are imported from hundreds or thousands of miles away. To be in a country where to say “this is local” as a product that in the U.S. or, say, Europe or any other non-tropical/sub-tropical region of the world is something exotic (even though coffee and chocolate are two things likely hardly viewed as exotic; colonialism, ahem *cough*) is, really, just kinda neat. There’s nothing truly remarkable for it, except that I have the opportunity to be here. I mean, THAT is truly the remarkable thing.

So, anyway, they have a chocolate tap in their counter that continually flows. I was given a sample of this on a spoon: 72% chocolate, and the rest sugar. Nothing else. It was quite good, and easy to let one’s imagination run rampant with visuals of employees’ (or my own) heads under the faucet, mouths wide open gulping it down. I’m looking forward to returning for maybe a meal or a coffee as they are a full service coffee bar and kitchen as well.

I finished my last training shift at the hostel today, and will officially begin working and being paid (very little) tomorrow. I am now out for a stroll, on the hunt for some coffee and good food as it’s about time for dinner.

Version 0.64 (An Introduction to Kuala Lumpur?)

Leave a reply

05/08/19

Well lookie here. New journal for a new country. I have nothing to write about getting to or from airports, into or out of airports, or any normal travel stuff. I’m happy to have left Thailand behind me, because I didn’t much enjoy it, though I think it would be very unfair of me to say it’s not worth visting, or that it’s a “bad” country, whatever that might mean. The circumstances of my travels, and the things I chose to prioritize, coupled with certain details about Bangkok transportation, as well as the circumstances around my stay on Koh Lanta colored everything about my time there. The sole bright spot…. that’s a lie. It’s not the sole bright spot, but it is perhaps the brightest of few (it was also the last point of departure from Thailand, and so remains freshest in my mind), was my all too short stay, one night, in Krabi. However, I will say the hostel was not cheap by Southeast Asia standards, but beauty, and cleanliness, and a/c costs. The owner though, I will say, while not being unfriendly, wasn’t particularly warm. The digs made up for that, however. And the surrounding landscape. I was two miles outside of Krabitown proper, as it’s called, in an area that while still being fairly urban was far enough from the center of town that there was still plenty of grasslands with cows and chickens roaming. And the locals were friendly enough, and the whole section of town, the whole two streets I wandered along briefly, all too briefly, had just such a wonderful, friendly atmosphere, one might even say of joviality. Yes, Krabi, I must say, is one place I would like to revisit for longer.

So here I am in Kuala Lumpur, staying and working at a questionable hostel, one in which I am right now feeling very much ambivalent about. If the manager was even remotely friendly I would feel more comfortable, but speaking to him is like speaking to a corpse; I’m talking to someone completely apathetic. I mean, at least a corpse has a good reason for not caring. It is without working organs, without blood, without hormones, without a central nervous system (or any kind of nervous system). It’s not that it doesn’t care, it’s that it can’t care. I dunno. Maybe Malik is a corpse. He’s a rather fresh looking zombie if that’s the case. Anyway, the city seeems great, and the fact that nearly everyone speaks at least a bit of english, and many signs are in english, and I am much more comfortable making my way around foreign countries now, should make it easy for me to get by here, even if the work exchange is awful. HOWEVER, it has not even been a full twenty-four hours yet. The job should prove simple enough, and the rest of the time I will have to myself. Besides, as I told Huyen, I haven’t signed any contracts. If it’s really so terrible I can just leave. That’s really kind of a last resort though.

Mostly all I’ve done today is ponder about this hostel deal, transit from place to place—hostel in Krabi to airport to airport to hostel in Kuala Lumpur—and wander around KL a bit. Mainly ate some really cheap claypot chicken and rice at a stall on a street in Chinatown, and wandered along a portion of Jalan Petaling, which is a well known street market with nothing to differentiate it from any other street market in S.E. Asia, where one can find knock-off name brands at very cheap prices and very low quality. Everything from purses to belts to shoes shirts hats sunglasses wallets jewelry perfumes…. all underneath brightly colored tarps, or not, depending on what the sun is doing, or not doing. Everything rolled up at the end of the night and taken away to a garage somewhere, or likely a house or apartment where the owner/renter of the stall lives. These sort of streets can be fun to take a stroll down because one never knows who or what he may see or find. Besides that there are almost always street food vendors scattered throughout, and always around entrances and exits. It’s a good time as long as too many sellers aren’t trying to pull you into their “shop,” the rebuffing of whom can get a bit exhausting after a short while.

Version 0.63 (Finding Routine)

Leave a reply

05/07/19

Last day on Koh Lanta. Shouldn’t really even be writing that. Ideally I’d be on my way off the island in an hour rather than something like four hours. It’s not a full day here, but that’s not the point. Claudio said he would arrange the minibus for me, then this morning claims he thought I was leaving tomorrow and said something about minibuses being all booked, but maybe I could book something with a travel agent up the street. Not sure if he’s just playing dumb because he doesn’t like my photos, or doesn’t care, or genuinely made a mistake because he didn’t listen to me yesterday. Anyway, the situation is what it is, and I’ve booked transportation myself. I’m staying in Krabi tonight, then a quick drive to the airport the following morning for a short flight to Kuala Lumpur.

I must say I’m happy to get a move on off this island, though I am at last feeling rather comfortable here having developed a bit of a routine. I’m looking forward to a change in structure in my life, and an adjustment in accomodation, though I don’t imagine that it’ll be a huge change; I’m just hoping for consistent air conditioning.

When I first arrived here a whole week ago and showed up at the hostel it wasn’t long before I realized that there was nowhere to find respite from the oppressive heat, at least not in the hostel (until 7pm, when a/c in the dorm rooms was turned on), but it seemed to me that after a day or two of being here there was absolutely nowhere to go, with the exception of a couple of cafes, and this left me with limited time, not a lot of flexibility, and having to formulate a schedule for myself. However, formulating a schedule is easier said than done when one is uncertain about what one’s “employer” might ask of him, and when. This left me somewhat on edge and uncomfortable—what can and can’t I do, and how much time might I be able to allot myself for any given thing? Of course after a few days I realized it didn’t much matter what I did; there was no schedule, and Claudio, from what I could ascertain, expected nothing from me but that I would get the photography done. Once I came to this realization I was finally able to relax and create a daily routine for myself. This of course was only to last a few days as my stay was only a week, but that simple plan that developed is the thing that kept me from falling into despair, kept me sane, and gave me some sense of joyful productivity from time to time. And video chatting with Huyen. That was one of the loveliest of pleasures.

Soon I will be in Kuala Lumpur working a regular six hours a day and probably struggling to fit all my projects into each. However, one day at a time!

Bit by bit!

Version 0.62 (Claudio the Clown)

2 Replies

05/04/19

Back at the cafe I’ve been breakfasting at since I’ve been on Koh Lanta. Kinda wish I was staying here rather than at Claudio’s (they also rent bungalows on their property), but if I think I’m spending a lot of money now, I don’t know what would be going through my head if I was staying here. Probably wouldn’t be enjoying these nice breakfasts. There is always a trade-off somewhere.

I can’t make up my mind about Claudio’s place, Claudio himself, and the “work” I’m doing to stay there free of charge. The photography work I’m doing for him is worth far more than the 120 baht—or $4—per night he is currently charging guests, and because I’m not even being fed, the difference in not paying for accomodation is being made up for in buying breakfast. The positive flip of that of course is that I’ve found this place with a/c to enjoy each morning, it’s work that I can say I’ve done, and really, it’s easy enough. However, his hostel is just not the place to be this time of year. With a/c only available in dorm rooms (common enough in more budget places) and only between the times of 7pm and 9am, there is nowhere to repair to to cool down besides a couple of tables near a few wall-mounted fans.

Claudio as well is beginning to become a bit of a pain in the ass. This mainly jovial Italian fucker when he speaks to me is almost always complaining about tenants past and present (I know that sounds contradictory: jovial but complaining). It makes me wonder why he bothers to run a hostel at all, because it doesn’t seem like he enjoys the work particularly. He does like talking, however…

He’s a genuinely likeable person. I just wonder if he’s lonely with his wife away on holiday. All he has for regular company is his layabout of a step-son, though he’s either sleeping or has his face in his phone, and his cat. (and honestly I think the cat makes better company.)

I was photographing the common area this morning before leaving for breakfast and Claudio was cleaning like he does every morning and was in a genuinely good mood….

*the journal trails off here. I suspect this was when I met and had a conversation with a woman, an American, who sat down near to me asking about other cafes in the area that would be open through the low season, as the one we were regularly visiting, and in which one of the bungalows she was staying, would be closing in a couple of weeks.**

[Later]
Lil swim today. Brief but meaningful texts with Huyen earlier. Went for a beach jog before the swim. Was nice enough. Just wanted to get out and kill some time. Can only sit for so long, and clothing oneself in anything more than a loincloth here is, frankly, madness. One would hope that a dip in the ocean would be refreshing and reinvigorating but as this is the tropics, it was anything but—just much too warm, like bathwater. Still pleasant enough, though. And fun.

Why it is that I take so long to find a routine that is satisfying is something that I should work to understand. I suppose it has not been long, only four days, but taken into consideration with the fact that I am here for just a week, that seems much too long. But, really, vacations are generally anything but routine. The vast majority go on vacation to escape from routine, from the mundanity of their daily existence. Of course I am not truly on vacation, and my life is currently not in any real, meaningful, definable routine for the most part. I am actively searching for routine though, as it is a comfort, and while I am becoming more comfortable with this mode of existence of mine currently, I am still not so comfortable to not crave some semblance of normalcy, read: routine, in my life.