I know I complained that my Bangkok apartment only had hot water coming out of the shower head. As it happens, that’s one more hot water source than my current lodgings offer. I am retroactively grateful.

To be fair, I’m not truly in an apartment. I’m in a hotel room with a refrigerator, so I don’t need hot water to cook or clean. I only have breakfast and snacks en suite, which is easy to clean up. And the climate doesn’t exactly argue for hot showers.

Still, some hot water, anywhere, kind of feels like table stakes for housing. Like you shouldn’t have to check with your outcall beforehand that she boasts a full complement of limbs. You just assume some things. At your own peril, apparently. It makes for an awkward greet.

Krabi is both the province and the nearby town. I’m staying in Ao Nang, which is a little beach town, not unlike our location in Bali. The beach in question is Khlong Muang, which is a convenient fifteen minute walk from the hotel. I’m even closer to the Main Street for shopping and eating, although there are good eats right nearby. The hotel is called Amanah Mansion, so I can only assume that Amanah translates as Gilding the Lily. It is a mostly serviceable hotel room, which may be the definition of mansion here.

Per my host, the disco light machine was the room’s highlight, and it’s hard to disagree with that assessment.

The Neighborhood

Like Bangkok, there are a wealth of weed shops here. I don’t know if Thais are smoking all the weed or if the clientele is primarily farangs. There seem to be too many to be supported by farangs alone.

My host pointed out where I could rent a scooter nearby, and I actually considered it, as the traffic here isn’t like Bangkok. There were tons of farangs on scooters, so that made it look plausible. Although that’s the clever observation that got me stranded on top of a pyramid. Twice.

Then I took a ride on, or clung to, a Grab scooter, which picked me up and delivered me to the supermercado in Krabi Town. And I have to say that nothing about that experience made me think, “You know, this would be way better if I was in charge.”

Then there was this sign, which was all over. The authorities seemed to feel that this message was important, which gave me pause. Although I can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s only in English.

Hilariously, this sign was always on the left side of the road. So if you were driving on the wrong side, you’d never see it.

Another reason not to rent a scooter, as if I needed one, is that the whole gas situation here is opaque. I’ve seen one actual gas station, but mostly it’s this:

These are just scattered about. It seems straightforward, but that’s what I thought about the Bangkok train system’s ticket machines. First you had to find your destination on a touchscreen interface that assumed you knew how the different lines were structured. When I finally worked my way through that, I stumbled through to payment to learn that it wouldn’t take a credit card or bills. Coins or a local payment app only. Leaving me reasonably confident that I’d never figure out how to make the gas pumps work.

This guy was just a few doors from my lodgings. I’m not out all hours soaking up the nightlife here, as if there were any, but I have yet to walk past this business when they weren’t actively processing coconuts. All day and all night. The mound never seems to get any smaller. I think they add to their stores at about the same rate as they process them.

Or they’re witches.

Shopping

The only stores right in Ao Nang are convenience stores. There are, unaccountably, multiple 7-11s. There are supermercados in Krabi Town, a short but harrowing scooter ride away. The other shopping venue is the Ao Nang Landmark Night Market, which is open every day of the week from 5:00 – 11:00, and completely lives up to its name. No groceries, but everything else your little heart could desire.

If you’re a farang, that is. I’d say 90% of the clientele was farang. That’s OK, it’s our job to contribute to the local economy.

There are sit-down restaurants, but also a dense warren of takeout stalls offering a mind boggling selection. There are clothing shops and kiosks, handicraft stalls, and every form of entertainment known to man.

When it was my turn to tip this delightful creature I handed my 100฿ note to the little girl in the clip, so she could deposit it for me. And I wasn’t arrested!

There was even a poorly regulated Muay Thai bout, with mats for the ring and no referee. This lent the affair even more of a street fighting ambiance than the arena bouts I saw in Bangkok.

The Beach

Of course, my entire point in being in Ao Nang is the beach, and it did not disappoint. It’s not one of those tropical beaches that travel writers lose their shit over, but it has everything you’d want. Clean white sand, warm, calm, turquoise water, colorful teak longtail boats, cheap delicious food from stalls lining the beach, and no crowds. It’s perfect. I’ve been swimming (bobbing, to be more precise, since swimming is actual work) twice a day.

So I’m waiting for a smoothie at one of the stalls, in a line that’s not moving very quickly, to be fair. Just ahead of me is an Aussie who can barely contain himself. Finally, he walks up to the front to inform the proprietress that she should hire another juicer, as it’s taking so long that people are leaving and she’s losing business.

That is wrong on so many levels. First, you’re waiting for a smoothie on a beach in Thailand. Dude, it’s ok if the operation isn’t running at peak Western efficiency. That’s almost the point. It’s a feature, not a bug.

Second, White Savior much? Do you honestly think that without your prompting it would never have occurred to the owner to explore the pros and cons of scaling up? Thank goodness you were there to calculate her run rate, factor in the cost of a new hire, and assure that the marginal revenue increase produced a positive ROI. All that, just from standing in line. Thank goodness the poor dear had you there to rescue her.

I was praying he’d turn to me for farang solidarity, but, sadly, I had to keep my opinions to myself. Like you’re supposed to.

The only thing missing from my perfect beach is snorkeling. That requires boat trips, and boat trips there will be. In the meantime, there are other interesting things to do here besides swimming, and I intend to do them. And write about them. I have two weeks to fill, and don’t think I won’t.

Maeklong Railway Market

Our story starts, as all good stories do, at the Maeklong Railway Market. Specifically, on the train that goes through the market. We took a bus to the train station. Which was this:

I am reasonably sure that when I am happy or amused I smile like a normal person. At least no one’s said anything. But when I am asked to smile for a photograph, that thing where you don’t know what to do with your hands happens to my face.

I may need to practice smiling in the mirror, so I can learn to simulate a human expression. This is why, despite the clamor for more selfies, there are so few pictures of us on the blog. In my case, at least, it’s because smiling makes me look like I’ve had a stroke. Dorothy, on the other hand, has lots of practice smiling and reliably crushes it. I just think she considers it none of your business.

The market is known locally as Talat Rom Hup, meaning the “umbrella pulldown market.” That’s because the market spreads out right to the train tracks, and everything needs to be pulled back when the merchants hear that lonesome whistle blow.

It’s remarkably similar conceptually to Hà Nội’s Train Street, where a train goes through a canyon of cafes built right up to the tracks. Nothing needs to be pulled back there, however, so long as you keep your hands inside the cafe at all times. Even though we were walking distance to Train Street in Hà Nội’s Old Quarter we affirmatively declined to visit, as it seemed like nothing but a mindless Instagram opportunity. Absent Dorothy’s more rarefied perspective, I appear to be precisely the kind of schmo who does stupid tourist shit. Who knew?

Pulling into the market was, I have to admit, pretty entertaining. People crowd the tiny space left between the tracks and the shops to wave at the train. We on the train return the gesture by crowding at the windows and waving back. It is silly fun.

Here’s what it looks like after the train pulls out: Awnings are dropped over the tracks, and merch is moved right back up to the brink.

While I found the setup adorable, the market itself was meh. The larger market, away from the train tracks, is one of Thailand’s largest fresh seafood markets, but the market right on the tracks is clearly meant for the train tourists. It’s full of the same goods you can get in any market in Bangkok, a mixture of food and tourist schlock. Since we were discouraged from bringing fresh seafood onto the bus for the next leg, there wasn’t much on offer that was of interest.

Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

Next up: A floating market. We’d been to Kompong Khleang in Cambodia, which is a floating market on a lake, served with a side dish, like all of Cambodia, of genocide. Damnoen Sadauk is in a canal system, more like the one in Xochimilco just outside of Mexico City. The canal system in Xochimilco was built when artificial islands, chinampas, were created by piling mud on top of rafts, letting them sink, and doing it again until the rafts became anchored by the trees growing on them. This system is over 1,000 years old, and is why Xochimilco is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Damnoen Sadauk, on the other hand, was manufactured by decree. The 20-mile long main canal was built in 1868 to connect up a pair of rivers. Locals dug about 200 extra canals for fun, creating the Floating Market district. By the mid-60’s the market had largely been replaced by roads and stores, but it lives on. Damnoen Sadauk was built in 1981 specifically as a tourist attraction. It is not a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Typical Thai traffic, even on the water.

You should notice something right away. This is the opposite of what you think of as a floating market. You’d expect that boats will be plying the waterways hawking their wares to tourists on other boats. Here, the goods were all on the land side of the canal and the floating part was the customers in boats. See something you like and your skipper will pull over for you.

The weird side effect of this was that the shops were actually all on land that just happened to front the canal. So while you feel like you’re in the middle of this entire aquatic experience, just behind the Potemkin facade of merch booths is a parking lot with buses and roads and shops that don’t front the canal. It was disorienting to walk to our bus and feel like we were going behind a movie set.

A panoply of tourist goods.

Proof positive that I’m just another fucking tourist. I had my picture taken holding a lemur named Mai Tai.

The best part of this is that when I saw the lady with the lemur (and the man with the enormous albino snake, which I was not motivated to hold for a photo op) I texted one of our guides to ask whether it was ok (I know, for example, that you’re supposed to leave the elephants alone) and how much I should expect to pay for a photo?

She answered that the lemur whisperer would ask for 200฿ (about $6 USD), but I should bargain her down to 100฿. I had no intention of bargaining over a couple of dollars, so this is how the negotiation went:

Me: How much for picture? Her: 200 baht. Me: OK. Her: No, 150? OK, 100. OK?

It felt like she wanted me to have the bargaining experience but didn’t trust me to hold up my end, so she did all the work herself. Talk about a service-oriented economy. Also, honestly, the highlight of the experience, which was otherwise very, very touristy. There’s a reason we don’t tend to do that sort of thing, but that’s what I get for taking off and leaving my Jiminy Cricket behind. Being a real boy is hard work.

Nah. The void and I are good, and neither of us would be pleased if I somehow filled it. But I am loosely tethered, and come by the gypsy feet honestly, having been subjected as an adolescent to my parents’ hardcore Wanderjahr.

So we’re doing what we’ve been doing all along: learning more about what works and what doesn’t and trimming to fit. We started with an idea, and we’ve been refining and redefining that idea on the fly ever since. No need to stop now, when the current iteration of that idea has me in Thailand instead of wintering in Chicago. Some ideas are objectively better than others.

It’s an interesting experiment, as Dorothy and I have never really been alone. We moved in together on my 18th birthday, directly from our parents’ homes. She waited until I was of age, which is kind of romantic, in a predatory sort of way. So this life is all we’ve known, and current circumstances will test our appetite for being apart and Dorothy’s appetite for my having fun without her.

Early returns are positive. We both conceive of Us as our atomic unit, but it appears that atom can be split. When we travel with others (my sister excepted, who will gladly have fun wherever you set her down) we’re always conscious of having to adjust our preferences to other’s desires. Not in an invidious way, just that we’re aware of the need to arbitrate across two sets of needs: Us and Them.

We’ve been doing it so long, it’s easy to forget that getting to Us also requires arbitrating across two sets of needs: Mine and Hers. It’s seamless and pretty unnoticeable, but now that it’s been stripped away it’s hard to be unaware of its absence. Not that the compromise is painful, but there’s something delicious and buoyant about just standing up and going somewhere, without any conversation required.

A steady diet of it would require living alone, which sounds like a punishment, but there’s no reason not to enjoy and appreciate it while we’re able. We’re thinking a few months off from each other every year could be an excellent thing for all.

On the emotional/psychological scale. On the practical side of the ledger I think it’s all negative, as we each have to replace the effort and expertise we provide one another. I have to feed myself and Dorothy has to do her own travel planning. Survivable (I haven’t gained any weight!), but measurably suboptimal.

The Neighborhood

The Airbnb is fine, its greatest asset being its location. It’s a one bedroom with a kitchenette. Like our place in Hà Nội, the kitchen sink is on the balcony. Also like that apartment and our Balinese apartment, the only source of hot water is the shower. Unlike those two, which had hose bibs in the shower, the shower head itself is the only place hot water appears here. I promise to never again take Western plumbing for granted. I believe it is our sole meaningful contribution to Civilization.

The textbook protocol for what we do is to take a place for a week on arrival and then use that week to scout neighborhoods and be certain of where you want to stay. We’ve never done that because it sounds tense and hard. Hitting the ground and having that kind of existential task in front of you with the clock ticking just seems nasty. So we do our homework in advance, learn about different neighborhoods, make our commitments and takes our chances. We’ve only had one fail so far, where we didn’t really enjoy our location, but our track record’s been pretty good.

Bangkok has been no exception. I’m in the Sukhumvit district, a ten-minute walk from stations on two of the main train lines. I’m a ten-minute walk from two hypermarchés. There’s a convenience store on the corner, a laundry a few doors down, and a weed shop directly downstairs. There’s two major malls, including an Ikea, within that same ten-minute radius. And food fucking everywhere.

The streets here are filled with weed shops (four just in the half block from the apartment to the main street), massage spas (eight in that same half block), bespoke tailors (only three, but that would be ridiculous density on any other half block on the planet), and more restaurants than can be counted. I have all the amenities I could want right at arm’s length, with trains able to take me to whatever isn’t right at hand.

I had to get to the Immigration office to extend my visa and there was no gracious public transit method, so I took the scooter version of Grab, the local Uber. It was faster than a car and a quarter the price. What I didn’t factor in was that the streets around my apartment were constantly clogged with traffic and moving at a crawl, but other streets were open and moved at full speed. That was a harrowing 30 minutes. That I won’t be repeating. I took a car home.

I have no idea how the ladies sidesaddle the scooters. That’s just nuts.

Those trains, by the way. First, always nice to have your train station look like a pagoda. But one of the lines has a positively brilliant innovation. You can buy a ticket or a pass, but if you’re a casual traveler you can also just wave your credit card at the gate and it will open up. Do it again on departure and the system will calculate your fare and charge your card. I think it’s new and hasn’t been rolled out across the entire system yet. It is the most friction-free transit system I’ve ever encountered.

Add bilingual signage and Google Maps directions that tell you what entrance to use and what platform to wait on, and it couldn’t be easier to get around like a local. Literally, as I’ve yet to see another farang on a train.

The extreme walkability of my neighborhood has led to extreme walking. In my first seven days here I’ve clocked 43 miles. That is not a typo. Thank goodness massage is so cheap and plentiful.

Neighborhood Wonders

OK, don’t pretend you weren’t about to google it. I did, and once I saw the pictures I had to go. For you, dear readers, always for you.

It turns out, which would have been my very last guess, that Cabbages & Condoms is the front end for an NGO, the Population and Community Development Association, focusing on birth control, education, and AIDS safety. It was founded by a retired politician interested in improving lives by promoting sexual health, and all profits go to the NGO.

It’s actually a lovely space, although the condoms are everywhere, once the eye adjusts. The food was OK, nothing to write home about, but the bowl of condoms on the table was a nice touch.

That was entirely my pleasure.

And then there’s this. This was just occurring outside an entrance to the MBK mall. No explanation was offered and, frankly, none was expected. I watched it until just before it got creepy and I was asked to leave.

Medical Tourism

I saved $850 today. I needed a root planing, but didn’t have time to take care of it before I left. I figured that I’d get it done in Bangkok, since my Balinese tooth cleaning had been such a positive experience. I saw this place in a mall (within my ten-minute radius), and walked in to inquire about rates. All four quadrants would be $250, as compared to the $1,100 I’d last paid in the US, so I asked to be scheduled.

They had me wait a few minutes then took me into a practice room for what I figured was a conversation with the dentist. Nope, they sat me down and started in. The dentist had excellent English (they even had forms in English), and asked me if I had any problems with my mouth. I told her that I couldn’t make it speak Thai.

She was super deft, and even the anesthetic was administered gently. I don’t much care for needles, whether they’re depositing or withdrawing, but of all of the places I hate needles, needles inside my mouth are the worst. The entire process was gentle and impressive. Although leaving the hearing aids home was a solid decision.

She did the first two quadrants and scheduled the finish in a week. Elapsed time, from walking in the front door cold to leaving with a slab of meat where my face had been: an hour and fifteen minutes.

Sometimes I just never want to come back.

Fun Fact

Thailand is the very first place we’ve been that doesn’t have some kind of brutal colonial hangover. Because it’s never been colonized, one of only a handful of countries that have avoided the master’s whip hand. There are a few we’re unlikely to visit (Afghanistan and Iran, although I’d love to see both), but we could wind up in Nepal or Ethiopia. It could happen.

Frankly, it’s a delight. Wading through the colonial aftermath, especially in Southeast Asia, has been illuminating but rough. Whatever fuckery they’ve inflicted on themselves is a rounding error compared to what the West would have done to them. Except, I suppose, Pol Pot, who colonized his own country. Anyway, I’m happy to have the break.

Massage Culture

There are two distinct and largely mutually exclusive massage cultures here: the traditional Thai massage and the traditional Happy Ending massage. Tradition! The trick is telling one from another, as each is only good at its specialty. If you’re looking for a real Thai massage and stumble into a Happy Ending place, you’re going to leave disappointed. And vice versa.

Some of the Happy Ending spas are easy to spot, as the photos of their “therapists” are alluringly posed, often including measurements and specialties, and their menus are a matrix of duration and granular variations on the Happy Ending. Just right out there in front of god and everyone. Unashamed. Easy, however, to avoid mistakes.

Real massage shops tend to offer masseuses in uniforms, rather than low-cut dresses. Although that’s a sort of uniform, too. A masseuse is assigned, rather than selecting one from a lineup. Some of their menus even say No sex, which is pretty clear. But not dispositive, since some of the Happy Ending shops are camouflaged, with uniformed girls and innocuous menus. By the time you’ve suffered an indifferent massage and been offered a Happy Ending, you’re already way past the desired experience.

Another tell: do they offer nuru massage? Nuru, if you don’t know (and if you do you probably shouldn’t admit it), is a Japanese invention, because of course it is. It involves a slippery, seaweed-based gel that’s applied by a naked masseuse using herself as a loofah. Like if a Slip ‘N Slide® and a succubus had a baby. It’s hard to conceive of anything more Japanese than that particular combination of innocent and depraved. That’s not just my opinion, by the way. These are the people, after all, who gave us anime tentacle porn. Anyway, as delightful as it sounds, nuru’s intentions are completely different than that of an actual massage.

Or this. The emphasis is probably not on the quality and integrity of the massage.

Online reviews are their own minefield, as coy verbiage makes it unclear exactly what experience is being reviewed. I found a forum where men traded intel on Bangkok’s various Happy Ending spas and posted a question: where do you go when you want an actual, real Thai massage? I figured consumers of the one would be able to tell them apart, and sure enough, I got a handful of recommendations right within my ten-minute radius.

Wat Pho? I Don’t Know, Stop Asking…

My first stop, counterintuitively, was the temple at Wat Pho. Wat Pho is actually the thankfully shortened nickname, its full name being Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihan. But everyone knew her as Nancy. No one knows exactly when it was built, but sometime during the Ayutthaya Kingdom, which places it anywhere from 1351 to 1767, a pretty wide range. The current footprint appears to have been established right around 1700. Which is notable because it still has that new temple smell, like they just removed the tape.

We’ve been in plenty of places (Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Hagia Sophia, the Medina in Marrakech, Tunisia’s El Jem colosseum…) so deeply infused with their own antiquity that their age had a seat at the table. And ordered for you. Not so Wat Pho, which has been buffed so hard and maintained so diligently that it could have been built yesterday. But it wasn’t.

These days, Wat Pho is known for several things. One is a 150 foot long, 50 foot high golden Buddha statue. If you had one of those, that’s what you’d be known for, too.

But I’m not fooled. You came for the stupas. And you’re not wrong. They are splendid. Enjoy.

It is also Thailand’s first public university, teaching traditional Thai arts and sciences. In 1955 they opened a school for traditional medicine, including Thai massage. It’s still operating, and there’s a massage center on the grounds of the Wat. No appointments, but I walked right in. I figured I’d baseline Thai massage at ground zero and have a yardstick for judging how good the massage was at a more convenient, less expensive location.

Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Massage

I’d never had a Thai massage before. It’s on the menu at most of the places I’ve been in Southeast Asia, but I didn’t know enough about it to know if I’d like it, or what it was for, or even if what was offered was an actual Thai massage, so I’ve never requested one.

What surprised me most was how intimate it turned out to be. Not in the Happy Ending sense, obviously, but in the sense that it’s a full contact sport. Elbows, knees, legs, feet, all used to stretch this limb or that, to bend me, rotate me, and generally tie me into a pretzel knot.

Rather than standing up and addressing me from a remove while I lay on a table, like an autopsy, the massage therapist was on the same surface as me, climbing, rolling, circumnavigating, and doing anything a squirrel can do to a tree. She was a preposition. We were engaged with one another, rather than my being the supine recipient of the kneading of muscles.

It was a lovely, intricate dance (I followed), and a fabulous massage, so much more actually therapeutic than a traditional massage. I staggered to my feet feeling noticeably better, more limber, able to move more freely. I am an official Thai massage stan.

Armed with my newfound expertise, I went to one of the shops from the suggestions I’d been given. Truthfully, I picked it on price. There were a number of ladies sitting in front in branded masseuse uniforms, and I wasn’t given a choice of therapist, so that was promising. One just grabbed me. I did notice that most of the masseuses were aunties, but the young cute one had picked me. It’s all the charisma. Not my fault.

I then proceeded to get the very best massage I’ve had in my life. In fact, had I done this one first I think I’d have been disappointed in the Wat Pho massage. In the interests of full disclosure, I was high. I’d stopped at one of the many dispensaries on the walk there and scarfed down a 10mg gummy on the way. No paperwork or ID, by the way, more like a convenience store purchase. It was harder to get a tube of cortisone cream.

I don’t think that harmed the experience in any way, but I also think, my condition notwithstanding, that it was an objectively amazing massage. I’ll be going back, for sure, and will do it sober, so I can report if the experience in that condition is less ecstatic, more quotidian. What I suffer for you all…

In addition to massage, the Me Time options here include a smattering of Vietnamese-style barber shops, like the one I visited in Hà Nội. 700฿, by the way, is about $22 for 90 minutes of service.

Weirdly, the one thing they don’t offer is the haircut. I guess the claw grooming makes up for it.

Bangkok

Bangkok feels most like Istanbul to me, with echoes of Mexico City. It’s a dense capital city with plenty of historical flavor and a strong modernist streak. But our view of the cities we’ve visited is inevitably colored by where we’ve chosen to stay. Hà Nội undoubtedly has much in common with Bangkok, but we stayed in the Old Quarter, which felt more like a LARPing arena than a modern capital.

Here’s one of the strangest things I’ve noticed about Bangkok. In every other place we’ve been on the planet, sidewalk traffic patterns mirror roadway traffic patterns. If the cars drive on the left, pedestrians walk on the left, and vice versa. Not here. The cars drive on the left but pedestrians walk on the right. The only pedestrians walking on the left are farangs, desperately trying to rationalize the chaos. And only making it worse. It’s a gift.

It makes crossing the street even more disorienting than usual, for those of us used to cars on the right. I feel like a meerkat, swiveling back and forth, never certain in which direction lies danger. All of them, I think. Danger lies in all of the directions here.

The Old City

If I’m staying in the heart of modern Bangkok, I owe myself a visit to the Old City to compare the experiences. Little did I know that I’d already been, as Wat Pho is in the Old City. I did a little more homework before venturing back, and learned that the area, properly known as Rattanakosin, is also home to the Grand Palace, the ferry piers of the Chao Phraya river, ancient forts, and Phra Athit Road, home to some of Bangkoks oldest structures.

Truthfully, Phra Athit was a little underwhelming. Yes, there were some old buildings, but they were leftovers that have been individually repurposed as shops and restaurants. There was no sense of the history of the district or what it had once been like. Hà Nội’s Old Quarter, Marrakech’s souks, Istanbul’s Sultanahmet historic district… You could trace their history directly back from their modern iterations in an unbroken lineage. Phra Athit, on the other hand, was some old buildings still in use. Not uninteresting, but not the living history I craved.

The Grand Palace

This was definitely the highlight of the Old City, especially viewed in tandem with Wat Pho. The grounds of the Grand Palace hold two distinct attractions: The Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace itself.

Before I could cross the threshold, however, my exposed calves were deemed insufficiently respectful. Thank goodness they couldn’t see my musclebound thighs. The horror! I was forced to both purchase and wear a pair of long pants. In their defense, they were light and gauzy and were gaily festooned with elephants. In my defense, I was wearing long pants in 90° heat. I appealed to Buddha directly, but was met with stony silence. Fucking Buddha, amIright?.

Like Wat Pho, every one of the buildings here seemed scrubbed raw and built yesterday. The Temple of the Emerald Buddha was built in 1783, but you’d have to carbon date it to tell. As advertised, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha holds an emerald Buddha, high up on a platform, orders of magnitude smaller than Wat Pho’s massive golden Buddha. In addition to pants being required, there was a sign at the entrance admonishing: Do not point your feet to the Buddha. Not entirely sure how that was supposed to work in practice. Crab walking?

No photography was allowed, so let’s thank Wikipedia for this image.

But that’s OK, because the temple itself had plenty to offer on the outside, having a, how do I say this, distinctly Liberace vibe, all gilt and polished mirror tiles.

The Grand Palace was built in 1782, and served as the royal residence until 1925, although it’s still in use for official events and state functions. Which is probably why this was as close as I could get.

The grounds also held the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles. She seems to have been much beloved, and had just died in October of 2025, a few months before my arrival. Memorials to her are all over the city.

Just hanging out in front of a metro station. The guest book on the table was completely full

Finally, I ended my tour of Rattanakosin with a walk to Phra Sumen Fort, right on the Chao Phraya River. Dating from the late 1700s, Phra Sumen is one of only four of the original forts still intact. The rest were demolished to make room for roads and buildings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It was a peaceful way to end my visit, but I was truly knackered by the conclusion. The easiest way to get home from the fort was a water taxi to a train, about an hour-and-a-half total transit time. I buckled, and took a Grab back to the apartment.

The Dainty Elephant In The Room

While there are Happy Ending massage parlors everywhere on the planet, Thailand stands tall as one of the globe’s sex capitals. Much of it is tourism-based, but there’s a considerable portion of it that’s local. It seems only lightly stigmatized, as it enjoys a quasi-legal status and is a substantial contributor to Thailand’s economy.

Prostitution in Thailand is legal so long as there’s no coercion or trafficking involved, no pimping, and so long as solicitation isn’t undertaken “openly and shamelessly.” That’s a vague metric, yet no one seems to have run afoul of it.

In July of 2016 the then Tourism Minister announced that the government would be abolishing the sex industry to make Thailand a more wholesome destination. He lasted just over a year after that proclamation. Instead, there’s a substantial movement in Thailand, led by human rights organizations, to fully legalize and regulate prostitution. Which would bring Thailand up to par, human rights-wise, with the rural parts of Nevada.

The Happy Ending massage parlors, because they blend into the landscape and are everywhere, are actually the underneath of the iceberg. The more visible tip is the overt red light districts: Soi Cowboy, Nana Plaza, and Patpong in Bangkok, Bangla Road in Phuket, Soi 6 and Walking Street in Pattaya. Unsurprisingly, given my central location, I’m close to two of them, Soi Cowboy within my ten-minute perimeter, Nana Plaza just outside it.

All of these areas are combinations of gogo bars, hostess bars, and ladyboy bars. Soi Cowboy has a ladyboy bar called Cockatoo. That’s just excellent. Thailand’s ladyboys are legendary, and if it was just a cabaret show I would totally go. Why not? But all of the bars, ladies and ladyboys alike, are hard-sell hustles. Entering a ladyboy bar is implied consent to being hustled, so no. Also, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about beautiful women with unusually high testosterone levels. I just feel like I’d be on the wrong end of that. I am a gentle woodland creature.

One of the bars just off Soi Cowboy is called Bush Garden, which also warrants calling out. It’s not even their language, but they use it awfully well.

I’ll confess that I walked Soi Cowboy’s single neon-lit block intending to check out one of the gogo bars. First, because why not? And second, because sure. I’m here. It’s a thing. Life’s rich pageant. But the drink hustle is supposed to be fierce in those places, and if you’re not vigilant you can wind up with a substantial, padded tab and large men insisting it be paid in full. The level of effort required to avoid being hustled just seems to exceed the likely entertainment value.

In general I consider myself a pretty intrepid traveler, hardy and capable of taking what the universe throws at me. Unless it has tentacles. Then I’m out. But if I’m being totally honest, it’s not just the effort to avoid being hustled that’s keeping me out of the gogos. I don’t consider myself easily intimidated, but they intimidate me. I’m probing that feeling like a sore tooth, and the only solution may be to man up and cross the threshold. Or I can just be a weenie. Also a perfectly reasonable option.

I think the most dangerous thing we can do, as travelers, is to apply our lens to other cultures and judge them on their fidelity to a foreign point of view. We’ve been able to see positives in everything from one-party rule (Cuba, Vietnam) to state religions (Morocco, Tunisia), although, looking through a US lens, those things are just objectively wrong. Even though plenty of Americans, it seems, would be happy with a state-sanctioned religion. So long as it’s theirs.

So I’m not about to tell Thais that their approach to prostitution is wrong. If that’s how they felt about their own country, they’d abolish it, not work to legalize and formalize it. There’s an argument that in a perfect world prostitution would probably follow the abortion mantra: safe, legal, and rare. In that perfect world, every man would have a partner he loved and who loved him in return, and every woman would have a wealth of career opportunities. But that’s not this world.

Say what you will about the underlying economic conditions that make this true, but prostitution in Thailand pays better than many of the available options, allowing women to send money back home and support their families. Until there’s equity in access to education and career paths, I’m not in favor of shutting the industry down because it’s morally dubious. To us.

I remember the last time I went to a strip club, 20+ years ago. I went for Pretty Ladies, but that’s not what I saw. I saw a room full of men desperate for connection, with, for a multitude of reasons, no other options for achieving it. It wasn’t at all obvious who was exploiting whom. And it was sad.

I think I’ll skip the gogos.

Shopping

I’ll be doing a separate post on craft shopping, as I do, but there’s still plenty to discuss short of that. The big reveal here is that local shopping is incredibly mall focused. I suspect that’s because of the weather. Mall shopping means air conditioning, which seems to be everyone’s first choice.

My host came over the other evening to drop something off, and I was very proud of the fact that the AC was off and the balcony doors were open. Living like a local. I thought. Until he asked if the AC was broken. I’d assumed that living here inured you to the heat, but they hate it just as much as we do. Thus, I believe, malls.

Because they’re the dominant form of retail, they exist in a dizzying range of variations. Unlike the US mall monoculture, which is nothing but chain stores, and where the physical relationship of Hot Topic : Auntie Anne’s : Victoria’s Secret seems to be an immutable law of nature. Or at least building code.

Sure, they have their fashion malls here. There’s Chanel, YSL, Tory Burch, and both Dolce & Gabbana. The usual suspects. But the malls distinguish themselves primarily in the small one-off shops that make up the bulk of their rosters. In fact, in hunting for Thai silk I found Old Siam Plaza, whose entire massive second floor is given over to small silk shops, most of which had room for a sewing machine. We tend to have a negative view of mall culture, but it means a completely different thing here.

One of the malls nearby is the EmSphere, which is where the Ikea is located. It also has a robust first floor food court, which has both Subway and Krispy Kreme kiosks, but is primarily made up of small one-offs, just like the retail tenants.

The other mall right nearby is Terminal 21, which has a very odd conceit. Each floor is assigned a geography, so there’s a Rome floor, San Francisco, London… The shops aren’t specific to the location, but the site design traffics in unsurprising stereotypes. San Francisco has a faux cable car, Rome has classical statuary, London has inedible food…

I took an entire afternoon one day to tour a mall complex with four (or more?) malls all connected by sky bridges. My research told me that one of them specialized in indie fashion and the other in crafts. I did find a few non-branded clothing vendors in the one mall, amongst all of the LV and Vans and Levis shops. Hardly a concentration. Likewise for the place that was supposed to have crafts. I found a few shops tucked in a corner, and that was it.

What I did discover was that mall layout here is so non-linear as to be effectively non-Euclidean. I did an entire tour of the first mall, Siam Paragon, without seeing any clothing stores, except the high fashion brands on the lower floors. Then I did a second tour and there was an entire wing of the mall that I swear hadn’t been there on my first go-round. Same thing happened at the second mall, Siam Discovery. The Discovery being, I suppose, that the laws of physics have been suspended on premises. Every mall here is a Harry Potter tent, bigger on the inside than the outside.

The Fucking Language

I thought Vietnamese was the worst. With an honorable mention to French, for, you know, all that French. But Thai takes the cake. It has the worst elements of every language we’ve tried to learn, plus a unique fillip all its own.

First, the alphabet. It’s pretty, like Khmer in Cambodia. But put all those letters together into words and sentences and it’s just a soup of loops and whorls. Here’s an example.

ผ้าพันคอสวยๆ ที่หน้าต่างราคาเท่าไหร่ and ฉันสามารถมีเพศสัมพันธ์กับภรรยาของคุณได้. The first is “How much is that beautiful scarf in the window?” The second is “Can I fuck your wife?” It’s a minefield.

Then there are the vowels. Thai is tonal, like Vietnamese. No one can agree on the exact count, but Thai’s five tones interact with the basic vowel set to create well over 100 distinct vowel sounds. To put that into perspective, English has 19 vowel sounds. Your mouth can’t make a sound your ears can’t hear. That’s fucked up.

What’s really fucked up? Thai has taken the worst elements of both Khmer and Vietnamese and added… duration. Yep, how long you hold a vowel completely changes its meaning. It’s like the anti-Esperanto, a hash of phonemic fuckery whose sole purpose seems to be tripping up farangs. I’m sure it is a constant source of amusement to them. Or they wish we’d just stop shitting on their language. Or both.

The vowel stretching is also why Thais always seem to be singing, but that’s not enough. Beautiful, yet incomprehensible. That about sums it up.

Any final indignities? Oh, right. No cognates to speak of. Sandwich. Awesome.

I think we may have learned three words in Vietnamese, which is three more than I’ll be learning in Thai.

The only upside, such as it is, is that none of the farangs, no matter their country of origin, are able to learn Thai. Which makes English the official language of tourism, leaving everyone else to struggle with a non-native tongue. There is something delicious about making French people butcher another language, since they’re so snooty about theirs.

It’s the small pleasures that make life worth living.

Yogyakarta is pronounced Jogjakarta, and is commonly referred to just as Jogja. The J-Y shift is a Dutch hangover. Don’t worry. It’s the only one. The Dutch were otherwise stellar stewards of their benighted little brothers. BFFs, really.

Jogja is also, and this was a surprise, a monarchy. They have their very own sultan! While a few other areas in Indonesia have their own sultans or local rulers, Hamengkubuwono X is the only one with official state power. As sultan, he is the Governor of the Special Region of Yogyakarta. This arrangement is payback for the then sultan’s support for independence during the post WWII revolution.

Kotagede

This time around we’re not in the throbbing heart of the city center, as we so often are. Instead, we’re in Kotagede, Jogja’s old city. Kotagede means Great City, and it was the capital of the Mataram sultanate, dating back to the 16th century. The Matarams were the precursor to the current Yogyakarta sultanate, having lost power through Dutch fuckery. Kotagede is renowned as a craft center, and has been a major locus of silver artisans since Mataram times.

Our Apartment

The apartment is comfortably appointed, if a little charmless. There’s a thorough selection of kitchen appliances, a dining table (which has been in short supply during our Southeast Asia run), a comfortable seating area, and three (!) bedrooms. That last is important because my sister, Nef, is joining us for four of our six weeks in Jogja, so she gets the upstairs bedroom and some privacy. We get to use the extra first floor bedroom as a closet. It’s nice to not trip over our stuff.

There are a lot of nice, small touches. They provide water, in five gallon bottles with a dispenser for hot and cold. There are balconies on both floors. There’s a washer and more than enough drying racks. And this is the first place we’ve ever been that’s provided enough hangers.

We are suffering a quirk of Southeast Asia, which is that they use duvets instead of top sheets. Which makes zero sense, since the weather is way too hot for duvets. We’ve managed this in the past by pulling the duvets out of their covers and using those as top sheets, but the duvets here don’t have covers, so there’s nothing to strip off. We visited several department stores and figured for six weeks it was worth it to buy a top sheet and just leave it behind, but there were no top sheets to be found. We are sleeping under a rotating layer of lovely Balinese ikats.

The bathrooms here are a challenge. The only hot water is from the two showers, but at least there’s a faucet, so you’re not holding a basin under a shower head to get hot water to wash dishes, like we did in Amed. And the only actual sink is in the kitchen. So the bathrooms are more like 3/4 baths, with just a shower and a toilet. We renovated ours by moving in an outdoor table and placing a plastic basin there for a faux sink. We’re survivors.

The biggest challenge was how shockingly dirty the apartment was. We spent our entire first day doing nothing but cleaning. It was everything. Floors, walls, toilets, dishes, cookware… I spent over an hour on the refrigerator alone. It’s fine now, and we’re not using their cleaner. There’s no point. We haven’t said anything, as it’s not like there’s something they can do. It was dirty and now it’s not, so problem solved. Also, they’re really nice people, and we don’t want them to think we’re weirdos. There’s been the odd plumbing problem, for example. and they’ve been great about getting someone over right away.

And we are completely not being weirdos. Every place we’ve been has required some cleanup on move-in. That’s a normal and expected part of the Airbnb experience. But what we faced here was a level of filth we’ve never encountered before.

The Neighborhood

Kotagede’s streets are narrow and recursive, circling back on themselves not unlike the souks in Marrakech’s Medina, but without the density. They’re perhaps more reminiscent of Gunajuato’s narrow, winding streets, but without the mountains. It makes exploring the neighborhood feel like an actual exploration.

The vernacular building design here is completely different than in Bali. There, homes are built around open courtyards, almost Mexican or Moroccan style, and the ubiquitous black volcanic rock is a common material. In Java, peaked, tiled roofs are constructed over wood-framed buildings. A completely different look, but every bit as beautiful.

While that’s the archetype, there are other interesting things going on here. This street is Between Two Gates, and features traditional Javanese Joglo houses.

Masjid Gedhe Mataram Kotagede

Kotagede is also home to Mataram’s historic mosque, first established in 1575. The current iteration is a rebuild from 1926 due to a fire, but there are clearly still structures from much, much earlier.

At the ticket booth there’s a separate price for wedding party photography, which made sense once we were inside. It was almost impossible to take a step without unintentionally photobombing a bride and groom posing together.

The site is full of beautiful historic structures.

And sweet architectural details.

The highlight, without question, was the Pasarean Mataram, the final resting place of the royal family of the Mataram Sultanate. All of them. Going back to the 16th century. I am disinclined to credit the spiritual, but let’s just say there was a vibe to this place. It was an indoor mausoleum, and pictures were not allowed. I even searched the interwebs for something to scrape, figuring they’d have let in a journalist at some point, but nothing. Not, of course, that a photo would have communicated what it was like to be in that space. It was truly beautiful. I felt things.

This is from a neighborhood cemetery, but the style of the aboveground crypts is typical Javanese. The royal crypts are fancier, of course, but the design is pretty much the same.

Appropriate dress to enter was both required and supplied, for a donation. Leading to a rare sighting of a mating pair of Waldos.

Taman Sari Water Palace

The Taman Sari Water Palace was built in the 1750s by the first Yogyakarta Sultan, after the Mataram’s fell. It was meant to be a place for the sultan to relax after a series of wars. It’s a modest site, but it has some beautiful structures.

Taman Sari’s highlight is the bathing pools, which is where the sultan did much of his relaxing. He would leer out of an upper floor window watching his concubines bathe. But not in a creepy way. They were his concubines, after all.

When he made his choice he would throw a rose down to her to indicate his favor, and she would get to spend the night with him in one of the upper chambers, in a bed heated by charcoal braziers underneath. That’s just a win for everyone.

Shopping

Pasar Kotagede, a traditional covered market, is just a few minutes walk from our apartment. There’s an even bigger version, Pasar Beringharjo, downtown. It was massive, covering several square blocks, and has… everything. Groceries, handicrafts, electronics, an entire batik market…

Supermarkets were a different thing. It took us multiple attempts before we found something usable. The first two we went to were Carrefours, whose local brand is TransMart. Which led to this:

As it happened, the first TransMart we went to was being renovated so hard it was no longer a store. They were doing the same thing to the second TransMart we went to. Then we went to a third supermarket, based on a google search, and it was just a jacked up Quickie Mart. I finally asked our host, and on our fourth attempt we found a real supermarket. Although it took a fifth store before we were able to locate pickles. Vlasic is everywhere, if not in every store.

Downtown’s Malioboro street is chockablock with batik shops, but it also seems to be snack central. There are snack shops that seem like the modern equivalent of the riches of the Silk Road. Rendered in snacks. These photos are all from the same shop!

Dining

Eating is a form of shopping, and we enjoyed an evening at the Alun Alun Kidul Night Market, a nightly cultural institution.

The high point was these hollowed out cars that had been transformed into glowing pedicabs. I know, we should have taken a ride. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

We also dined at Omah Duwur, a lovely Dutch era restaurant with magical grounds, right in the neighborhood.

We’re back in a Muslim country and are once again immersed in the call to prayer. There were places in North Africa where competing mosques reduced the overlapping calls to prayer as noise, but there were also places where a single mosque’s call rang clear and sounded like music. There must be a lot of mosques here, since we’ve yet to hear a distinct call. Here’s what it sounded like while we dined at Omah Duwur. Hard to peel it back and hear how many mosques are at work here, but it seems like a lot.

The Javanese have done to Islam what the Balinese did to Hinduism, mixmastering it with their traditional belief systems to make a bespoke religion that’s all theirs. We’ve had several people say, “We’re Muslim, but not like [waves hands] them. You know, that whole Sunni/Shia thing.” They really want us to know they’re the chill Muslims.

To be fair, this is a thing.

But our very best meal was when we backslid (all the way to grade school) and had dessert for lunch. But look what we were up against. We never stood a chance.

And here’s how Bear In Bathtub met his end. Oh, she’s a savage one. Although I suppose that bringing a hammer with your dessert is technically foreshadowing.

Graphic Design & Packaging

This is always one of my favorite reports. I absolutely adore local graphic design, and Java has seemed denser in entertaining graphic presentation than many of our destinations. There’s a lot to love here.

Unless you need dental work done. Then Denpasar is a must-visit dental tourism destination. Because, you guessed it, we needed dental work done.

Dorothy developed a throbbing pain in a tooth with a filling, so we got a referral to a dentist in Amlapura, a mere hour from Amed, rather than the three-hour drive to Denpasar. Verdict: “Dude, that’s fucked up. You need to see an endodontist.” They provided a referral to a provider in Denpasar, but they couldn’t see her soon enough, so we found someone the old fashioned way: Google Reviews.

We made an appointment and got dropped off here. Which is whatever the superlative of unprepossessing is.

Despite the first impression, the interior was clean, modern, and well-staffed. We’d made an appointment for an exam for Dorothy and a cleaning for me. My cleaning was outstanding, maybe the best I’ve ever had, and the price tag was 600,000 rupiah, about $35 USD. It was so good, I canceled my return cleaning at my expensive Chicago dentist. This is how I’ll be managing dental care going forward.

Dorothy’s X-rays and exam came to $18, and they scheduled her for a crown. One appointment for the surgery and the temporary, and a follow-up appointment to install the final crown. That last appointment was five days before we needed to be in Denpasar to fly to Yogyakarta, so we decided to burn our last five days in Amed and pick up a hotel in Denpasar. Easier than the back and forth, and onsite in case any follow-up care was required before we left.

As it happened, they were able to replace the filling on Dorothy’s first visit, so she never went the crown route, but we stuck with our plans to finish up Bali in Denpasar. Why not? By the way, the hypermodern, ridiculously skillful filling came to $60 USD. Here’s hoping our next dental emergency happens outside the US, where we can afford it.

We were pretty confident we could fill five days in Denpasar. Despite its reputation, a little digging revealed a fair amount going on. There was a whole street of fabric stores, a massive craft market, an array of temples, and an annual, month-long arts fair. We’d be fine.

Goa Lawah Bat Cave Temple

Our first stop was actually on the road to Denpasar, the famous Bat Cave Temple in the seaside village of Klungkung. It’s truly built around the opening of a bat cave, although that part wasn’t open to the public. It’s one of Bali’s six most holy sites, and dates back to the 11th century. And it’s bat-themed. Which is, I suppose, all you truly need to know.

We thought this was pretty cool, right at the first courtyard. But then we looked closely and realized it was starlings, not bats. Still pretty cool.

The courtyard also featured a couple of these crazy seed beasts. I have no idea why it appears to be standing over a pair of severed human feet. It does give one pause.

T

Like all proper Balinese temples, a cadre of fierce yet charming guardians.

There was plenty of action cross the street from the temple, too. There were services being conducted right by the beach.

Even better, there was a massive bat-themed sculpture (Installation? Roadside attraction?) that was the total highlight of the visit.

Hunting Crafts

I had a couple of hours to kill on our day trip to Denpasar for Dorothy’s filling. I thought I’d check out the Kumbasari Art Market, four floors of crafts. I figured I could scope it out in advance and that Dorothy and I could make quick work of it together when we came back.

Kumbasari was impressive in scale, the first two floors dedicated to clothing and textiles and the upper two floors featuring handicrafts. Bali is known for its beautiful ikats, and while we’d picked up museum quality specimens in our day trips to Tenganan and Sidemen, we were short on textiles that could be fashioned into personal wardrobe.

With that prompt, I was in and out of Kumbasari pretty quickly. The third and fourth floor crafts mall was mostly souvenir grade goods. There were some nice wooden bowls and trays, but nothing that inspired acquisitiveness, and certainly nothing that warranted trying to squeeze in the additional weight of wooden artifacts. And the first two floors were mostly utilitarian ready-made clothes for locals, so no treasures to be unearthed there, either. Unless we truly ran out of things to do, there’d be no reason to return with Dorothy.

That took all of half an hour, so with more time to kill I crossed the street to Denpasar’s largest fresh market, Pasar Badung. We’d be staying in a hotel for our five days in Denpasar, so we wouldn’t be cooking. Still, these local markets are always a treat and it was fun to walk through. But knowing that we wouldn’t be shopping there meant it was more a tourist visit than a scouting trip, so that didn’t take long, either.

Finally, I took a quick tour of Julan Sulawesi, three solid blocks of nothing but fabric stores. I didn’t do any shopping on my own, but this definitely warranted returning with Dorothy.

We did go back, but the goods leaned distinctly utilitarian. There wasn’t a lot of art there, and we wound up scarcely stopping. Part of that was because the night before we’d gone to the annual arts fair, Pesta Kesenian Bali, and that’s where the action was. They had a craft mall set up with an exceptionally well curated selection of textiles, jewelry, and crafts. We went three of our four nights in Denpasar, and found something new each night. With a rich array of art, performances, and food, I had to give Pesta Kesenian Bali it’s own post.

Bali Provincial Museum

The Bali Provincial Museum was just the right size to do in about an hour without feeling overwhelmed. There are three galleries, each housed in a discrete building. As with so many Balinese museums, the grounds were as, or perhaps more, spectacular than the collection.

The collection itself was… odd. There were representations of multiple art forms, but all of the artifacts on display seemed modern. I’m not at all clear what their curatorial POV might have been, but it was still all interesting stuff.

Bajra Sandhi Monument

This, despite looking ancient, is modern, designed in 1981 with construction completed in 2013. Its design abstractly celebrates Indonesian independence, which was declared on August 17, 1945. The monument has eight main pillars, 17 gates, and central tower of 45 meters. Which, you know, visually screams, “Hey! It’s about independence.” Couldn’t be more obvious.

Still, even if you somehow miss the hit-you-over-the-head symbolism, the building is awesome and the site is beautiful.

The exterior is also festooned, as the Balinese do, with guardians.

The first thing you notice is the faux Victorian interior, complete with marble columns and staircases and a pond. Because, you know, Independence.

The second thing you notice on entry is the garish, exaggerated sculptures of pig-nosed turtles. They surround the main floor, with their snouts facing out and their tails facing in. There’s no overt explanation for their presence, but Hindus believe the world is supported on the back of a turtle, so… probably?

The second floor is a rotunda with wall to wall dioramas covering the entire history of Bali. So, plenty of chieftains overseeing their bucolic domains, and plenty of Dutch fuckery. Which, sadly, is not the name of Amsterdam’s red light district.

It’s a lot of fuckery to take in at once, and I’m not sure the dioramas truly help it go down easier. Dioramas don’t usually make me want to cry.

It turns out that a 45 meter tall tower holds lots of steps. Lots and lots of steps. But if you make your way to the top, no matter how slowly, you are rewarded with spectacular views, both of the surrounding area and the compound itself.

Puri Agung Pemecutan, The Pemecutan Royal Palace

This 17th century palace is technically open to visitors, but only a tiny bit. You get the outside, but the inside is off limits. Still, sometimes a lot is too much, so I’m not going to complain about having a manageable scale.

Mostly, as seems to the case in Bali, it was about the statues. There were the expected Balinese guardians, but the emphasis here was on goofy animals. Hard not to love ’em.

Roadside Attractions

No trip anywhere is complete without enjoying what can be found on the way.

This was an innovation in dessert so compelling we went back. They make and stock plain yeast donuts. The bins on the left are the icing dips, and the bins on the right are the toppings. So you could get mango icing with peanuts, or chocolate icing with crispy ball pink. As you should. And they make them to your spec right there. In front of you.

And this, just your run of the mill bridge decoration. Basic.

And finally. I thought it was a lesbian bar, but it turned out to be a women’s clothing store. I wasn’t going in either way, but I was still kind of disappointed.

And it was, if it was important to have our noses rubbed in the destructive impact of overtouristing.

By hype, Bali is thick with tourists coming for yoga centers and wellness retreats. We intentionally chose to stay in Amed, an off-the-radar beach town, to avoid that, and it worked. Even Denpasar seemed more like a bustling capital than Man Bun Mecca. We were beginning to think that Bali’s reputation was unwarranted.

Har.

It’s not just that we were greeted by a sign on our way into town offering a men’s retreat where you could “Learn To Love Like A King.” Ok, fine. That is such low hanging fruit for mockery that it’s doing its own heavy lifting. But there’s nothing funny about the devastation wrought on Ubud by tourism.

I am not immune to the irony, or whatever the superlative of irony is (self-loathing?), that the only way to learn about the impact of overtourism on Ubud was to arrive as tourists. That’s the throbbing cognitive dissonance that has been a top note to our entire travel extravaganza. Sometimes I feel like a john who justifies his behavior because he treats the girls so well.

We maintain a light footprint. We live as close to the local lifestyle as possible. We support artisans over merchants. And we’re still helping to drive up the cost of living and housing wherever we go. We’re still part of the problem.

Which makes whinging about Ubud problematic. But nothing I can’t overcome by ignoring it!

Ubud reminds me of nothing so much as San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Like San Miguel, Ubud is a charming town whose charms have been nearly obliterated by tourists. In both cases you can squint and see the town that was the original draw, the elements that attracted tourists in the first place. San Miguel still has much of its original allure, as its clientele is the 1%, and their EPCOT Center village will be properly maintained. Don’t make them contact the manager.

What’s disturbing about San Miguel takes a minute to notice. It’s not that it’s a squalid hive of tourists, it’s that there are close to zero locals loose. No visitors, just shopkeepers. Mexicans have been priced out of San Miguel, which boasts Mexico’s worst income inequality.

Ubud is pretty much the same story, although its native charms are less manicured than San Miguel’s. But the setting, the old temples, the winding streets… The attraction is still evident, despite being buried under the avalanche of boutiques and souvenir shops that cater exclusively to tourists.

It’s not the wellness centers and the retreats. It’s that there’s nothing left of Ubud for people who actually live, or lived, there. It has given itself over completely to the predations of tourists, the most invasive species of all.

Because San Miguel truly is a way station for the 1%, it’s clean, curated, and modestly peopled (the only modest thing about it). There’s only so many folks who can afford San Miguel, which is how they like it. Ubud, on the other hand, was reminiscent of the souk in Marrakech, a veritable ant farm of gringos. It was, if I may permit myself, disgusting.

“But I’m not like those other guys, baby. I’ll love you like a king.” Which I think means that when I’m done with you I’ll fuck your daughter and your livestock. It’s what kings do.

*sigh* Welcome to Ubud.

Despite the above, we managed to squeeze out several positive experiences in our day there: a pair of nice temples and one spectacular, wholly unexpected museum.

The Royal Palace: Puri Saren Agung

Very little of the Royal Palace is open to the public, though what is available is choice. The palace was built in the early 1800s and restored after the 1917 earthquake, so it’s fairly modern. It’s used these days primarily as a performance space for traditional dance and gamelan music.

No Balinese palace is complete without a panoply of delightful carvings and adorably fierce guardian statues.

Puri Kantor Legacy Palace

Puri Kantor, like the Royal Palace, isn’t terrifically old, having been built in 1930. It’s a hotel now, with its grounds only available to guests. We got to view the courtyard, which was plenty interesting, especially since there was renovation underway.

There are still plenty of highly skilled stonemasons in Bali, working on both restorations and new construction. It was fascinating to see one of them at work.

Setia Darma House of Mask and Puppets

On paper, this looked like an interesting place. In real life, it was breathtaking, combining a ridiculously beautiful natural setting with a world-class museum collection of masks and puppets from all over the world.

Despite being hard by Ubud, 6 km and about 30 minutes by taxi, the place was deserted. There was one other couple there during our entire visit. It’s actual culture, so I suspect it doesn’t resonate with the kinds of tourists who find Ubud worthwhile. Fine. We were more than happy to have it to ourselves.

The museum is set up as a massive traditional Balinese compound, with each gallery taking up a discrete Javanese wooden house, a joglo. While the focus is on Indonesian masks and puppets, the collection features artifacts from all over the world. The compound also serves as a cultural hub, hosting performance and workshops.

Like many specialty museums we’ve seen, Setia Darma is the brainchild of a lone obsessive. Hadi Sunyoto is a wealthy collector who turned his private collection into a public museum in 2006. On the plus side there’s no entrance fee, so thanks, Income Inequality!

While there is, I’m sure, scholarly discourse available on the fine distinctions between regional storytelling traditions, we’ll have none of that here. That would require knowledge and expertise, and I’ve sworn off. What we have instead is a breathtaking collection of artifacts that can be appreciated for nothing more than their raw beauty. That’s enough for me, and it will have to do for you, too.

Wayang Kulit

Originating in Java, but performed in Bali, as well, Wayang Kulit is the traditional Indonesian shadow puppet show, a storytelling form over 1,000 years old. Unsurprisingly, the collection of Wayang Kulit puppets is excellent.

Balinese Ramayana Masks

Like many Southeast Asian storytelling traditions, the Ramayana figures prominently in Bali, and is responsible for some of the most beautiful masks.

Masks From All Over

Although it favors Indonesia, this truly is a worldwide collection.

Marionettes

We did a poor job of documenting countries of origin for the marionettes, but it’s pretty clear they represent a lot of different cultures and traditions.

There was also a display of hyperrealistic marionettes with no real explanation. These don’t look like archetypes, they look like very specific people. Other than the first one, which is obviously Obama and which was tagged to identify the other marionette as Hadi Sunyoto, the museum’s founder, there’s no information on who these people might be. But they’re definitely real people.

Random Acts Of Puppetry

There was a small display of New Guiinea Hand Puppets. A seriously missed gift shop opportunity.

There were a few full-size, multi-person Barong puppets.

And even a collection of puppet-themed paintings. As if the entire place didn’t already scream, “I have more money than I know what to do with!”

This one warrants its own discussion. The demon creatures are a Javanese-specific addition to the Hindu Ramayana narrative. The creature seated on the right is Samar, a Javanese demigod. The character on the left is Petruk and the bowing one in the middle is Bagong, both of them Samar’s sons. Along with their brother, Gareng, they make up the Punokawan, or clown servants. They are a consistent presence in both Balinese and Javanese wayang puppet shows.

OK. Great. But what the fuck is actually going on in this picture? Whatever it is, the women are clearly horrified. I’m horrified, and I have no idea what’s supposed to be happening. I can’t decide if I desperately want to know the story behind this or desperately don’t, so I can make up my own. Please offer potential narratives in the comments, like a New Yorker cartoon contest. There will be voting.

So did the Setia Darma House of Mask and Puppets make the visit to Ubud worthwhile? A resounding yes. As repulsive and disturbing as we found Ubud, the mask museum was at the other end of the spectrum, a peak experience and a must-visit if you ever find yourself in Bali.

Which you should.

After much searching, we found Amed, a quiet beach community in East Bali known for its accessible snorkeling. It’s one of the few places on the planet where you can walk into the water and swim a reef, perfect for those of us not up to the rigors of, you know, actual swimming.

Technically, I am a NAUI-certified scuba diver. Realistically, I received my certification when I was twelve and haven’t exactly kept up. I have a memory of being competent in the water, but now I can’t quite figure out what prevents drowning. Are you supposed to just naturally float? Tread water the entire time? Swim uphill to keep from sinking? I see people do it, and it’s just baffling.

Bali Fun Facts, or The Parade of Ignorance

Bali is not a country. It’s an island in Indonesia. Bali is not one of the Spice Islands. They are also a part of Indonesia, but you can’t name a single one of them. While Indonesia as a whole is Muslim, hosting the largest Muslim population on the planet, Bali is Hindu and marches to its own offbeat drummer.

While Bali is a single island, the nation of Indonesia is home to… well, nobody knows exactly how many islands. Everyone has agreed to the oddly specific count of 17,508, while also agreeing that the correct number could be anywhere between 13,000 and 25,000. The count of inhabited islands is… about 6,000. Or 922. Or 10,000. Is mystery. Wrapped in rising sea levels.

In an unforeseen plot twist, Bali and Indonesia were not primarily fucked by the French. Say hello to the Dutch East India Company. Although Napoleon did have control of Indonesia for five years, because if there’s one thing the French can’t stand it’s being shut out of fuckery. Not to be overlooked, the US supported an Indonesian dictator because he was anti-communist. Did not see that coming.

In fact, our Southeast Asia tour has been a cavalcade of nations willing to overlook American sins in the service of being gracious to American visitors. I get the self interest of tourism-based economies, but most of the tourists we’ve seen seem to be European or Australian. They could easily shun Americans without tanking their tourism industries. So, points for being nicer than we are.

On the other hand, there’d be no tourist economy anywhere on the planet if they locked out the citizens of countries that had fucked them. Easier just to open their doors and our wallets. It’s like reparations.

I still say they’re nicer than we are, but that’s an admittedly low bar to clear.

Our Homestay

Our homestay in Bali feels like we’re living in a jungle next to a farm. Or farms. I think that’s because we’re living in a jungle next to a farm. Or farms. The grounds here are lush and full of tropical flora as well as a rich ecosystem of birds, bugs, reptiles, and cats. The farm(s) next door is (are) chockablock with chickens, roosters, pigs, geese, cows, and goats. Who all appear to be early risers.

And that thing about roosters crowing at dawn is bullshit. They go off all day and night.

Here’s a panorama of the grounds, with the morning soundtrack. It’s almost like you’re here with us.

Breaking Waves In The Hot Sun

Our homestay is across the street from the beach, a mere five minute walk to the water. The beachfront is littered with resorts with swimming pools and palapas for shade. The closest one to us is the Seamount, which has an outdoor shower for cleaning the black sand from our feet and a ridiculously warm pool.

Our first day here we were good citizens and paid for a day pass to the pool and the lounges, 50,000 rupiah ($3) each. Now we feel like regulars. We walk to the beach, swim, come back through Seamount’s pool area, wash our feet and rinse the salt off. Maybe we take a quick dip in the pool, maybe not. A couple of times we’ve drafted behind a group of guests moving from beach to pool and just blended in. But there are 24 hours in a day, and we did buy a day pass, so we figure we’re good until we’ve used up all 24 hours.

The beach in Amed is blessed with beautiful, volcanic black sand beaches. There isn’t a definitive count of black sand beaches around the world, but it’s a countable number. 20? 40? So it’s our first, and an unexpected treat.

The beach here is known for, aside from the black sands, a few things. First, it’s known for its very, very calm, clear water. The surf here ranges from pacific like a sheet of glass to adorable Shetland breakers with tubes scaled for a Surfer Barbie. Perfect for just bobbing. We’ve found that a morning bob is dramatically enhanced by an afternoon bob. There is no shortcut to this kind of knowledge. You just have to put in the hard work.

The other thing it’s known for, as noted earlier, is how close the coral is to the shore. There are multiple spots right on our beach where you can walk into the water with a mask on and be swimming in the equivalent of an aquarium in short order, no boat necessary. We’d read that about Amed, which is why we landed here, but that scarcely prepares you for the experience.

Unsurprisingly, given the quantity of black volcanic sand on the beach, there is a volcano nearby, Mount Agung, which looms over both beach and town. Its last major eruption started in 2017 and ended in 2019. So, yeah. Active.

Amed is a traditional beach village with a main drag following the shoreline. Officially, Amed is Bali’s second largest city, but they got there by cheating. They added six other adjacent villages to Amed and called it Amed. Right. The Greater Metropolitan Amed Conurbation. But Amed proper, pretty small.

The Neighborhood

Most of the shops along Main Street are dive shops, small restaurants (warungs), spas, and tour providers, with a smattering of minimarts, produce stalls, and retail sarong and authentic! cowrie bracelet shops. The closest thing to a central market is in a village three kilometers away. There’s not much by way of art or handicrafts or culture, which is fine. We’re here for the fresh fish, both as companions and entrées.

There’s plenty of neighborhood just off Main Street. Walking the residential streets provides a beautiful window into daily life here, as well as gorgeous views of the jungle vistas.

One of the things we noticed is that vernacular residential architecture is structured around compounds with multiple, discrete buildings. A kitchen, a common room for dining and gathering, a residence/bedroom for each couple, and a temple for the ancestors.

We obviously weren’t invited into anyone’s home, so the most we were able to see from the street were the temples. Echoing the larger compound, each temple had specific altars for each ancestor. Designs ranged from humble to ornate, but all of them were well cared for and well maintained. The daily connection to the ancestors is a real thing here, and kind of cool. Sam and Ruby are now hereby notified that we expect no less than altars tended daily when we’re gone.

We also learned that they use bamboo for everything here.

Other Things We’ve Seen In The Neighborhood

JFC: Jaya Fried Chicken. It’s really good.

This is a thing we haven’t seen anywhere else. Yet. Manufactured products and snacks are made in a string of connected packages. They’re perforated, so the bottom one gets torn off to sell. The benefit of this arrangement is that you just toss them over a string or a piece of bamboo and they display themselves. They don’t need counter space or a fixture, and it’s easy for customers to see what you have on offer. Very clever merchandising that benefits everyone.

Reggae Bars

For reasons necessarily opaque, Amed is flush with reggae bars. We met a guy in Hội Án who was also on his way for a brief stay in Amed, and he said he had a reggae bar he loved, and maybe we’d see him there. Not even close to enough information to locate him, even if we’d wanted to. Which we didn’t. There are a lot of reggae bars here. OK, not dozens, but way more than should be plausible outside of Jamaica.

Which is more than a little cognitively dissonant, as the Rasta religion forbids alcohol. No problem for the flexible Balinese.

One of these joints, Rasta Bar, is right next to the Seamount, where we swim, and I have to confess that it’s not at all unpleasant to bob in the ocean to the hypnotic reggae rhythm. Perhaps it’s that Bali and Jamaica share a laid back island vibe, but it almost makes sense.

But not the karaoke reggae bar. That’s just wrong.

You can join us for drinks on the beach at Rasta Bar, and enjoy the slinky reggae vibe.

Balinese Hinduism

Hinduism first came to Bali around the 1st century, but it didn’t stay put. Balinese Hinduism adds a soupçon of Buddhism to Indian Hinduism and wraps it around a meaty core of traditional Balinese animist beliefs, arts, and rituals. That was fine for centuries, but then it got weird, thanks to the Indonesian government.

On independence from the Dutch in 1945, the new constitution enshrined freedom of religion as a core right. However, Islamists took control of the Indonesian Ministry of Religion in 1952, and severely restricted what could legitimately be considered a religion that citizens had the right to practice. Aimed specifically at Bali’s Hindu population, the new rules required that a religion must be monotheistic, have a Holy Book and a prophet, and have a codified set of religious laws, among other strictures.

Having none of those things, the Ministry of Religion declared that Balinese Hinduism wasn’t a real religion. To which Balinese Hindus replied, “OK, we have all of those things. Now leave us alone.” So Balinese Hinduism is technically monotheistic and practically polytheistic. This makes Balinese Hinduism, in a roundabout way, much like Santeria, which coated Yoruban beliefs with a thin veneer of Catholicism, so no one got huffy.

I don’t know if the 1952 regulations were ever rescinded, but as a practical matter Balinese are still very much practicing their bespoke brand of Hinduism, seemingly unfettered by the long arm of the state. We spoke to one of our drivers about the differences between Bali and the rest of Indonesia, and he offered up a list of behaviors that would be unacceptable under Muslim law, such as premarital sex and drinking. It’s no wonder, I suppose, that Bali is Indonesia’s party capital.

Canang Sari

Canang sari, set outside of homes and businesses every morning, are a small but lovely manifestation of Balinese Hinduism. From simple to elaborate, they are sometimes tucked into altars, but are often just left on the sidewalk. They are a deeply felt thank you to Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa, the supreme being in Balinese Hinduism (or at least the one they picked to mollify the Muslims), for the gifts of peace, prosperity, and the harmony of the universe, weaving the ineffable into a daily ritual.

Penjor

Penjor flank the entrances to homes and businesses, and line the streets. Like the canang sari, they are devotional pieces dedicated to Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa. Unilke the canang sari, they are not a daily ritual, but are for special occasions and ceremonies, acting as a spiritual conduit connecting the mortal and the divine.

They are made, as a thank you, of the natural products that sustain Balinese life, such as bamboo, coconuts, bananas, and sugarcane. We saw many penjor with sprays of seeds attached all up and down, to also provide sustenance to bird life. While you can have them professionally made, people here take pride in making their own.

This is yet another example of the ways in which a shopping culture, as opposed to a making culture, impoverishes its inhabitants. It’s hard to put your soul into an Amazon cart, and lord knows I’ve tried. But when you make things, you have an incentive to make them well and make them beautiful. And then you’re surrounded not just by beauty, but by meaning. Or you could be surrounded by receipts. That’s OK, too. God loves all his children.

Bedogol

Another visual representation of Balinese Hindu beliefs is the presence of fierce gate guardians at the doorways to temples and homes. These Bedogol, or Dwarapala in Original Hinduism, are always in pairs surrounding the gate. The right hand Bedogol represents active energy and masculinity, while the left hand Bedogol signifies passive energy and femininity. The one is good for strength and protection, and the other provides intuition and gentleness. Together, they keep their charges safe from evil creatures and bad vibes.

I’m sure our Homeowners Association couldn’t possibly object if we put a pair in the hallway around our door. Who doesn’t need evil kept at bay?

Murder Most Fowl

There are a ton of free range chickens and roosters here, but also a surprisingly high population of caged roosters. There are shops that make and sell rooster cages, and then there are all the places with the caged roosters. It’s a thing. A weird thing.

It turns out that cockfighting is an ancient ritual connected to Balinese Hinduism. I told you the Balinese had made up their own brand of Hinduism, but you didn’t believe me, did you?

The roosters are caged because they’ve been trained to fight and aren’t safe wandering loose. And also because they’re super valuable. They start at 1,000,000 rupiah (about $60) and go up from there with pedigree and wins in the arena.

Cockfighting is actually a religious obligation at Balinese festivals and ceremonies. The losing rooster’s blood is meant as an offering to placate evil spirits. Legally, cockfighting is permitted in Bali only as part of religious ceremonies. And, hey! No gambling!

But we saw way more caged roosters than temples on their own could possibly have required. 100% there is non-religious cockfighting and gambling. We are shocked — shocked — to find that gambling is going on in here!

It’s also yet another layer of feigned compliance on the part of the Balinese. “Sure, we’ll be Hindu. We just need to add a few local spices. You need us to be monotheists? No problem, we’ll just pick one of our gods to be the Kahuna. We can only cockfight in the temple? You like our new temple?” Culturally they’re made of jello. Push on it and it seems to give, but the moment you let up it pops back to its original shape. They are Jedi masters of the Okey-Doke.

Roosters!

It’s hard to get a good look at the caged roosters, at least partially because it feels dangerous to get too close, but the loose roosters are spectacular. I know nothing about rooster genealogy, which I’m sure comes as a shock to y’all, but there seems to be a stunning range of rooster morphology on display here.

By The Way…

I got scuba-certified at twelve because my parents, Jackie and Stan, decided they wanted to dive and it became a family affair. It was a ten-week class, mixed between classroom (gas physics) and pool. The first three weeks in the pool were all swimming exercises, but we were permitted to put on scuba gear in week four and just sit underwater in the shallow end, to get used to the equipment.

At which point Stan stood up and tapped out. Give him credit for knowing himself. He found the experience claustrophobic and unsettling, and couldn’t think of a reason to shoulder past that.

Jackie and I continued, but I failed the final swimming exam. I did fine on the classroom test, and Jackie passed everything, but the swimming exam was hard. Among other soul crushing tests, you had to: swim two lengths of an Olympic pool underwater on a single breath; tread water for seven minutes with your arms out of the water, only legs; swim multiple laps, I don’t remember the actual number, in full gear, but only using your snorkel. They weighted you so you had negative buoyancy and had to swim uphill while someone walked at the edge of the pool and randomly poured buckets of water into your snorkel, to simulate all of your failed relationships waves. It was a lot, for a twelve-year-old.

I was technically too young, as thirteen was the NAUI cutoff, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to fail. But I was humiliated. It took me two more tries, but I did finally pass.

When I was thirteen and on our North American wanderjahr, we wound up in Acapulco, where Jackie and I took a dive boat together. We were the only certified divers aboard, so the guide provided training to the others: “OK. Exhale on the way up. Do you know what urchins look like? Great. Don’t touch them.” And off everyone went to enjoy their new skills. It really made me appreciate all the hard work I’d put in.

Then I touched an urchin.

Then we started looking at flights. They all stopped in HCMC for heinous 6+ hour layovers before continuing on to Bali. We decided it would be easier, and more fun, to burn a few days of our Airbnb, fly to HCMC for those days, and take a nice, direct flight to Bali. Three days in HCMC would be a rushed, tourist cadence, but we figured we’d have more fun than if we’d skipped it entirely.

So… maybe?

The thing is, we’re not at all used to the tourist cadence. Our slow travel lifestyle has us staying in a location for from 1-3 months, so we’re used to taking our time to learn a place. We don’t have any muscle memory associated with the guerrilla rhythm of hitting a place hard and fast to squeeze the juice out in a few days and move on.

It’s not like we haven’t had successful short jaunts. We spent three days in Lan Ha Bay, for example, but we had boat trips scheduled for two of those days, and toured a couple of local caves on the third day. We had an itinerary, so it worked.

We hit HCMC with nothing more than a vague idea. It’s one of those places with so much going on, it’s not immediately obvious what you’d triage down to for a three day visit. Chinatown seemed like it would be fun, and there were a couple of good looking museums. Other than that, our “plan” was to walk the city and see what it had to offer.

Which, as a practical matter, meant that we just kind of wandered aimlessly for three days. We did go to Chinatown, and we did go to the History Museum, but HCMC is a big capital-style city (I know Hà Nội is the actual capital, but HCMC has a more capital city vibe – like NYC vs. DC), and it wanted a plan that we hadn’t prepared. Still, more fun that a six hour layover at the HCMC airport.

Chinatown

HCMC’s Chinatown, Chợ Lớn, was not at all what we were expecting. Because, you know, ignorant. I was expecting it to look like a US Chinatown, which is stupid, since I’m well aware that the entire Chinatown esthetic had been dreamed up as a marketing ploy by a pair of white US architects who had never been to China. So HCMC’s Chinatown looked just like the rest of HCMC.

The other confounding factor is that Vietnam, due to history and proximity, is closer to China culturally than any other country. So when we went to Chợ Lớn’s main market, Bình Tây, we couldn’t tell the difference between the Chinese products and what was on offer at Bến Thành, HCMC’s main market. Again, ignorance, but Vietnam already has a lot of Chinese products, so the untrained eye really couldn’t tell the difference. Bình Tây and Bến Thành looked pretty much the same to us.

This was Bình Tây, the Chợ Lớn market:

And this was Bến Thành, HCMC’s regular market:

Obviously a little different in layout and overall design, but not much to pick between them as one being quintessentially Vietnamese and the other being hardcore Chinese. If you swapped the photos, no one would know.

After Bình Tây we walked around randomly hoping to see some of Chợ Lớn’s history, as it dates back to the 17th century, but no luck. Maybe if we’d done more research and planned everything out we’d have known where to go look, but as it was, Chợ Lớn was kind of a bust for us.

Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History

We also got to the history museum. Which I only have a few pictures from, because, honestly, museum fatigue. In our ten weeks in Vietnam it felt like we’d visited scores of museums, and at some point they just become a blur. Especially, because the Vietnamese forms share a number of design elements with the Angkor-era carving we saw in Cambodia. That’s a lot of time looking at art with a common underlying framework. I’m looking forward to Indonesia, where Bali and Java have distinct artistic traditions.

These Cham sculptures are from the 12th-13th centuries. The first two were building supports for a tower that collapsed before it was completed. They’re in such fine condition because they were buried in the resulting rubble, which protected them from erosion.

Unsurprisingly, Dorothy found beautiful garments.

Aimless Wandering

As promised, the rest of our stay in HCMC was completely random. We had post cards to send, so we went to the main Post Office, which was in District 1, where we were staying.

We had one dinner at a one star Michelin restaurant, Mặn Mòi, which also boasted high-style architecture.

Another dinner was at the Bến Nghé Street Food restaurant, a food court style arrangement with over 50 stalls. We could even have had tacos. Which we didn’t.

Randomly walking the streets we saw…

Random topiary.

Random electrical lighting objects.

A random Indian temple.

We even went to a typical pagoda, the Ngọc Hoàng, not far from our hotel. And tried really hard to care. But temple fatigue is real, like museum fatigue. Despite being stuck there in a torrential downpour, we just couldn’t get into it. Time to leave Vietnam.

But it did have a few treats. You still have to keep your eyes open, no matter what, or you’ll miss some tucked away morsel of wow. Not OK.

For some reason, we thought this table of offering votives was really beautiful.

I’ll leave you with the most HCMC thing about HCMC: Traffic.

That, by the way, was a street we never crossed. Normally we’d draft behind an auntie, but not even the locals were crossing that street.

Should we have skipped HCMC and just flown directly to Bali from Đà Nẵng? I still think we were better off this way, but note-to-self for the future, we should only do short visits if we’ve done our homework and have a clue how we’re going to spend the time.

Embroidery, Weaving, & Textiles

This may be the least surprising of Vietnam’s wonders. They’ve been doing this for centuries, and it shows. First up is Tailor Cát, a shop specializing in extravagantly embroidered modern versions of traditional áo dài and blouses. We learned, by the way, that áo dài is pronounced ow zye. The hard D is the letter Ð.

Embroidery

Would you be surprised to learn that Dorothy bought an embroidered piece? They recut the armscye to fit and had it ready the next day.

Tailor Cát was not the only high end embroidery shop.

Embroidered paintings are also a thing here. We saw more spectacular examples in Hội An, but these smaller pieces were all over the souvenir shops.

Totes

Another manifestation of the weaving heritage shows up in tote bags, one of Dorothy’s favorite forms of weaving. She has harvested woven totes at every one of our stops, adding up to quite the international collection.

Fabric Markets

Hà Nội, no surprise, also boasts several robust textile markets. One was just around the corner from our apartment in the Old Quarter, but the big one, Chợ Hom, was a short cab ride south.

Vạn Phúc Silk Village

Making traditional Vietnamese dinners for us (twice!) apparently wasn’t enough for our host An and her daughter An Binh. They also docented us on a trip just south of Hà Nói to the Vạn Phúc Silk Village. We probably wouldn’t have gone without them, but even if we’d found it, the experience would have been much the poorer for not having our ridiculously adorable hosts to guide us.

The whole range was on display in Vạn Phúc, from weaving on vintage Jacquard looms to fabric by the meter to finished goods. This was an absolute highlight of our stay, and we almost missed it. This was our next-to-last day in Hà Nói.

The shops were full. And the village was full of shops. Over 1,000 households in Vạn Phúc are involved in some part of the silk production process. It felt like we visited all of them, but I suspect we fell short.

Those of you who have been following us know that we rarely post pictures of ourselves. That’s a reflection of the fact that we rarely take photos of ourselves. At any given location, we are absolutely guaranteed to be the least interesting thing there. Other people, however, seem to find us fascinating.

But I’ve saved the best for last. As delightful as the setting was, as spectacular as the offerings were, the highlight was seeing vintage Jacquard looms in operation.

Joseph Marie Jacquard invented, in 1804, a method for using punch cards to control a loom, automating the weaving process and initiating a Cambrian Explosion of textile complexity, spawning designs that were inconceivable by hand.

More than that, it is widely acknowledged as the first computer, and was one of the forebears of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine. The first electronic computer, ENIAC, was programmed by Jacquard-inspired punch cards. My college statistics class in the 70s required writing a program with punch cards. The Jacquard Loom is the OG.

I have no idea the precise vintage of the looms in Vạn Phúc. I’m sure they don’t date to 1804. But these were old fucking looms. Seeing a room full of them in action was like stepping into a time machine. A mill in Jacquard’s time would have looked much like the room we were in.

Every so often on this journey we have been in places that offered a hallucinatory stereo vision, where past and present coexist and can be viewed in the same frame. That’s a mind-blowing, double-rainbow experience, and Vạn Phúc’s Jacquard looms offered it up in spades.

Here they are, as they are meant to be, in action.

There’s a wooden paddle at each end that slams the shuttle back to the other side once a weft row is complete.

You can clearly see the intricacy and delicacy of the brocade. It’s just astonishing that this level of complexity is possible with 200+ year old technology. Like sending people to the moon with sub-iPhone computing power.

Ceramics

We have reliably gobbled up ceramics on every one of our stops. Mexico, Cuba, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey… They’ve all had some take on ceramics so seductive we’ve had to tamp down our acquisitiveness. We’ve safely muled home a lot of heavy, breakable specimens, but there’s only so much we can do.

The good news in Southeast Asia, I suppose, is that we haven’t been truly beguiled by the local ceramics. We did find one shop in Cambodia that had things that spoke to us, but for the most part we found the pieces either too utilitarian or too subtle for our clown car aesthetic. Same for Vietnam. Maybe Hội An will have something tempting, but we’re leaving Hà Nội completely bereft of pottery.

I know this stuff is objectively beautiful, but there’s too strong a flavor of turn-of-the-(last)-century Chinoiserie for me to overcome.

Mandalas

One of the delights of staying someplace for an extended period is getting past the tourist shops. There are always treasures, but they’re hard to find on a tight schedule. Wander around aimlessly long enough, though, and you’ll stumble on something amazing.

Just so with these insanely beautiful hand-painted mandalas. Specifically, these are Thangka mandalas, most often associated with Nepali Buddhism, but also made by Vietnamese monks.

Lacquerware

Lacquerware is another major art form here. Unfortunately, the options ranged from exceedingly expensive fine art offerings to cheap tourist ware. There weren’t a lot of attractive options in the affordable middle. We would up with a few lacquered coconut shell bowls, because the deep lacquered colors, even on tourist goods, are pretty awesome.

Propaganda Posters

This was kind of a surprise. There are multiple shops in Hà Nói where you can buy either hand-painted reproductions or prints of the hand-painted reproductions, and there’s a museum with an impressive collection of originals.

This is what’s on offer in the shops.

And this is the museum collection. Captions courtesy of Google Translate. Most of them are fine, but the first one is kind of word salad. I asked our host’s daughter, An Binh, if she’d translate for me, and she didn’t do any better.

Mother Of Pearl

We didn’t see much of this in stores, but there was a museum that featured sumptuous use of mother of pearl.

Signage & Graphic Design

Don’t be like that. The commercial arts are still arts, and they offer entertainment and delight everywhere we’ve been.

Shoes

I made the mistake of mentioning to my sister Nef that Vietnam didn’t seem to be a shoe culture. Then we found these. I stand grievously corrected.

Bamboo carving

This guy was set up on Hoàn Kiếm Lake and we ran across him on Day Two. We didn’t know that the balancing hummingbirds were in every souvenir shop, but he was legitimately cutting the bamboo by hand.

Random Acts Of Art

The Plant (& Carved Wood) District

Shut up. Plants are art.

The plant district is a long stretch of road with plant stores, aquarium stores interspersed throughout, and carved wood shops at one end. It’s well outside the Old Quarter, at the foot of West Lake. We picked up a couple of lovely house plants. Maybe silly, since we were only in Hà Nói six weeks, but they brightened our apartment and we left them behind for our host.

Hanoi Ceramic Road

In 2010 Ha Noi celebrated its Millennial Anniversary, 1,000 years since its founding as Emperor Lý Thái Tổ’s capital, Thăng Long. The Hanoi Ceramic Road was started in 2007 and was completed in 2010 in time for the Millennial celebration. It runs four full miles, and includes work by both Vietnamese artists and friends of Vietnam.

Driving alongside it is quite the experience. It just keeps going.

Temples

Hà Nội is a festival of little temples and pagodas all over the place, and they are their own legitimate art form. While we didn’t get any good pictures of the exterior of Emperor Lý Thái Tổ’s Temple, there was plenty to love inside.

Here’s one of our favorites, the Little Spite Temple That Wouldn’t.

The Lý Triều Quốc Sư Pagoda is just another little temple along the shore of Hoàn Kiếm Lake. In case you’re concerned, I asked permission before taking pictures. As is my habit.

Here’s one more temple we didn’t even get the name of. These are just everywhere here. The critter in the middle is the Vietnamese version of the Cambodian Moon Eater. They’re all over the Angkor-era temples, and share a Hindu/Buddhist origin story. They tend to sit over doorways as protectors.

The altars are a major part of each temple. They hold offerings for the ancestors, and trend heavily towards packaged foods. There’s a street in the Old Quarter with nothing but shops specializing in snacks in fancy boxes suitable for altars.

This temple was in the botanical garden.

Architectural Detail

In addition to the temples, there is a metric buttload of carvings, friezes, and woodworking adorning buildings throughout the Old Quarter.

Places We Didn’t Go

Much like Oaxaca, Hà Nội is surrounded by a nimbus of craft-oriented villages. There’s the Bát Tràng Ceramic Village. The Quảng Phú Cầu Incense Village. The Ha Thai Lacquer Village. The Làng Chuông Conical Hat Village.

All of them sounded interesting, all of them were close to Hà Nội, and all of them were available on inexpensive tours, about $15/person for the whole circuit. We skipped them all.

We’re not a big fan of packaged tours with other folks. We did a few in Turkey and didn’t really care for them. We much prefer to be on our own cadence and follow our own interests. But the real problem was that all of these villages were curated tourist experiences. Make a ceramic bowl. Make a conical hat. Make incense. Make a lacquer bowl. Take your treasures home with you!

Pardon me, but eww. We’re interested in how artisans create art, and we’re interested in the art they create. We don’t see anything of value in the summer camp lanyard-making experience. Which is not to say we haven’t done any classes. Dorothy and my sister Nef took a two-day intensive course in Oaxaca on using natural materials to dye fabric. They took a class in Marrakech on traditional Moroccan cooking. But those aren’t the craft version of a ladies-who-lunch Mahjong game. That’s useful knowledge that can be applied in real life.

I contacted the main pottery collective in Bát Tràng and asked if we had to come on a tour or if we could just show up and look around. I was told that the actual production work was done in people’s homes, so there really wasn’t a tour available in that sense. The tour groups come in, do the hands-on thing, and then shop in the showroom. But you can’t just show up, even for that attenuated experience.

The whole thing seemed very EPCOT Center, so we passed. All of those crafts were available in shops in Hà Nội, without the tour group hassle and the playdate ambiance.

The journey is as much about having wonderful experiences as it is about avoiding those we know won’t work. Check.

The second unexpected pleasure was checking in to our Vietjet Air flight. We’re always very careful about checking baggage restrictions for each airline we fly, because they vary so dramatically. In this case we were given a generous allotment of 30kg for one checked bag each, but our combined carry-on and personal item could weigh no more than 7kg each, which is nothing. Each of our carry-on bags, empty, is 3.5kg.

The only way we could figure to get our combined carry-on weight to 14kg was to cram full one of the bags we usually carry on and check it. According to the airline’s website, the extra bag would be about $19. I tried to add that third bag online but it wouldn’t work, so we’d have to negotiate that at check-in.

After getting the third bag weighed and checked, the agent shows me a calculator displaying 59. Which is outrageous, as it was $19 on the website. After some back and forth, I figure out that 59 is the combined weight of all three of our bags, and because we have a total allotment of 60kg between us, all good, thank you very much, everything is free.

Can you even imagine a Western airline reaching that conclusion? In your dreams. What a lovely introduction to Vietnam.

And, of course, they never weighed our carry-on.

The Old Quarter: Hanoi Rocks

We’re staying right in The Old Quarter of Hà Nội, and it’s pretty much the reason we came to Hà Nội at all. Much like the Medina in Marrakech, to which it bears more than a passing resemblance, The Old Quarter is a centuries-old commercial center, with plenty of callbacks to its historic past.

The area has been a commercial and arts center since the 11th century, with its current footprint dating to the 15th century. It’s also known as 36 Old Streets, although today there’s about 70 total streets in the jam-packed square kilometer that makes up the district. The 36 Streets refer to the 36 historic guilds responsible for individual arts, each relegated to a specific street. Echoes of those old guilds still reverberate in the shops that occupy the Old Quarter today.

These are just some of the streets where the modern mix of shops calls back to the historic guilds. Hàng Bạc Street: silver; Hàng Mã: religious goods and festival decorations; Hàng Gai: silk; Lãn Ông: traditional medicines; Hàng Thùng: bucket and barrel makers; Hàng Tre: bamboo; Hàng Đào: clothing; Hàng Đường: sweets… There is a Pudding Street. And, clearly, a god.

We are staying on Hàng Chiếu, the Street of Mats, historically known for the concentration of reed weavers. There are still plenty of shops specializing in mats and woven totes. Our doorway is literally flanked with vibrant reed weaving. Dorothy is in heaven. She has a particular fondness for totes made of woven reed or plastic, so she can satisfy that craving entirely within inches of our door.

We have six weeks in Hà Nội, with plenty of day and overnight trips planned to take advantage of the North’s ridiculous natural beauty and vibrant culture. But we won’t be neglecting the Old Quarter, and hope to report fully on as many of its 36 streets as we can.

This greeted us from the cab on our way in from the airport. I have been unable to find any information about it. Perhaps because it’s unexceptional? It was still a pretty cool welcome from Hà Nội.

Our Apartment

Let’s settle on quirky. Quirky is good.

It’s actually fine. But it does have a couple of notable quirks. The first is the entrance.

The next endearing quirk is in the apartment itself, the kitchen specifically.

I can hear you: “Well, that seems like a lovely kitchen. Adequate counter space, plenty of dishes, full size refrigerator, useful appliances. How nice.” “But, wait,” you continue. “On mature reflection, where the fuck is the sink?”

On the balcony, of course. You can be very, very silly sometimes. It’s why I love you.

The bathroom is probably more challenge than quirk. There isn’t a dedicated shower, it’s just the area between the sink and toilet. And that toilet is very close to the wall. I can sit on it properly with my stubby legs, but Dorothy’s more generous, less pliable gams force her to sit sideways.

Plus, we’re not supposed to flush toilet paper. We obviously had bidets all throughout our last leg, as we were exclusively in Muslim countries, but I have to confess I never used one. I was confused by the geometry. I was convinced that I would spray either up my back or front, rather than properly Down Below. You’ll be thrilled, I’m sure, to learn that I can bidet myself without getting the walls wet. And you’re welcome for that image.

The rest of the apartment truly is fine, even comfortable. There’s a switch for the hot water heater, so we have to wait about ten minutes before there’s hot water available, but we’ve had that before, in Chetumal. We get it. It’s expensive to keep hot water heated 24/7, and we’re happy to help keep our host’s business model in balance.

It’s a 3rd floor walkup, which here means that you climb two flights. Some places, like Cambodia, don’t count the ground floor as 1, so a 3rd floor walkup is three flights. We didn’t know until we got here whether we’d be walking up two flights or three.

Since Dorothy’s mishap in Cambodia, we’ve adopted a new stair protocol: I am always below her. In front of her going down, behind her going up. We refer to my role as Meat Cushion. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.

There’s another critical component of our Airbnb lifestyle in addition to the apartment itself, and that is, of course, our hosts. We have had many, many excellent hosts. Hosts who have helped us solve local problems. Hosts (sadly, plural) who have taken us to the hospital. Hosts who have brought us delicious baked goods.

But An, our Hà Nội host, is working hard to top that list. She and her delightful daughter, An Binh (both their names mean Peace), came to our apartment for its first weekly cleaning and stayed to provide a home-cooked traditional Vietnamese dinner. There was some kind of shrimp cake with whole shrimps baked in, several fried things in tubes, filled with delicious I-don’t-know, little patties of rice noodles and greens to wrap them in, dipping sauce, a dessert of sweet soup and sticky rice, and fresh longan on the stem. And green tea that had been stored in a lotus flower and made fresh.

Home-cooked meal #2, we are told, will be a traditional Vietnamese hotpot. Or as An called it, a food sauna.

Somehow we mentioned going to the flower market, and without looking it up I recalled that it was called Quảng Bá. I said Kwahng Bah, and both An and An Binh looked at me and then each other. They finally figured out what I’d meant to say, and after recovering from a fairly alarming fit of laughter, An Binh took some time to try to teach Dorothy’s mouth how to make the vowel sound in Quảng.

Which brings us to learning Vietnamese, or trying to. As the above clip demonstrates, Vietnamese vowels are slippery, due to the tonal component. In American English we use tones to modify the meaning of a sentence. A rising tone indicates a question, a falling tone indicates that we’ve completed a thought, but it doesn’t go much farther than that. A changed vowel tone certainly doesn’t indicate a completely different word in English. Or Southern drawls would be unintelligible. More unintelligible.

In fact, regional dialects in the US are all about shifting vowel sounds. A d is pretty much a d everywhere, but the vowels go every which way. When we moved to Rhode Island I was shocked to discover that sauce was a multisyllabic word. Suh-wass. But it still meant sauce.

Put another way, English has 19 different vowel sounds. Vietnamese has twenty-one vowel sounds (twelve basic vowels and nine diphthongs) and six distinct tones that modify the vowels and completely alter both the sound and the meaning of a word. Ma means ghost. Mà means but. Má means mother. Mả means tomb. Mã means code. And mạ means rice seedling. Unsurprisingly, it’s hard to get an accurate count, but most folks agree that Vietnamese has over 100 vowel sounds.

Even less of a surprise, not only can’t we make the sounds of those tonal vowels, as Dorothy proves above, we can’t even hear them. We’ve lived our whole lives only needing to hear and know 19 vowel sounds, and now we’re swimming in over 100? After Cambodia, who’s Khmer alphabet is completely alien, we thought Vietnamese might have an easier uptake since we share an alphabet. But do we? Really? Not when a, à, á, ả, ã, and ạ are all different letters.

Here’s a good one. Cảm ơn means thank you. Câm mồm means shut up. The biggest difference is the intonation on that last vowel. Rising and it means thank you. Falling, as I’ve been pronouncing it, and you’ll be heard to say shut up.

At the end of the day, it’s still pretty much like everywhere else we’ve been. Their English is better than our Whatever, and that’s how we get by. But we did way better with Turkish and the Arabic dialects in Morocco and Tunisia, so our utter failure with Khmer and Vietnamese is a little disheartening. Here’s to butchering Indonesian on our next leg.

Mercados

For convenience, this may be the best shopping location we’ve ever had. Obviously we’re at Ground Zero for handicrafts, but we are, more importantly, hard by the largest traditional market in Hà Nội, Chợ Đồng Xuân, the Đồng Xuân Market. The Đồng Xuân offers three floors of shopping, with the first floor given over to wholesale and retail vendors of all stripes, from fresh meats to hard goods. Hats, cosmetics, sunglasses, backpacks, souvenirs, handbags, bras…

We had seen pictures and we’d noticed that the upper floors seemed to have quite a bit of fabric. What we hadn’t realized is that half the second floor was textiles, with the other half and the third floor given over to ready made. We wound up a three minute walk from one of the largest textile bazaars in Vietnam. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

Which won’t keep us from going to Hom Market, the largest textile market in the city. It’s only a mile and a half from us, and will probably be a full-day field trip of its own.

We also visited the mall on our first full day here, which isn’t in the neighborhood. While we love the traditional markets, it’s hard for Dorothy to cook without the stuff available in a hypermarché, and the nearest mall was so blessed. Plus, while we’re not enamored of mall culture, it’s always interesting to see its vernacular expression. The Lotte Mall West Lake did not disappoint.

For starters, it’s pretty fucking big. Even by mall standards. Five stories, with more focus on children and experience than I expect from a mall. Not that there isn’t shopping and eating. There’s the full complement of upscale retail, from Polo and Lagerfeld to Hermès and Chanel. There’s restaurants, from food court to fine dining. As expected.

But there’s also Kidzania, where you can drop Der Kinder off by the hour. And a metric buttload of DIY crafting shops, where you can make jewelry or ceramics or embroidery. I’m sure you could enjoy it as an adult, if you like that kind of thing, but the target was definitely children. Also plenty of arcades and toy stores, nicely splitting the difference between mall and playground.

Oh. And an aquarium. Because, sure. And an outdoor park on the fifth floor.

The Neighborhood

I’m going to do a whole post on the 36 Streets from a handicrafts perspective, but the Old Quarter reminds us most of Mexico City, both in the ridiculous density and the retail specialization. For example, our apartment in CDMX was in the lighting district, but the clustering there was a naturally occurring phenomenon that happened over time. Here, the effect was very much intentional, with the Guilds being assigned to specific streets. It was believed that both merchants and shoppers would benefit from the close proximity, and thus it was decreed.

But don’t worry. I’m not going to make you wait until the 36 Streets post before sharing some of the photos. That would be mean. And you know how fundamentally kind of heart I am. Here’s a little amuse-bouche, compliments of the chef.

Part of the Old Quarter’s density comes from the fact that there are effectively no sidewalks. The sidewalks are either used as extended retail spaces for restaurants and shops or as parking lots for the hordes of scooters, which soak up whatever square footage has been left uncolonized. Pedestrians are left to share the road with scooters, cars, rickshaws, and commercial vehicles. It’s like a game of Frogger where you only get one life.

Even though they ban the tuktuks ubiquitous in Cambodia due to their diesel spew, the vehicular density has contributed to the designation, just a few months ago, of Hà Nội as the most polluted city in the world. Who says communism can’t deliver wins for the People?

What’s this? A picture of blue sky? What’s the big deal? The big deal is that this was the first blue sky we’d seen in Hanoi, and it took four full weeks to show up. We were stunned, but still had the presence of mind to capture it before it disappeared.

You could save a lot of money here if you smoked. I can’t imagine anything less necessary. The pollution fills the pulmonary niche of a burning cigarette’s chemical compounds, and if you miss the nicotine kick you can just cross the street. Zero reason to spend on cigs here.

The Old Quarter’s vehicular density is matched by its population density. The last information I could find was from 2020, which pegged the Old Quarter’s square kilometer at 66,000 people. If the district’s population grew by as much as Hanoi’s overall (15%) since 2020, you’d get a 2024 population of about 76,000.

The current densest city on the planet is Manila, at 46,000 people/km². Even without estimating growth since 2020, The Old Quarter’s 66,000 people/km² would make it the densest city on the planet, if it were an entire city. Which is, unsurprisingly, exactly what it feels like here.

Like Siem Reap, the Old Quarter is also chockablock with spas. So much so that Southeast Asia’s entire economy seems to be based on spa services. Once we got outside the neighborhood things calmed down, but you can’t swing a cat in the Old Quarter without hitting hot stones. Which makes a horrible sound. I counted 16 spas on one short block, all offering foot massage, full body massage, waxing, nails… The works.

I’ve already reported on the local custom in salons, and you can be sure I’ll be covering local spa culture. The sacrifices I make for you all…

Hoàn Kiếm Lake

The Old Quarter also abuts Hoàn Kiếm Lake, which means Lake of the Returned Sword. As the story goes, Emperor Lê Lợi was boating on what was then known as Hồ Lục Thủy, Green Water Lake. When suddenly a Golden Turtle God breached the calm waters and asked the Emperor to return his magic sword, Heaven’s Will, as it had been appropriated by the Dragon King to help the Emperor defeat the Chinese Ming Dynasty.

After defeating the Chinese, the Emperor acceded to this very reasonable request and returned Heaven’s Will to the Golden Turtle God, renaming the lake in honor of this singular event. Today, there is a multi-media show presented on the lake multiple times per week, retelling the legend. Cheesy tourist WTF? Sure. But we’ll still do it.

The Man On The Street

Our first night out on the street was great. We were outside the city center in Siem Reap, in a comparatively bucolic setting, but we’re right in the thick of it here, which is swell. We got a little tired of swimming with every other fucking salmon at the same fucking time in the Medina of Marrakech, and the Old Quarter’s charms may start to similarly fade by the end of six weeks. But for now we’re loving the night markets and street food and finding something new around every corner.

The first thing we discovered, on our very first night out, was how to present as chumps. Which turned out to be primarily a math problem.

The exchange rate here is tricky. There are ~ 25,000 Vietnamese Dong to the dollar. At least it’s not a completely random number, like 17,000, which would be an unmitigated disaster. But it’s still a fair amount of math to wrap your head around. VND 1,000,000 is $40 USD. It makes the currency a little tricky, too, as a result of all the bonus zeros.

So we’re out wandering around and enjoying the warm evening when a nice woman comes up and offers us pastries from a rolling cart. Sure. A little bag is VND 120,000, almost $5 USD. I know we’re being overcharged, but whatever. We’re here to leave our cash. I pull out a 100k note and as I’m fumbling for bills that add up to the other 20,000, she reaches into my hand, plucks out a 500,000 note and hands me the change. By the time I figure out that she’s handed me only 80,000 in change (hey, it’s a lot of zeros to keep track of) she is literally nowhere to be seen.

So that’s about $17 USD for a bag stuffed full of pastry and lesson-learned. What’s galling about is that I knew that the street vendor change hustle was a thing, and I got stung anyway. Whatever. We’re here to leave our cash. And it’s not like we didn’t receive something valuable in return.

Cà Phê is a big deal here in general, but Kopi Luwak is its own thing. Although it’s primarily associated with Indonesia it’s also produced in Vietnam. It’s colloquially known as Weasel or Civet Coffee, and it’s the partially digested coffee berries that weasels poop out after they pick up a little onsite fermentation. They’re then filtered out of the scat and roasted like nothing was amiss.

I don’t drink coffee, but Dorothy, who will cheerfully ingest offal, will have nothing to do with it. Who knew she was such a delicate flower?

This warrants not getting buried in a slide show. It was part of a little food altar set up in a ramen shop.

Buildings

We always love exploring a new location’s vernacular architecture. Hanoi’s defining feature seems to be narrow. And not just the Old Quarter. The whole city is made up of narrow buildings, known as tube houses. The tube houses can be as narrow as two meters, as deep as 100 meters, and up to twelve stories tall. Going back to feudal times, property was taxed by its width, rather than its area, which was the driver behind the creation of the tube houses, whose origins date back to the 10th century. They are the method by which the Old Quarter’s density is possible.

The narrow alleys between them, like the entrance to our apartment, also contribute to the density, as they are the gateway to the interiors of the blocks. The units that face the street are the most valuable, as they feature windows, but they’re just the visible iceberg tip. I don’t think they cut through to the opposite street, they just burrow into the block’s interior.

One night, after the restaurant that uses the alley closed, I followed our alley back, but I gave up before I found its end. I tried again, during the daytime, for a better view, and was angrily shooed away by the restaurant staff. I’ve read that it’s not uncommon for a family to occupy the interior housing and run their business from the street front, and I suspect that’s what’s going on here. It would certainly explain how they were able to set up an outrigger kitchen right in the alley.

The tube houses are also a likely contributing factor to a quirk of the local retail landscape. There are no big box stores here. To be fair, an Ikea is coming, but that’s about it. Mexico City has Home Depots and Walmarts, Costcos and Sam’s Clubs, all of which peacefully coexist with smaller, traditional retail. Hanoi is noticeably a big box desert. Retail is all very small-scale and local. OK, there are a lot of Circle Ks here. Which is weird.

I’ve read that one of the inhibitors to big box stores is that the narrow buildings make it difficult to accrete enough real estate to shoulder a Walmart in. And that’s a more than plausible explanation. But I have to believe there’s more to it than that.

Vietnam is nominally communist, but primarily in the sense of one party rule by the Communist Party of Vietnam. The CPV plays a significant role in central economic planning, but lets a thousand flowers bloom when it comes to private enterprise. That doesn’t just sound like capitalism, it smells and tastes like capitalism. Private enterprise may be small-scale and local, but it’s also riotous and dense. Where a Western commercial street might have a dozen businesses, that same street in Hanoi might house fifty or more.

I think the absence of large-scale retail isn’t just the result of the limitations of the physical infrastructure, but is also driven by a profound preference by the state to avoid succumbing to the rampaging megafauna of Western capitalism. They tend to trample what’s inconveniently underfoot, and reasonable people can agree that they’re evil.

It will be interesting to see whether the incoming Ikea is a sport or a harbinger. My money is on sport.

Street Food

You don’t truly know a place until you know its street food. If that’s what it takes, we’ll rise to the occasion. For you, of course. We do all of this for you.

The Temple Of Literature

Just outside the Old Quarter, the Temple of Literature beckoned. Like Tunisia, which reveres Ibn Khaldun, the famed Arab polymath who, among other accomplishments, invented sociology in the 1300s, the Vietnamese have a genuine love of the arts and sciences.

What we weren’t expecting was how crowded it would be. There were buses parked in front disgorging tourists by the long ton, and even the site’s generous 13+ acres couldn’t absorb everyone comfortably.

Most places we’ve been there have been a couple of sites on The List. Marrakech had Le Jardin Secret and the YSL gardens. Istanbul had the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. Places that would be packed like a mosh pit no matter the time of day or day of the week because they were on literally every tourist’s itinerary. We just didn’t think the Temple of Literature would be one of those places in Hà Nội.

Adding to the tourist crowds were a ridiculous number of school groups. We think it must have been graduation day, because there were literally dozens of school groups and their teachers, all dressed formally and posing for group pictures. What better place to bring the little dears for end-of-year pictures than the Palace of Deep Thoughts. “Look, kids. They built this whole building just for thinking!”

It’s obviously been rebuilt and restored multiple times over the centuries, but the original temple, on the current site, was built in 1070. It has always been a temple to learning, as Vietnam’s first national university, the Imperial Academy, was hosted in the temple from 1076 to 1779. Take that, Harvard.

What I love most about it is that all of the various courtyards and gates have inspirational names. There’s the Courtyard of Great Success. The Star of Literature Pavilion. There’s the Gate of Great Synthesis. The Gate of the Crystallization of Letters and the Gate of the Magnificence of Letters. A pool called the Well of Heavenly Brilliance. There are slogans carved throughout, such as “The country is peaceful and prosperous thanks to respecting culture,” and “Just as the Khuê constellation shines in the sky, the humanities shine everywhere.”

If you think I’m making sport of this, you’re wrong. That undertone isn’t snark, it’s jealousy. This is a real place that has those statements as shared values. What the fuck is wrong with us? I’m not sure we actually have any truly shared values in the US anymore, but if we did we wouldn’t be wasting our breath on extolling learning and the humanities. That stuff is for pointy-headed losers. Fuck Don’t Tread On Me. Our flag should read Hand That Over, Bitch.

Not that we have anything to learn from Commies.