Assorted Explorations in Vietnam

 For the past month and change, I've been dating a Vietnamese woman I met on an app.  I haven't mentioned it because it wasn't really important at the time - it was part of my life, but rather a personal part and didn't directly impact my travels or produce general interest stories.

Well, that's not entirely true.  She was my company at Thang Long, providing some context and translation and also learning a bit from me.  But I'd likely have gone to Thang Long anyway so I didn't count it. Haha.

Whatever the case, she's become more of an active part of my explorations.

A couple weeks ago, we tried to visit a pagoda/temple. I say "tried" because for reasons we didn't understand (that weren't posted anywhere or commonly known to anything she could find online), it was closed.  Still, there was a neat sculpture near the entrance.  She told me there was a particular food popular near the pagoda that we should try, so we walked to a nearby shop famous for it.  Our route taking us along the lake, I happened to see this picturesque place and fail to capture it well on my little phone camera.

The dish in question is in the bottom center here: banh tom, or fried shrimp pancake.  Like many Vietnamese dishes, it's eaten by dipping into a sauce that's largely fish sauce-based with customization options at the table such as chilis and kumquat or lime.  The cups of sauce were placed on the table for us to tinker with well before the food arrived.  My date added a few things and then used a spoon to taste it.  I failed to fully understand what she was doing and thought this was a slightly thick soup, so after making some additions of my own, I just started spooning it down, even sipping straight from the cup at one point.  This drew a very confused look from her, and lead to a good laugh for both of us after she explained what it was.  Exploring new foods is sometimes an interesting adventure indeed.

I also learned that pho, which has become quite common in the US, actually refers not to the soup in general but to the kind of noodles it uses (sort of both, I suppose, in the way that a hamburger refers both to the sandwich and to the meat itself).  But this was drilled home by the other two dishes we ordered, rolled pho and fried pho (top left and top right, respectively).  Both were good in their own way.  It all made me think about Domino's and how they've elevated repackaging pizza to an art form.  "Here," the company says, "have pizza, and as a side, have pizza rolls.  As an appetizer, here's cheesy breadsticks that you dip in pizza sauce but definitely isn't just pizza again!"

Our visit to the pagoda wasn't successful insofar as we actually got to see the pagoda itself, but at least I discovered more foods.

Last weekend, my date and I planned a little getaway to Tam Dao, which is named for its elevation and the way it is often in the clouds.  Despite being only about an hour away, it didn't take long for the urban density of Hanoi to give way to more open spaces and rural lands.

Tam Dao is a mountain town, sort of a small resort - high tourism, lots of hotels and similar places, fairly small permanent population.  Our stay had a very cozy room, a swimming pool (we didn't use because it was cold and a little dirty), some really pretty landscaping and general integration with the terrain, and downright excellent food.  And, as always, I'm tall.

We stayed for two nights, but happened to both get sick in the day or two leading up to the trip.  We opted to go anyway as we have very limited time together, but it meant we didn't really go anywhere or see anything in the area.  Yesterday we returned, though we found this neat cafe with this huge, cool statue thing.  The whole town really leverages the views by building onto the hillsides.  It makes me think about Estes Park, where I've lived many years of my life, and how most of the shops and restaurants in town are in the valley of it, sort of squeezed together, and actually most of the mountainside space is residential.  So while Estes does have great scenery, it isn't really...*utilized* the same way.  And in some ways I think that is to its detriment...a missed opportunity of sorts.  

 I have less than two weeks left in Hanoi.  In many ways, it has felt, inexplicably, like the longest stay of my brief nomad life thus far.  The perception of time is a funny thing.  I've started dipping into Latvian.  The app I've used has a lot of phrases and words and such and it's a little overwhelming, and because I struggle with self-motivated learning, it can be hard to get a lot of the value that it has.  However, it did have one phrase I've decided I need to learn everywhere I go: "What do you recommend?"
For Latvian, this is "ko jus varetu ieteikt?"  I'm missing some accent markers but that's close enough.  It's a really cool sounding language to me for some reason, kind of a mix between Russian or Polish and Italian.
The thing is, when living in a new place with no real food familiarity, I often wind up not going anywhere or trying anything due largely to choice paralysis.  It's daunting to look at a menu of unfamiliar words, particularly if there are no or few pictures, and just...choose something.  Even running it through translation doesn't always help.  But now, I can learn a phrase that just requests specific assistance in making that choice, and maybe lets someone feel like they're doing a good thing or introducing someone to a thing they like.  And most people, I've found, will appreciate that opportunity.

And maybe some will use it to screw with me and order me something horrible.  And then I'll know not to go back and not to get that thing again.  I'll be a little hungry but I'll try to laugh at being "gotten."  Laugh at yourself before anyone else can.

I assume I won't post again until I've left Hanoi.  I expect my last two weeks to be relatively mundane, largely preparing for the move and such.  But I reserve the right to change my mind 😉 

Thang Long

 I've made more of an effort in Hanoi to get out and see things.  Part of this has been making an effort to meet people and interact with humans, something I really didn't do in Bulgaria or Georgia.

As a result, I actually have things to say sometimes because I'm going places and doing things.  

Last Saturday, I went to Thang Long Citadel.  As a quick note, in Vietnamese, the "th" is closer to a T sound than an English "th," so it's closer to pronounce this as Tang Long.  Not perfect, but closer.
A historical site, world heritage since 2010, Thang Long is kind of an epicenter of ancient and modern Vietnamese governance, having been (as I understand it) the seat of several dynasties stretching back through the Ly Dynasty in the 11th century.  The Ly Dynasty, among other things, actually codified some of the earliest laws in Vietnamese history.  Artifacts at the site date back even further, some all the way to the 7th-9th centuries.

 The album link, as usual - I will only be calling out a small portion of the things I saw, and I have some 58 pictures from the day.

There are various depictions around the site of how the area may have looked during its prime.  Work is still ongoing to excavate the area and find more; archaeology is an interesting field in that sometimes, active sites will actually be left 'unfinished' because as technology advances, relics and information that could be lost with current methods might be found with future ones.  (This tidbit brought to you by Milo Rossi.  For those interested in entertaining and informative archaeology, his is a youtube channel I can't recommend enough.)

Even with some of the smaller and more temporal buildings lost to time, the scale of the area is impressive in itself.  That picture was taken from atop this gate which itself is only about halfway across the complex.  The gate is accessible, and for whatever reason I found the water runoff management to be interesting enough to deserve a picture...but not much else up here.  The topmost tier that you can see is also accessible, but by some of the steepest stairs I think I'd ever seen.  

Also on the grounds, constructed in 1967, was Bunker D67, a military command post with an underground bunker nearby to protect from the several, and severe, bombing raids during the American War (for obvious reasons, they don't call it the Vietnam War here like we do in the USA).  Within this underground space, artifacts of the war are displayed in much the way they would have been set up at the time, or are displayed on shelves and in cases.  As a mild computerphile, I was particularly intrigued by the typewriter layout and how similar it is to the familiar QWERTY.  The development of that layout would be its own interesting rabbit hole were I so inclined.

I am currently not so inclined.

A few of the structures around the complex were repurposed for museums, displaying printing blocks, clay artifacts, roof tiles, pottery/ceramics, as a copper cannon, and other decorative elements that once adorned the larger structures in the area - structures that are either no longer standing or have been remodeled in one way or another over the years.  After all, we're talking about political occupation across five or six major dynasties spanning a full millennium.  Changes definitely took place.

Speaking of a full millennium, Hanoi had recently celebrated its 1000 year anniversary as the political center of Vietnam (having largely been chosen as the capital in 1010).  A few ancient-styled creations, including a bell and an enormous drum had been crafted and dedicated for the event, and were on display here.

Further into the complex was Hau Lau, or the Ladies' Pavilion, another sizable structure flanked by a lovely courtyard (including this well).  Here again were incredibly steep stairs, which were necessary for vertical scaling when the rooms are so tall.  I found it very intriguing, and it's another rabbit hole I could probably plumb.  Honestly, the consistent takeaway from this area was have I mentioned that I am just such a tall human?
Within this topmost tier is a temple/shrine where photography wasn't allowed, so obviously I don't have any pictures of that. 

Vietnam is an interesting place for someone of my height, as I've shown more here than anywhere else I've been.  Heck, my companion for this trip (visible in a couple pictures) is about 4'10, and while that's short even for a Vietnamese person, it's still closer to the scale for which this country is built than my towering giant frame.

But it's also just generally an interesting place.  Their ability to fit things on their motorbikes is, of course, legendary. 

Ha Long Birth-bay

 Special treat for y'all today:  Not one, not two, but three bulk album links for the pictures.  Because there's about 134 of them.

Told you in the last post that I'd be updating again soon and it'd be a big one.

For my birthday, I went to Ha Long Bay, designated as a UNESCO heritage site in 1984 (from what the tour guide told me).  Now, I say I did this for my birthday.  The whole truth is that I planned to do this soon, and when people learned that my birthday was fast approaching and started pestering me about how I was going to celebrate it, I decided to do my trip this day and shut them up 😆

 I think if I had it to do again, I'd have gone on a Tuesday or something.  But more on that later.

I was up at 6:30 am or so to get an Uber over to the Old Quarter of Hanoi to meet the bus that would take us out to the Bay.  The city's urban density passed pretty quickly, with some curious sculptures and unexpected high density housing perhaps 25 minutes outside of the city limits.  I found this odd because it was not really...near anything.  I hope they have some kind of high-speed transit planned to get people from these buildings into the city where jobs and resources are, because otherwise these won't be particularly good for the area.

Crossing a few rivers, we were soon out into the countryside, which was (not surprisingly) mostly farming communities.  Two things intrigued me here.  First, the architecture.  I had assumed that the tall, narrow buildings were largely a response to urban density and the need for increased housing without taking up more horizontal space.  These houses have the same kind of build, but with some space beside them for gardens/lawns or something.  Suggests that a preference for those tall, narrow buildings might just be cultural in Vietnam.

The second is the cemeteries.  I knew from my prior visit to Vietnam back in 2019 that Vietnamese cemeteries (or whatever the appropriate term would be) tend to be pretty ornate, but was really surprised to see just how large and how ornate they can be, even in relatively low-income areas like these.  It speaks to the cultural priorities, the value of family and ancestry.

Another river we crossed showed far more economic activity.  Clearly these are major shipping routes, which is probably obvious to anyone who isn't a weird landlocked kid like I am - our rivers were tourist destinations in Colorado, far too rough and narrow to be useful for transportation.  This guy stood out a little bit, though I think this was a dry dock of some kind and it was perhaps there for repairs.  Not far from there was this thing.  Yeah, no idea.

 The terrain change from flat farmlands to more rocky, mountainous landscape was pretty swift and dramatic.  We made a quick stop at a pearl farm and saw the seeding process, learning a bit about the process.  Cultured pearls are actually defined by the fact that they are "planted" in oysters like this using a small, rounded piece of shell that then has the layers added over 2-6 years (depending on variety/species) before being harvested.  Natural pearls are often irregular shapes, but most cultured pearls are more reliably spherical.  Not sure what this shell belonged to exactly but it was neat-looking.  Sort of conch-like but with tentacles.

Soon after, we got to the marina and boarded the boat.  Some musicians were playing along the way there, and while I couldn't tell what of their music was recorded and what was mic-amplified, I was sad that we couldn't pause to listen.  We had lunch aboard the boat.  I love buffets because I get to have so many different things.  Of particular interest is the small thing in the upper left, which was jellyfish salad.  I wonder if it was actually squid because the texture was more rubbery (and I've never heard of jellyfish being eaten), but the whole area is well-enough traveled internationally that their translations and such are pretty reliable.  In order to protect the environment as much as possible, plastic bottles are banned in Ha Long Bay, leading to the only source of potable water being cans.

 The marina was quite close to the formation the Bay is famous for, and we were in the midst of them quite soon.

The whole block above pretty well covers the album, but there's the full album link.

Our first stop was Sung sot cave, the largest cave system in Ha Long Bay.  Our route lead up the cliffside, then through the caverns and back around to another marina to get picked up.  I really can't say much specific about this except maybe for the monkey formation.  This is where I get grumpy at my image host: the upload process didn't keep any kind of order for my pictures, so the album is in total disarray.  I'd taken five or six pictures in almost panorama to show the sheer size of these caverns and now they're just...all over.  But still.  Quite impressive.

From there we went to Titop Island, where we had the option of swimming or lounging on the beach or ascending this terrifying staircase up to the summit, where a small pavilion allowed for some truly spectacular views.  If you could enjoy them while panting.  I'm honestly glad I did this when I did, at the end of December, because trying this in the summer heat would probably have lead to my untimely demise.

Our final stop was Hang Luon, a kind of grotto/sheltered bay kept somewhat serene by being only accessible via "bamboo boats" (so named, I assume, for the design/layout/operation, not the actual material of their modern versions) or kayaks.  Because I was traveling alone and didn't bring swimming gear, I opted for the bamboo boat.  Hang Luon is accessed through a low cave and is apparently home to monkeys.  One of the boat operators got into an argument with some of them, splashing them with the oars and even throwing water at them with a jug he had.  I have no idea what the story was there, they seemed to me to be mostly minding their own business.  Impressive to watch them navigate sheer cliff faces pretty easily - not something I could easily get a picture of.  This album is much smaller, as I spent more attention just enjoying the moment than anything.

By then, it was getting a bit dark, so we began the trek back to the marina.  I took the obvious photo opportunity at this light-up moon they had on the top deck, and tried to capture the ominous but beautiful silhouettes the islands can make against the dusky sky.  The bus ride back was in the dark, so I just dozed.

 I was dropped off near where we'd picked up...to find that for some reason, I had no data service.  This was a problem because I needed data to order my Uber back home.  I wandered for a while looking for signal, running across a pedestrian area blocked off for what I assume was some kind of event.  Eventually I found some, got a car home, and collapsed.

Cosplaying as a tourist was an interesting experience.  My bus was about two Canadians, one other American, a man from the UK, a couple from Romania, and several Indians.  Aboard the boat were some Germans and a couple from France, a few from Cambodia, and others.  But really, the US was highly underrepresented.  I wonder if it's largely because the holiday season has most US travel being closer to home.  What I knew, though, was that I was among very few people there who lived in Hanoi, even temporarily.  Kind of made me feel a bit apart from them - not in any kind of haughty or superior way, just in the sense that I'm different.  I didn't really talk to anyone during this trip, in keeping with my common tendency towards introversion, and it's debatable whether that was the "right" choice.  I just didn't want to explain my lifestyle to more people than I already do in a typical week.

Absolutely recommend, though, if you happen to find yourself in northern Vietnam. 

Little overdue

 I've said before and I'll doubtless say again, one of the issues with keeping a travel blog in my current execution of this lifestyle is that I don't really do much on my own.  And because I'm on my own most of the time, I really don't do much in general.

I'm trying to change that here in Hanoi, and moving forward, though I'm not always sure exactly how.  Today, however, one such effort came to fruition.  I'd posted in a "Make friends in Hanoi" Facebook group looking for people who would be willing to teach me how to cook something Vietnamese.  It was a goal some time ago to learn a dish at each place I went, and while that's only worked for South Africa so far, it's a start.  Now I have a few things from Vietnam through an early, brief dating relationship.

One person in particular who responded is an English teacher and saw this as a good opportunity to give her students some practice in conversation, teach some cooking/food vocab, and teach me something all at once.  So I joined her and her students to make fried spring rolls, as well as hot pot (which I didn't really learn how to make, but that's fine, one thing was enough for one day).  I was surprised when a couple of them remarked how good my technique is for slicing things and how quickly I picked up rolling the...well, rolls.  A few asked me if I was a chef or enjoyed cooking, because clearly I do it often.  This was so odd to me because most of the time, I feel like I'm pretty clueless.  I've heard people use the phrase "I would burn water," and I know I'm not that bad, but I tend to think my overall skill is average at best, certainly not worth remark, let alone praise.  Felt kinda good.

Not a lot more to say about that.  My walk there and back went along a river or canal or something, which was nice.

I'd commented before about Vietnamese 'everyday' architecture and the way it all feels kind of impromptu, thrown together.  I finally got a decent picture to demonstrate that.  It's also been interesting being in a fairly big city again - Plovdiv, Batumi, and Port Elizabeth were all mid-sized at most, and with the exception of Batumi, I really wasn't in the center in any way, so I got used to most things being closed in the evening.  I took this at about 2, 2:30 am, showing a little food shop that's still open.  It's not even the only one in eyesight from my front gate.  I've ordered delivery of entire Indian food meals at 3:30am (yeah my sleep patterns are a dumpster fire and have been for most of the month).  It's a different style for sure.

 Short update beats no update.  Expect another one in the next couple days, as I have something coming up tomorrow that will actually be picture-worthy. 

Hanoi - progress

A quick note before the actual post.  I changed image hosting sites recently because Imgur, who hosted my pictures before, blocked access to the UK which also blocked access to some providers in South Africa.  As I have a few friends following me from there, I thought it'd help to change over.  If there are issues with it (I know one person has expressed such already), let me know and I can try another. 

Settling in here has been going well.  I'm still sort of figuring out how to feed myself, which isn't helped by delivery running anywhere from $4-7 and tasty food available just across the street for $2.50 or so.  A new favorite has been discovered: Cháo thịt quay, essentially rice porridge with minced meat (pork or beef, I'm not sure) and fried crispy dough of some kind.  Imagine taking an egg roll, hollowing out all the filling, and just eating the crunchy outside bit.  That's quay (apparently).  It's surprisingly good...and runs about $1.50 or $1.75 or so for a good-sized bowl.  That, incidentally is what I was laughed at - the thit is pronounced like tit, short i, but I'd done teet because...well, I don't have a reason really.

Cooking for myself is back to having its special international challenge of learning what things need and what to have on hand, stumbling my way through instructions in other languages, and sometimes just plain doing things wrong. 

While we're on the topic of food, though, it turns out that beef jerky is also surprisingly inexpensive here, running about $1 for an amount that would be at least $3 back in the US.  And not only that, it's differently packaged and 'served.'  That plastic tray underneath it was in the pouch, and the thing I'm holding is a packet of lime juice.  The jerky is far sweeter than most beef jerky found elsewhere (and WAY sweeter than biltong, for my South African readers), so it comes with a sour flavor to balance it out.  It's quite good...though it's much more messy than I'm used to because the sauce/marinade is stronger (and of course, it's now sprinkled with lime juice).

The topic of food continues, though.  Because it just so happened that last weekend was Vietnam's International Food Festival, with booths providing examples of local dishes from several countries around the world.  The furthest ones from here were France, Argentina, and Chile, but I also saw Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Albania, and yes, South Africa.  The US and Canada did not make a showing here, but that's okay.  Who needs a booth of American food when you can find KFC, McDonald's, and several others around.

It was pretty busy, so I didn't stay long, but I'm glad I went by.  I tried some crepes and sausage from France, some kind of dessert pastry from Armenia, some boerewors (essentially bratwurst but more gamey) from South Africa (partly to share with the person I went there with), and some chicken skewers from the Philippines.  The Mongolia booth was set up, but didn't seem to have anything - even cookware or plates.  So I'm not sure if they just ran out or if they set up later or what.  I'm curious about Mongolian cuisine, and this seemed like it might be a good chance to try it.  No such luck.

Finally breaking away from talking about food...tonight I found myself on the lakefront at night, providing a fairly dazzling view of the city.  And I also confirmed yet again that I am tall.   

GqeberHanoi

 Air travel is a funny thing.

When selecting my flights from PE to Hanoi, I had a few options (as one usually does, especially with multi-step travel).  One I found amusing is that I could leave at 7am and arrive at 1230 or something, or I could leave at...8am and arrive at 1230.  Turned out there was just an hour later flight for the first leg, from the Port Elizabeth Airport to Johannesburg, but the next flights were exactly the same.  I wonder if it was a commuter flight or similar.  Whatever the case,  as often, I didn't fit in the first plane.  Indeed, I barely fit in the other two, but I didn't photograph them.  They were slightly less egregious, but for an 8 hour and a 6 hour flight, almost nothing is going to be *comfortable* - just less uncomfortable.  When I took my flight from China back to the US, it wound up being a 13-hour flight from LA to Beijing.  I upgraded to premium economy for that, which resulted in having enough leg room to almost stretch out.  It was glorious, and for that kind of trip, worth the $600 or whatever extra that I paid.

 Anyway.  Given the friends I'd made and the easier time I'd had with life overall, leaving PE was a bit sad.  It's part of the lifestyle, of course, and there's a reason I'm planning to return next year.  But still.  After a lunch of champions at the Johannesburg airport, it was off to Doha (which I repeatedly mistitled Hoda in previous posts, I think).  Because I took several pictures of it in a previous post, I'll just say that, yes, it's still excessive, it's still a shopping mall with airplane gates, and it still advertises itself more aggressively than I can possibly find reason for.  From Doha to Hanoi offered some lovely views in the morning.

Landing in Hanoi, the immigration process was almost effortless.  This stood in stark contrast to my entry to Saigon some 6 years ago while I was living in China, where I handed over my documents and sat for a good hour, hour and a half before getting the visa applied.  This was almost as quick as anywhere else - hand the passport over, get it scanned for validity and whatever else, stamped, and done.  Almost anticlimactic.  Applying for a tourist visa in Vietnam, as in a growing number of countries, requires an e-Visa, an application online to provide details about you, your stay, and so on.  It did back in 2019 as well, so I'm not sure what about the process changed.  Maybe it just got modernized to the point that the e-Visa is displayed for the passport agents at the gate and no further checking needs be done.  Maybe coming from China lead to some increased suspicion or security.  Who knows.

I was offered a taxi by no fewer than 5 people in the literal one minute it took me to get from the arrivals door to the passenger pickup area.  I was trying to order a ride on the local Uber equivalent, Grab.  Someone saw me with the app open, approached me with theirs to imply that they worked for Grab, and then just called a normal taxi anyway.  Which was annoying because I didn't have any cash yet and they didn't accept cards, so they stood by my luggage once they dropped me off while I ran across the street to an ATM and got some.  Another tourist tax, like Georgia - just arrange your ride and ignore people pushing to "help" you.

 Whatever the case, I got there eventually...only to be told by the management that there was a problem with my room, some kind of power issue or water heater break (I'm still not sure).  They put me up in a motel for the night, which was kind of the least they could do, and it was...fine, I guess.  Definitely smaller than the apartment, but that's to be expected.  As usual, I'm very tall.  I spent the night there, and got word in the morning that the apartment was ready.

Honestly, I'm pretty happy with my temporary new home in Vietnam.  It's a tad more spacious than my place in PE, with a smaller and less-equipped kitchen admittedly.  But I'm back to having a large bed instead of the single or twin or whatever I had before.

There's an amusing quirk of it though.  My assumption is that this building was expanded before any of the ones around it.  So those windows all originally were...well, windows.  But then, later, the buildings nearby expanded as well.  So now, despite being on the third floor, my windows look into just the wall of the next building.  And I don't mean they're looking across a way - I mean the wall is built against the window itself, and the windows don't even open.  There's even a balcony in this unit, but it just buts up against a wall.  It's kind of funny to me.  There is one window that actually sees outside...to a degree, at least.

For those of you who haven't been to many Asian countries, a note on the bathrooms.  You might have noticed that in the first one, there was just a little glass divider between the toilet and the shower.  In the apartment, there's no divider at all.  I later learned that this is a design called "wet room," and while it's seen some presence in the West, the space efficiency means it's pretty much ubiquitous in the East.  The whole room just has a single drain, in this case hidden under the sink.  And really, why not?  Aside from cases where one part of a couple might use the toilet while the other showers, it's rare to have more than one person using the room for anything.  May as well save the space.
And yes, I'm still tall, but fortunately the shower here is a bit more accommodating. 

I took a walk the next day to explore the nearby lake.  As often, I won't link every picture I took, but rather just provide the full album link.  Most of it is the lake, along with a few pictures of the walk there and of some kind of temple.  I was particularly amused that I'm apparently supposed to boogie when using a crosswalk.

The day after that, it was past time to get my desk and chair sorted.  So I went on a grand quest.  And I say grand quest because this was a whole freaking thing.  I went to one place, they were closed (despite being a pretty reasonable time of day).  Went to a second place, they were just a consultancy and not an actual shop (I think, I never actually talked to anyone there, but it was an office building).  Finally the third place, sort of an alternate-universe IKEA chain called JYSK, had what I was looking for.  It was a familiar brand, as one that I'd used back in Georgia, so when I saw it on Google Maps I knew it'd be a reliable choice.   And since Google Maps had failed me twice already, I just needed *something* to go right.
Treated myself to a simple, low-interaction McDonald's after all that.  Sometimes you just need ice cream.  Particularly when the candy you're familiar with   is so expensive (for reference, that's about $4 US).

I'm settling in, slowly but surely.  Learning what food places nearby are accessible, figuring out what I like, navigating the grocery stores, and missing some of the all-in-one type places that the West is known for anymore.  They may still exist and I just haven't gone to the effort of finding them, but for day to day stuff, you don't need much more than just a food shop.

I also got laughed at for a mispronunciation of a word today.  I think it was good-natured, and even if it wasn't, I'm adept at laughing at myself.  It's a crucial skill in life. 

Life and Long COVID

 Occasionally people tell me that they check this blog every so often, and sometimes ask me when I'll update it again.  My typical response is, "I'll update it when I have something to say."  I've talked before on here about how, aside from the periodic location changes, my life is still fairly mundane - I work, I eat, I sleep, I hang out, I go to pole class and maybe other things if I've found them.  But I don't get out much on my own aside from the things I need to live day to day (groceries, primarily).

Now, in part this is a financial thing.  I am still living somewhat close to subsistence, in part due to a generally low income (by American standards), and in part due to a couple bad months of work availability and not quite having my savings goals when I left.  Pair that with the unexpected surgery that my insurance didn't cover and the two unexpected flights (one from Istanbul to Batumi, one from Batumi to Gqeberha), and it's a financially strained life.  I'm used to it, having never been what I'd call financially comfortable, but that doesn't mean it's easy.

Still, the occasional "so what have you done, where have you gone, have you been to x y z" questions, not just from friends and family but from acquaintances who learn about my lifestyle, I rarely have a satisfying answer.  I don't go places or see things.

There are two reasons for this.

One.  I don't generally have anyone to go with and to an extent, I've grown a little tired of my own company.  Not that I don't like myself, don't get me wrong.  I make me laugh more than almost anyone in my life (though some of that is just quantity of time spent).  I have interesting observations and ask interesting questions.
But I have no one to answer them.  I have no one to make laugh.  When it's just me going somewhere, the best I can hope for is to take pictures to share with people, like here.  To remark in this blog about the interesting geology of the Sacramento shoreline, or to expound on the differences between Wendy's in Georgia vs the USA.  And just as importantly, I have no one to point out the things I miss, to ask their own interesting questions, to make me laugh, or to disagree with me that actually KFC in Qatar is better than the US.  And no one to suggest things that I wouldn't do on my own.
A lack of shared experience leads to a lower...quality of experience, in a way.  It doesn't mean I shy away from exploring, just that I'm not as directly motivated, intrinsically or extrinsically.

Two.  I got COVID back in Spring of 2022.  How it hit for me was less the upper respiratory stuff (though I had some of that) and more a persistent fatigue.  I was out of work for a full month, and when I came back for two weeks before relocating to my parents' place to start saving up for my lifestyle transition, I could make it maybe 3-4 hours before being too exhausted to continue.

Long COVID is a condition identified, though not well-understood, as being persistent effects, ranging from days to years, where some symptoms of the disease are felt after the disease itself has run its course.  As the link says, theories generally say that COVID has affected the way the body works, be it through immune system alterations or gut biome effects, but there's really no concrete knowledge on it.

My experience, however, is that my general stamina for life as a whole is just...lower since then.  Even the things I enjoy, for the most part, will drain me pretty quickly.  As long as I manage what I do and how much, I'm generally fine. 

But being a nomad adds a few layers to it all.  Navigating the world without language familiarity, having somewhat inconsistent friendships and social support, adjusting to new places and climates...I chose all of this, and wouldn't choose otherwise, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have challenges, it doesn't tax my limited energy reserves.

This month, I tried stepping up my pole class schedule to four/week.  That on top of the D&D group and the normal demands of day-to-day life proved to be too much, and while there wasn't any major negative result, I've been struggling to make headway on work, floundering somewhat in my pole progress, and spending a lot of time at home just...sitting, lying down, or pacing in dull rumination.  I've had even less motivation than usual to go anywhere or do anything, and as such even less than usual to talk about here (and since that was already minimal, the result is just the long silence that we've had).  I dropped to just two classes last week and I'm still not back to my 'normal' energy levels.

I'm not writing all this as "oh poor me aren't I pitiful."  It's the hand I've been dealt, and it's the hand I'm playing.  I'm learning more and more each month about the best ways to move forward, the best strategies to make this life work for me.  This past week, I came up with a workflow adjustment that has some promising effects on my engagement and productivity, not just in work but in the other things I want to do (be it flute practice, strength or flexibility training, or whatever else).  Testing is still ongoing, but initial results look optimistic.  But it's coming at a time when I'm overall just...far less vibrant than usual.  

I imagine my posting rate on this blog will remain around once per month, on average, for the foreseeable future.  Until something substantial changes and I do more exploring and such from week to week, there just isn't anything worth saying.  I'm okay with that.  But if you're checking this more than maybe once a week, once every two weeks, feel free to put it further in the back of your mind 😆 

In closing, please enjoy this picture of me in a weird sun visor that I intentionally put on wrong.