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. 

Baby's First Braai

 One of the blessed bonuses of being somewhere that language barriers aren't an issue is the ability to make friends easily, particularly around my D&D hobby (which I tragically can't pursue while out and about, being strongly averse to online play).  As such, I've found myself with friends here that I'm hanging out with beyond just the basic-level activity.  I gave them this link so I need to make sure I say nice things about them.  Which is easy, because they're lovely people.  Case in point, they were all too eager to be the first to introduce me to a braai.

 A braai is a South African tradition combining a bbq and a potluck.  It's a common and important enough event that many middle-class-and-up houses have an entire space dedicated to it - this is the bedroom, this is the lounge (living room), and this is the braai room.  Attendees typically bring the meat or similar things that they want to have, everything gets grilled up, and you eat until you feel a little unwell.  Or at least I did.

And how could I not?  I'm a carnivore at heart, which is tricky because said heart would probably stop if I ate like it wanted me to.  And a braai is so much meat.  Potato salad is also a common side, though we didn't have any at this particular one.  The sandwich things on the left there are braai broodjie.  There was also lamb chops, ostrich sausage, kudu (a kind of antelope), beef, and probably other things that I forgot to take notes on.  One of the more interesting creations were oopsies, bacon-wrapped glazed cherries on little skewers.  Then for dessert, milk tart (served in slices like pie) and malva pudding with custard.  Somewhat like bread pudding from the UK, I find myself encountering what is called pudding but is almost entirely unrecognizable for what Americans call it.  Ask a typical American which part of that last picture is the pudding and they might say the yellow creamy semiliquid goop.  Somehow the US drifted in definition away from the baked kind of thing.  Maybe one day I'll research how and why.  Maybe.

My new friends also presented me with a giant overflowing treasure box of South African snacks, candies, etc.  Of particular note are Fizzers, a kind of taffy-coated Pop Rocks; tomato-flavoured maize chips (softer than corn chips, e.g. Fritos, but similar base); Pin Pops, essentially Blow Pops; bacon flavored cheddar crackers; and creme soda flavored milk (yes, really).  I haven't tried all of it yet but so far it's mostly been quite nice.

These friends didn't introduce me to the other South African food I discovered this past week; I found a Gatsby all by myself.  I was ordering UberEats and the picture on the restaurant's page looked roughly like a sub sandwich.  I already had gotten a chicken sandwich and fries (chips, locally), so I thought, better just do a half.

Apparently this is a half gatsby from that particular restaurant.  As long as my head and 2/3 as wide, layered with sauce and thick-cut chips, and this variety having a hearty hot dog-style roll in the middle.  This would probably be enough food for an entire day.  It was great, don't get me wrong, I'll probably get another one someday...but certainly not along with anything else.

As a closing, this is not food but just a family that visited the pole studio I'm training at.  They were cautiously curious, but I don't think they'll come back for classes. 

"Check your privilege"

 This is going to be a very different kind of post than most of mine.  If you're here for the travel stories and the pictures and the sights, or even the surface-level observations about the world around me, maybe go ahead and skip this one.

This one is going to talk more about my personal life, my experience in starting to look at dating while out here, and the particular things I'm finding...and what they're showing me.  It's going to be political, even if I try to find a somewhat moderate way to express it.

So, for context:  South Africa is in a pretty rough place.  It's advanced, Westernized, capitalist, all of that, and as of the mid '80s or so, the legal systems in place that enforced racial discrimination have been removed.  Anyone in the US knows that's not a magic bullet to fix racism, nor does it solve the issues that arise from a particular group being disadvantaged for centuries.  The government is currently headed by a black South African, and a major push that they have on a policy level is to even the playing field through what are called BEE laws, similar to the US's Affirmative Action and similar things.  Essentially the demographics of an area determine the ethnic hiring balance of those companies; if the area is 70% black, then 70% of the employees have to be black.  I can't speak to the exact wording or policies, as I haven't researched them myself, but this is the description I've gotten from multiple people here.

The thing is, there are plenty of loopholes in that as written.  So it's easy for a company to hire only white people for management and corporate positions as long as they have (or create) enough positions at other levels.  There is a minimum wage here that equates to about ~$1.70 US per hour.  At least in the area I'm in, the cost of food/groceries is lower than what I left in the US, but not substantially.  Housing is much less expensive, relatively, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily affordable.  All that to say, even with higher position creation at many companies, the jobs themselves don't pay all that much.

And that's if you can get a job.  The current unemployment rate, according to a quick Google, is about 35% in PE.  Compare that to Colorado's approximate 4%.

My point, in case it's eluding anyone, is that economically, South Africa is not in a great place.  And because there's a very well-studied, direct correlation between poverty and crime, it makes sense that SA is pretty well-known as a high crime country.  It's so normalized here that almost everyone I talk to comments on it, and many people even joke about it.  Whistling in the dark.

All of that is just context.  So put that somewhere in the middle of your mind.

I haven't dated since roughly 2022, 2023.  I decided to pursue this nomad life around that time, and began living in a sort of limbo.  I knew that I would be moving any day now(tm) so forming a serious connection with a non-nomad just seemed doomed to either fail, or tie me down and deny me my goals.  The latter wasn't an option to me (and still isn't), so I just decided to forego it entirely.
In Bulgaria and Georgia, I lacked any functional language ability, and thus didn't pursue dating either.
Now I'm in South Africa where the language is once again shared.  While I'm still nomadic and still quite dedicated to that choice, I determined that I should also take advantage of the lack of language barrier and maybe see what's out there, being very upfront about my life situation and all that.

I got very few responses.  Which is not surprising.  If I found someone on a dating site or similar who was saying they'd be around a paltry couple months, I probably wouldn't invest much either.  Everyone in digital nomad circles knows how lonely this life can be since your mobility usually comes at the cost of serious ties and long-term relationships. 

But I digress.
Of the three responses I've gotten so far, two are unemployed.  One has been a good conversational partner, and we're planning an in-person meeting for later this week.  I may or may not report back on that, but it's not really important.  What IS important, to me at least, is the journey it's been learning about them, their lives, and looking in the mirror along the way.

There's a phrase in more liberal circles: "Check your privilege."  It refers to the way that one's upbringing can shape their view of the world to such a deep, almost subconscious level that they don't recognize that the world works totally differently for other people.  This has mostly come up in reference to systemic racism, especially police profiling and violence against Black people in America.  "Check your privilege" means to acknowledge that as a white person, especially a middle-class white person, something like being pulled over for speeding may be a casual, harmless interaction for you as they run your license plate, check for warrants, and send you on your way; for a Black person, it may mean a search of the vehicle on the assumption that there are drugs, detainment for crimes that might be overlooked, and so on.  It changes the entire experience.

In stepping out and putting myself in a place to talk to people I wouldn't just "stumble across" in day to day life or in pursuit of my (white middle class) hobbies, I'm encountering lives and experiences that remind me of my privilege.  
Someone works in a bakery, and it occurs to me that my normal follow-up question of "do you like it" is silly because whether they like it or not, they have to hold onto it because finding another job may just not be possible.  Meanwhile, I come from a world where if I don't like my job, I could probably find another one.  I may not like it either, but I undeniably have options.
Someone messages me and I ask what they do in their free time.  They say that they mostly just sit around.  While I don't think this is literally accurate, sit and stare at the walls and do nothing, it's expressive enough that I kind of understand.  After all, if they're unemployed, what holds their day together?  And if they're unemployed, what hobbies can they have that don't require some kind of investment?  You can't knit without buying yarn.  You can't read without having books (including a way to get to the library to borrow them).  You can't learn an instrument without buying one.  And so on.

I should be clear on something: I don't feel guilty or ashamed of my place in the world.  I don't resent my job, my freedom, my opportunities because some people don't have them.  The point of "check your privilege" is not to make you feel bad about yourself; it's to remind you that not everyone has the same experience.  It's to encourage you to step outside yourself, see the world through different eyes.  In the process of intentionally meeting people I wouldn't normally and thinking critically about how I'm interacting with them, their experiences, their perspectives, I'm learning about myself and the ways that I think without thinking.

And hopefully not making an ass of myself in the process 🤣🤣 

This Port in a Storm

 So the title may be a bit misleading.  Kind of sounds like I've been through this terrible circumstance and was desperate for anything that would shelter me, as the "Any port in a storm" saying describes.

This hasn't been that.  As I've likely described, I chose South Africa as a kind of respite from being as complete a foreigner as I am in many places, with neither the language skills nor the social skills to form and sustain interactions with the people around me.  But that doesn't mean South Africa felt like my only choice, or that I felt that if I didn't find an English-speaking country or region quickly I'd be in some dangerous dark place or something.  South Africa has been a point of interest to me since learning about apartheid in middle school, and climbed the list after meeting a remarkably diverse set of people while teaching in China.  One country contained multitudes, and I've been curious to explore that further, particularly as someone from a country that used to proudly title itself "the melting pot."

Used to.  *ahem*

 In my typical somewhat lackadaisical approach to choosing new places, though, I'd done little advance research on the actual culture of this country, the history beyond just the '80s, and so on.  What I didn't know or expect was that I'd find what has been by far the friendliest people I've encountered.

Now, I should define that further.  Many people in America are friendly.  I often felt at least tentatively accepted and appreciated by the local teachers in China.  I wouldn't even go so far as to characterize Bulgaria or even Georgia as unfriendly, just...more selective.  But from almost the moment I landed, I felt the difference here, and the more I've gotten out and talked to people, the more that's been confirmed.  Basically all the South Africans I've met, which has admittedly and unfortunately been almost exclusively the white South Africans, have been genuinely interested, open, welcoming, and helpful, often proactively so.  Offering rides, suggesting things to see and do, asking more probing questions and interacting meaningfully with the answers.  For a country as beset by crime as this one is, it hasn't seemed to jade the people that much, and that's just remarkable to me.

As an example of this, my AirBnB hosts volunteered (almost pushed, honestly) to take me out to the shoreline nearby, specifically the area near the Sacramento trail.  As I've done before, I've lumped all this into a single photo album for free perusal (or not).  I would like to highlight how crazy dense the coastline/"beach" was with shells, including some that got fairly large.  This section of the coast is very rocky, but with formations and erosion patterns that made me wish I'd studied more geology so I could understand how they formed.  I mean, look at this.  It's so vastly different to anything I've seen in the US, even along the coasts.  Parts of South Africa are also popular surfing destinations, and with these waves I could see why, though the Sacramento trail area is far too dangerous (obviously).

Beyond that, I've been making a pretty dedicated effort to find D&D players and games.  It's something that was a primary hobby back in the US, and for a slew of reasons that aren't important, playing online just isn't something I can get into and enjoy.  So while I'm back where English is dominant, it seemed like a good idea to enjoy that some more.  I've returned to pole classes after over a month off for the cyst removal, and found that I lost some strength and conditioning over the gap that's coming back pretty quickly.   I'm likely to be taking four classes a week by the time I'm ready to leave here.  
Well, rephrase: by the time I have to leave because my visa has run out.  I'm getting a sense that I won't be *ready to leave* at that point.

At the moment, I don't know that I have much more to say.  Got another picture of the cursed Ibises that are loud and obnoxious, a picture of a couple little lizard friends, and a mediocre picture of the red moon that resulted from the lunar eclipse that occurred here.  There's also this very bold store claim.

Now for a sight on what's coming next.
I'd initially leaned towards Nairobi, Kenya as my next destination.  Relatively close, a place of interest for some time, and with fairly common English, it seemed like a good transition of sorts.  However, in looking at Kenyan visa processes, I found that like many countries, I need to have onward travel booked in order to apply for the visa.  This meant figuring out before I left where I'd be going afterwards.  Given I'm still sort of stumbling around out here, this level of planning was somewhat new.  Sure, I'd had my whole path laid out and planned, but that was all in service of a particular goal or process; this is just living.

So off I set to figure out where I'd go next.  It was in that process that I realized that of the southeast Asian countries, Vietnam is among the only ones where there's any time of the year I'd actually enjoy it, and even that's only northern Vietnam and only during the winter.  If I stayed in Kenya for a month or two, I'd be leaving in December or January.  Having been to Vietnam before, I'm fairly confident I'd be content there for a longer stay (tourist visa caps at 90 days there); I also need to work on more stable, consistent travel because each relocation costs nearly a week of productivity and that is crippling if you move once a month or so.  
That put me in Vietnam from January to March, maybe early April...by which time it's already getting back towards the high 70s, 80s.  However, I realized that if I went to Vietnam *first*, I'd be there during the thick of winter when the temperatures would be most amenable to me.  So that's next.

Vietnam also has an onward travel requirement, though, so I had to look at what came after that.  Nairobi is entering one of their hotter times of the year in March/April, but cools down a bit by June/July; so I needed to find something more winter/spring until then.  I was first drawn to Eastern Europe, then specifically to Riga, Latvia.  So that'll follow Vietnam, then Nairobi, and honestly after that I expect to return here to Gqeberha, South Africa.  It's early yet, of course, having only been three weeks, but a large part of me could see making this a regular part of my rotation even as far away from everything as it is.

So that's the next year sketched out.  At the very least, Vietnam > Latvia is semi-solid (though not booked yet, waiting on a couple of larger jobs to pay out).  I wouldn't want to return to South Africa until May or so to avoid their summer, but Nairobi fits nicely in there both climate-wise and geographically.

 It's all quite the adventure.

The overdue travel post

 Oh hey it's me.

It's been a while, partly because I've been traveling and partly because settling into Gqeberha has been a bit more of a process than other places.  There are a few possible reasons for this, but they all pretty much boil down to me not wanting to make two or three shopping trips in a single day, and how inadequate one trip is for actually setting up a new home space.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As with some other trips, I took a handful of pictures that have no specific context, so I'm going to link the whole album.  The pictures with some commentary will have it through this post, and the rest will just be free to leaf through or not, as you will.

On Wednesday, 20 August, I boarded a bus out of Batumi heading for Tbilisi.  Near the bus station in Batumi, they were building some new land in the Black Sea for a big luxury hotel.  I'm not sure what part of the process this is, but it amused me.
The cost of a flight from Batumi to Tbilisi was low, but the cost of a bus and hotel was lower.  So that made the decision pretty easy.  I'm glad I did, too - the scenery was pretty gorgeous.  I didn't realize how mountainous Georgia really is, nor did I expect to be going through as many tunnels as there were on the highway between the two cities.  I also didn't expect cows on the highway to be a regular thing.  I took relatively few pictures on the bus, because as you can see, the windows were pretty bad.

The hotel where I stayed had some pretty stunning views on the rooftop terrace where the included breakfast was served.  Speaks more to just how mountainous the region is.

The next morning, after seeing in the Tbilisi airport one of my top three favorite Barry's (alongside Bonds and Manilow), I boarded a plane to Hoda Airport in Qatar.  Qatar Airways, like many airlines outside the US, sort of puts our airlines to shame with the service.  This was a standard flight, 3-4 hours, but it was still a full meal service.  I also didn't expect it to be foggy in Qatar.

I assume that Qatar is much like a lot of the Middle East, especially the Arabian Peninsula, in that it sort of has more money than it knows what to do with so it approves rather large, overdesigned projects intended to flaunt that wealth and draw in more tourism and such.  The airport certainly fits that description with this large central faux forest area.  Beautiful and pleasant to walk through as a change from the standard sterile airports you see everywhere else, but feels out of place somehow. 
The airport also has these self-promo videos playing throughout the terminal, celebrating, I think, the 20th or 25th anniversary of the airport, or maybe celebrating making "Best Airport 2025" or something.  I wasn't entirely clear on it.  But when I say "throughout the terminal," I mean everywhere.  The red circles indicate three screens playing these videos that could be seen from one place. 

I spent about 6 hours in this airport before my flight to Cape Town, which was nearly 10 hours.  I spent another 4-6 hours laid over in Cape Town, which was also more mountainous than I expected, before my little flight to Gqeberha.  The airport had a display case of animal products that were confiscated, which I found interesting...and hard to take pictures of due to the glare.  Wasn't just me, either; as I was standing nearby, I watched four or five more people come up and struggle with it.
I got in to Gqeberha fairly late evening, maybe 7pm, but being that it's coming out of winter down here, it was getting dark already.
A note about Gqeberha: the name is actually from Xhosa, which is one of the 'click languages' of Africa.  Which means that the pronunciation is actually impossible to write out in a way that is clear to readers unfamiliar with the language and how it's written.  So just be aware that whenever you see it here, it probably doesn't sound like you think it does.  You can look up pronunciation videos if you're curious. 

 My stay here is an adorable little tiny home-esque place, what I believe is often called a "mother-in-law suite" because it's a fully contained, separate home on the property of another house.  I later learned this is one of two stays on the same property, along with the home itself.  This is the first time in my nomad travels that I've stayed in an AirBnB where the host lives on the same property.  I imagine it's pretty rare, of course, since most places I look for are fully-contained apartments so I'm not sharing a kitchen or bathroom with anyone.  These hosts also set themselves apart immediately by being the most welcoming, personable, and supportive people I think I've met.  I've known hotel staff to make less effort than these lovely folks.  They helped me get my luggage in, asked if I needed anything, took me around to multiple stores to find a new chair, and more that I can't think of right now.  Spoiling me rotten, quite frankly.

My explorations of Gqeberha have been minimal so far, mostly limited to shopping trips and very very nearby things.  But the little things still intrigue me, like how some familiar companies make different products here, or how some products exist here that I've never seen.

Finally being in an English-dominated area, though, has also lead me to seek out D&D again, and I've found a few people with whom I can play.  It'll be interesting to see if there are any cultural differences in how people perceive the game, how they run it, and so on.  Either way, I'm looking forward to it as one of the things I miss most from the US. 

 South Africa does, however, have these bastards.  These are the Hadada Ibis, and they're really annoying.  They have a tendency to fly over the house at 6am making their ridiculous, ear-splitting scream.  It's not just 6am, of course - they can be heard throughout the day, alongside some very persistent doves.  I think I heard an owl late last night as well.  One of my friends once commented that for those who have an ear to it, one of the culture shock elements of traveling can be how the birdcalls just...don't sound quite right from one place to another due to different species and such.  This is the first time I've noticed it, and it's mostly because these ibises are so obnoxious.

In closing for this post: an amusing sign inside an eatery.