Shoestring Soul Searching #2: Vietnam

Hey, me again. In case you missed my first newsletter, here it is. Onto the latest!

Out on the farm

We’ve been in Vietnam for a few weeks now. And maybe we Vietnamed too hard, because we found ourselves on a farm in the middle of nowhere. The kind of place where a rooster decides you need to wake up three hours before the sun does.

How does one pass the time in a place like this, you ask? Allow us to show you the ways.

1) Explore your creative side with watercolors. Poll: Who did it better?

2) Meet the world’s most securely attached cat, who we named Bo Ky after a restaurant in Manhattan. One night Bo Ky slept on my lap for two and a half hours uninterrupted. That’s a record for a cat, I’m sure.

3) Be recruited for a TikTok dance by a couple of little goofballs. I gave it my best.

Listening to the stillness

But actually, the most important thing I did on the farm was to do nothing. Hours were spent on the porch, staring at the mountains in the distance. Why?

In my last newsletter, I mentioned some things only come to you in the stillness. On the farm, I tried putting that into practice. With my newfound free time, the temptation has been to add to my daily routine. What new things can I read, learn, experience?

But some wise minds have recommended the exact opposite. What can I subtract from my routine? What is necessary, and what is a distraction? And when I eliminate those distractions and am left to sit with myself, what comes to me?

The grand, profound answer is…well, nothing really. It was a lot of thinking about lunch, mosquitos, or how my butt hurt from sitting too long. Not exactly enlightenment. But I like to believe in those hours, I was ever so slightly more attuned to the sounds, sights, and sensations around me. I was more aware of my reality than usual. And that’s all I need from it right now. This is just the beginning of the journey, and I’ll try to set aside an hour or two regularly for my “do nothing” time.

Lessons from a bathroom malfunction

I don’t want to delude you, it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. One morning (at another house, not on the farm) we woke up and our bathroom exploded.

Perhaps I can phrase that better. A pipe in the ceiling burst and water poured down like a Jurassic Park ride at Universal.

Not the most fun thing to encounter at 7am. Luckily, we called someone and got it fixed before anything serious happened, like the whole house bursting with water and us having to surf out of there Looney Tunes-style.

While I can’t claim even a little bit of credit for fixing the pipe, I can tell you each step of the solution is now burned into my mind. When you experience something that unexpected it sticks with you. It got me thinking, would I have retained this information equally well if I had made a deliberate goal to learn it? Looking back, some of my most useful travel skills were gained accidentally, usually in an unforeseen, stressful situation (two examples that come to mind are chasing away aggressive dogs and driving on gnarly unpaved roads).

My point is, it was lack of preparedness that gave me those learning opportunities. As someone with a tendency to overplan, this is difficult to hear. Before I travel to an unfamiliar place, I like to research everything. What will the weather be? How safe is it at night? What is every single possible way I could be scammed?

Some of this is legitimate. Yes, you should research whether you’ll be safe. But beyond the minimum necessary, maybe we shouldn’t plan and craft every minute of our experience to the point there’s no room for spontaneity and unexpected events. Unexpected events which might be uncomfortable or downright terrible, but that ultimately allow us to grow. Like a drenched bathroom, a bunch of crazy-ass dogs, or whatever life decides to throw at you.

A final note, regarding Vietnamese food

We love it. It’s flavorful, cost-effective, and they give you a mountain of leafy greens with every meal.

The one thing I don’t get? Every dish in this country seems to start with the word banh or bun. Banh mi is a sandwich. Banh canh is noodles. Banh xeo is a pancake. What’s the common denominator? Next time, I’m just going to ask for ‘banh’ and see if it creates a logical fallacy that rips a hole in the fabric of space-time.

That’s it for this newsletter. Onwards and upwards friends.

Until next time,

Bryan