Fully floored by culture anti-shock from exiting South Asia. Reunited with Southeast Asia after five years of patience and wild food fantasies. High rises. Traffic obeying stoplights and streets barren of cows and three-wheelers.

 

Monthly Mood: Sleepless in Saigon

December 2022

Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), is unrecognizable. The cost of fun living is out of my budget. Apartment hunting doesn’t flow and I feel unsettled. The first hostel dorms in three years are unsettling. I can’t hear myself think. Perhaps I’m not meant to hear my thoughts all the time. I become an insomniac.

Side note: If ‘Mumbai’ is the city and ‘Bombay’ is the emotion, then here ‘Ho Chi Minh City’ is the city and ‘Saigon’ is the emotion!!!

Life is not me groveling rice and dal with my right hand at any given moment anymore. I can have nails. I get my first gel job since 2019.

Much of December is my stomach and I darting through the alleys of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (transit days to get from Nepal to Vietnam) and Saigon. Chasing down calories.

Then returning to my dorm bed, staying horizontal, exhausted from being exhausted.

This Vietnam visit I am in no rush. I am here to give every odd dish my full and undivided attention.

My eating habits have matured. I pace myself better. I pressure myself less.

I reminisce my writing from 2017 on Vietnamese food and food culture, realizing that I’d forgotten the names and tastes of my favorite meals.

Relevant read: Chasing Calories Vietnam

I start from scratch, revisiting old haunts; most of the stalls and diners survived COVID-19. I added onto my bank of favorite eateries by trying new foods, new stalls of the same foods, and managed to join a group chat for fellow devotees of Saigon street food before I stepped foot into the country.

Relevant read: The Two-Week Chronicle of a Hungry Girl and Her Vietnamese Street Food

The group chat members become my friend group. My culinary horizons are further broadened by them. Trying the whole menu is so much easier when you’re a crowd!

At the end of Nepal my hiking friends and I split ways. This includes my farewell to Nina, a rare appearance of a pre-trip friend (our friendship dates back to rainy rock climbs and whiskey tent huddles in 2015). Three days transiting through Malaysia make it official: I am drowning in my own anti-social-ness.

So I do a lot to ~~~put myself out there~~~ and suddenly find myself whirred through all the districts, all the time: hunting down the bowl of cháo lòng (rice porridge with intestines) that my friends swear by, only to find the shop closed for Christmas, Tân Bình district.

Scoring Nike Frees 80% discounted, District 4.

Seeking out Timothy hay for a hostel bunny and having mac nut butter ground to order, District 2.

Burning a hole in my wallet at Maison Marou (at last, a chocolate I am comfortable consuming) and savoring king salmon sashimi, District 1.

Bánh xèo stuffed with vermicelli mushrooms, pork belly bánh mì, cafes with hidden bunkers from the war, District 3.

Apartment viewings, District 7.

The month, and year, ends with me moving into a spacious flat in a seaside town. NYE is me sitting at a table alone, behind some families as we all slurp jellyfish vermicelli soup with fish sauce and fermented shrimp paste, before I buy a bottle of red and a real sexy wine glass.

My fridge is stocked with enough calories to get me through three days of silence (a sort of reset, or detox, if you will) and I run the washing machine like a madwoman.

Last NYE had me fighting and kissing French lips* with a side of ecstatic dance in Goa, India. The NYE before, even less safe for work.

This December 31st I’m tucked in a big bed with puffy pillows and hitting airplane mode just before midnight. And I have to admit that I’m really, really good with that.

*NOT the same thing as French kissing!!!

KL nasi lemak

HCMC bún mắm, phổ, bánh xèo

obsessions:

sri lankan airlines business class
nasi lemak
vagina: a new biography
uji matcha lattes
butter croissants
amaretto sours
grab
street food friend group
bumble
sesbania sesban blooms in my sop
using a little less vanilla
phổ tai
xôi xéo bắp
blueberries
red shellac
bot chien
bún chả
bánh canh cua
mắm
cà phê sữa đá
vegan condensed milk
phin filters
fish mint
perilla
thai basil
sawtooth coriander
fish sauce
red chilis
lime
tắc
vietnamese mobile data plans
glass straws
yoga pod
boba popsicles
taro
thrifting
new zealand rabbits
timothy hay
mac nut butter
almond butter
goji berries
happy tree zero waste shop
eggs benny @ workshop coffee
friendsmas
gỏi cá trích phú quốc
highlow with emrata

Bird of the month: Blood pheasant

Punky and color-coded for Christmas, I come face-to-face with a chatty bunch of these Himalayan delights in November, at the end of the Three Passes Trek in the Everest region of Nepal.

The encounter occurs just after spotting the first monals of my life. Naturally, this excess of game bird grace sends my birder brain into overdrive.

Currently reading: The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy

Previous Monthly Mood: Never Trust An Egg Sandwich

Explore my full archive of Vietnam and Monthly Moods.

Learn more about this round-the-world solo trip.