Vietnam

Until this year, I have only left the country a handful of times, and when I did it was on someone else's dime.  A man's dime.  My dad took us to Europe a couple of times when I was a kid, and he took me to France nine years ago.  The Reptile took me to Portugal in 2010.

So I wanted to go somewhere on my own dime, and I wanted to go somewhere other than Europe. So, semi-arbitrarily, I settled on Vietnam.  It was supposed to be beautiful, it was supposed to be cheap, Anthony Bourdain loves it and I love Vietnamese food.

But I was intimidated by facing Asia on my first solo trip abroad, so I went with a tour.  In a way, this was a good decision, because I think trying to figure out everything on my own would have overwhelmed the stress to pleasure equation on the stress side.  And I had a good time, because it turns out that Vietnam is beautiful and cheap and people are generally lovely although the language barrier seemed huge to me.  And there were some opportunities to get off the tourist track.  I didn't much hit it off with my group though, who were mostly younger and bigger drinkers, and not all that interested in street food or local culture.

The highlights were--

A street food tour in Hanoi, just me and a local guy and later an Egyptian surgeon who was there for a conference, and who I didn't tell he was eating pork. We ate a long thin sandwich with a pate and pickled vegetables, the little pistolette was some of the best bread I've ever eaten.  A sort of rice crepe with pork, a sweet potato fritter, seafoods grilled on our little child's table on the sidewalk, fruit in ice and sweet cream, and the best coffee I'd had to that point in the back and upstairs from a silk shop, with a beautiful view of the lake.

The coffee in the morning on the otherwise revolting Reunification Express.

A bike ride through the countryside outside Hoi An that ended with a swim in the sea.

Rowing through the Mekong Delta.

The Cu Chi tunnels, sort of. 

More coffee on the streets of Saigon, and being on my own to wander around in the steam on the last day.

Managing all of this sorta/mostly on my own and becoming a little bit more of a woman of the world.

Edd Seay

I had a dream that I remarried my ex-husband, but the marriage only lasted a few days. Phew. Then I realized I had actually gotten back together with him, or tried to, several times in the last few decades. To review, my ex was terminally ambivalent about whether he really wanted to be with me, and I was not particularly attracted to him, although we were good companions in some ways, and he expanded my world. He introduced me to Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Star and “Here My Dear.” He non-figuratively introduced me to Alex Chilton. Yeah, but it turns out having compatible good taste in art and culture does not in itself make for a good relationship. Yet, as the dream suggests, I have repeated this formula ad infinitum. Thanks, dreaming brain, for this teaching moment.  The thing is, though, that I thought I had realized this and learned my lesson and I still did it all over again with Captain Crabbypants.

My first date with the ex-husband was fairly mediocre, although I didn't have much to compare it to at the time.  Then he decided he didn't want to get involved with me, I think mostly because we worked together. I was devastated by this all out of proportion to what happened, and in reaction or resistance to his rejection I ended up convincing us both that we should be together, even though I was fundamentally just not attracted to him.  Hey, this sounds familiar.  Then we had an unhappy time for several years, then it was painful and scary to break up even though it had never been very good between us.  Yep, this is ringing a bell.