Travel

Every city has a color scheme. You hear the name, you imagine the colors.

Why silence is the truest sign of living like royalty.

I first met Chí outside his bar, The Tailor. He handed us shots with a grin, and what followed was a story spanning reeducation camps, cruises across the Mediterranean sea, and the long roads of Vietnam, his home. If I learned anything through it all, it's that you really don't know where life will take you.

In the lush Đà Lạt hillsides you may find yourself wandering around in the cool, early morning in desperate need of a pick me up. One of the seemingly peculiar solutions to that is to grab a crisp, refreshing cup of weasel coffee.

What happens in Vietnam stays in Vietnam. At least until you write about it.

Maybe we don’t need to be in a different place to experience something new.

I started watching Bourdain in high school. Finding him made as much of an immediate impression on me as did the day my dad first played Misty Mountain Hop by Led Zeppelin on the drive to school, or when I picked up Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas after an especially long reading slump.

Saigon is that magical place for me, once I’m back here I get to meet that little girl full of hope again. And I hold on to those pieces of memories tight to my chest, especially when it’s time for me to go back to my second life in America.

Every once in a while you'll move someplace new, but at what point does that place become home?

No time limit set. Nowhere to be. Nowhere to go. Just get on your bike and wander.