What I’ve been reminded of about eating in Saigon: the best food is never inside a building. NEVER. The best food has no menu, or a menu you can’t read, or a menu that’s just a woman pointing at what she’s already made. The best food costs less than two dollars. The best food finds you.
March 2026
25jan26
Some people build their lives by accumulating—addresses, routines, long-term plans that stretch neatly into the future. Mine has moved differently. Sideways. Forward. Then somewhere unexpected.
I’ve spent years crossing borders, resetting calendars, learning the rhythm of new cities just long enough to feel them under my skin. I’ve learned how to arrive without unpacking everything. How to be present without pretending permanence is required.
Beginnings used to feel temporary to me—something to get through on the way to “real life.” Somewhere along the way, I realized this is my real life.
Beginnings are sharp. They ask questions. They strip you of assumptions. They don’t let you hide behind habit. Every new place demands attention: How do people move here? Where does the day slow down? What matters?
Living this way has taught me to stay light, curious, unfinished. I don’t measure time by how long I stay anymore, but by how awake I am while I’m there.
These photos aren’t souvenirs. They’re markers of presence. Proof that I showed up, looked closely, and let a place change me—even briefly.
I don’t know where I’ll be next. I rarely do. But I trust beginnings now. I trust the open space before things are defined.
Some lives are about continuity.
Mine has been about permission.
Permission to start again.
Permission to live between chapters.
Permission to stay in motion without apology.
I’ve stopped waiting for the moment when things finally feel settled.
I’ve learned to live right here—
in beginnings.
January 2026
My notebook and pen already on the table.
Tried the salt coffee. Cà phê muối. Watched him build it. Strong coffee on the bottom, ice in the middle, then that salted cream poured over the top, thick and slow, curling into itself like it knew I was taking a photo. The cream is whipped with sea salt until it’s heavy and smooth, and when it hits the coffee it just sits there on top, refusing to mix until you tell it to.
First sip through the cream and it doesn’t taste salty. It tastes like someone fixed everything that’s wrong with bitter coffee without adding sugar. The salt tricks your tongue into tasting sweetness that isn’t there. Invented in Hue in 2010 by a husband and wife who needed their cafe to stand out. Now it’s on every menu in the country.
A week of coffee in Saigon and I’ve gone from straight black on a plastic stool to coconut coffee in a cocktail glass to salt cream poured from a pitcher at a street cart. This city keeps finding new ways to put caffeine in my bloodstream and I keep letting it.
27march26
This is the Democracy Monument, and it’s one of the most symbolically loaded places in Bangkok.
It was built in 1939 on Ratchadamnoen Avenue to commemorate the 1932 Siamese Revolution, when Thailand shifted from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy.
This marks the moment Thailand officially moved toward modern democracy.
1. The four wing-like pillars
Each tall fin represents one branch of the Thai armed forces involved in the 1932 revolution:
Army Navy Air Force Police
They stand guarding the constitution, not towering over it.
2. The central structure
At the center is a golden pedestal that symbolically holds the constitution (which is represented as resting on a tray).
The message: the constitution is the heart of the nation, protected by the state.
3. The relief sculptures at the base
These panels depict:
ordinary citizens soldiers and civilians together scenes of collective struggle
The emphasis is not on kings or gods, but on the people.
Political and cultural significance
For decades, it has been a rallying point for pro-democracy protests a stage for political speeches a symbol reclaimed by multiple generations of activists.
When people gather here, they’re not just protesting current politics—they’re invoking 1932 and asking whether its promise has been fulfilled.
25jan26
25jan26
Day 6. Broke my sidewalk stall streak and went upmarket. Had to try the coconut coffee, cà phê dừa. This one came in a cocktail glass topped with toasted coconut flakes, thick and cold, more dessert than caffeine. Coconut milk or coconut cream blended with strong Vietnamese coffee, sweet and rich, a different animal entirely from the straight black I’ve been drinking all week. Still drinking it on the street, not confined by walls.
A week in and I’m building a routine without meaning to. Morning coffee on a plastic stool. Photograph everything. Come home, collapse, do it again. Saigon doesn’t ask you to make a plan. It just gives you a chair and waits to see what happens.
26march26
25jan26
25jan26
Day 5. Found a spot down a quiet alley. More importantly, it was cooler and shadier than the sun-soaked street. Cà phê sữa đá and the usual trà đá on a blue plastic stool that doubled as my table. Iconic Red chair. Motorbikes. Shuttered buildings. The coffee lady made my drink, set it down, and left me alone. No small talk, no hovering, no checking in. Just the coffee and the street.
Some mornings you want the interaction. You want the lady to hand you corn and gesture at you to eat. You want the chaos. But this morning I needed the other thing. Silence and space and a plastic cup sweating in the heat while I sat back and let my brain unspool. Wrote in my head for an hour. Didn’t touch my phone. Just watched the alley do its slow morning stretch and drank my coffee until the ice melted and it wasn’t worth finishing anymore.
Twenty-three years of this life and I still haven’t found a better office than a plastic chair on a sidewalk in a city that doesn’t know my name.
25march 26
