Old Conflicts; New Insights (Vietnam - Part 5 of 6)

Just a quick top note and I won’t dwell. But it is kind of a bizarre, surreal, and even slightly uncomfortable thing to be in Vietnam. We are 53 years beyond the US pulling out of that war, and yet it somehow has a lingering presence in my mind.  I was 12yo when we left Vietnam in 1973, yet I remember snippets and images and conversations adults were having in the late 60’s as well. That conflict was the first so ubiquitously televised, which is part of the reason I remember bits. I didn’t know much about the details at the time, just that we were at war and that there were lots of pictures of helicopters, broken-looking soldiers, and grieving families watching their sons come home in body bags. Now I am 64yo, American, and retired from the military, educated in US strategic planning and geopolitics, with a fairly detailed understanding of both the strategy and tactics on the ground as well as the domestic political backdrop in the US behind that war. I have low level anxiety and discomfort around all that, though I’m having a great time overall. Now on to better things… Dragons!

There were dragons in Thailand.  You saw them in post #4.  There are also dragons in Vietnam. Lots.  Additionally, as it happens, I have a lovely friend group up in Montpelier, VT which was texting concern one morning a few days ago when I was in Hanoi, about a wayward Central Bearded Dragon

(pogona vitticeps) that one of the kids found on a trail in town. Central VT temps are still very low right now and these dragons need to exist at around 90-96F.  If it is cooler than that they can’t digest food.  This one was probably an escapee or was released into the wild by a dunderheaded owner who got tired of it.  Quite sad because he probably met his maker;  but I wished it were here with me in Vietnam.  He would have had no problem eating and basking and looking at me with reptilian judgement, knowing that his progenitors on Zeta Reticuli rule our world, beskinned as humans.

There are also dragons carved into temple walls, hewn into mountain village rocks, painted in public spaces,  and in Danang there is the famous Dragon Bridge which breathes fire and spits water every weekend. It’s immense, and certainly not an infrastructure project one would normally associate with a communist regime. Many dragons. Then I learned about why dragons are important in Vietnamese culture.  

And I learned it from a 19 year old young Hanoi lady named Pinky. Pinky was my contact for a running tour I signed up for in Hanoi.  We had to resked due to torrential rain but finally made it happen the day before I was to fly off to Danang. The meeting point was 6am at a KFC (I know. I know. Starbucks,too) near Hoàn Kiếm Lake.  So I’m sitting there on a bench waiting and I see two bubbly smiling young ladies approach me. They were excited about just being alive in such a vibrant, eclectic, chaotic city in the company with one another’s BFF.  There was Pinky, who didn’t run, but rode a bike, and Trang, her best friend, who did run. My God, so young! And so removed from decades of lived experience which would have undoubtedly dampened their organic joy. Far different from my guide in Porto when I did one of these run tours, who was grizzled, experienced, and in his 40s. 

Part of me was, "Are you kidding me? She's freakin' 12 and is probably still playing with Tamagotchis. And she has stuffed animals strapped to her bike!" But this is a vacation; and vacations are about adventure and taking what comes and not having unreasonable expectations. So I went with it with a curious smile on my face. I am so glad I did. Pinky explained what we would be doing.  Trang and I would run the mile lap around the lake, and then we’d launch into a city route for the remaining 10K or so. 

Trang and I ran that lap, and I found her to be extremely sweet and earnest.  She’s 18yo, just started as an Econ major at an elite university, and wanted to learn about running.  She dyed her hair pink (Pinky didn't, funnily), had big dorky-wonderful spectacles, and not only was she a brainy economics nerd, she was also a very enthusiastic hiphop dancer.   So we traded questions about one another as we did that lap. Her English was really good. Orders of magnitude better than my Vietnamese. Know this. I love my boys.  Their lives transcend my own;  but I’ve also wished I’d had a daughter, too.  Trang reminded me of that.

So we finished that initial lap, linked back up with Pinky, and then took off on the remainder of the route.  It was a great program Pinky set out for us.  I was the runner and then she and Trang basically ran interference for me on the frenetic streets on their bikes. Pinky was an absolute chatterbox, brilliant in her mastery of languages, but most impressive to me was the fact she was almost pathologically curious.  She wanted to talk about anything and everything. At one point we stopped for tea on the west side of Hồ Tây, and sat on the standard plastic stools which are 4” above the ground, and which make for a delightful experience when watching a worn out graybeard runner trying to get upright from them. It is ugly-funny. The lady who was the purveyor of the tea seemed to be fascinated that a “mature” white guy was just sitting there hanging with a couple of Vietnamese girls, so she asked to take pictures.  We did.  She laughed. 

During that tea, I saw the depth in Pinky.  She was so wholly dialed in to international politics, US domestic politics, the Vietnamese political system, etc.  She was a master inquisitor. And she learned much of what she knows of English from watching toy ads when she was a little girl! It was also interesting how they reacted when I told them I had been to grad school, and even more so when they learned that I’d studied international relations.  That opened the sluice gates of one thousand questions and they just wanted to sit and talk and learn. I felt flattered that they held me in such high esteem (it is cultural;  they respect elders as a given), but I was even more moved by the quality of questions she asked.  Seems she had read every document of the Epstein files, had been following Trump’s trajectory…and had questions.  Good ones. It was so fun.  

And it gave me hope.  I am a creature of my biases, and of my arrogance.  But talking with these young ladies really reinforced the idea that my generation is leaving this world to them.  We’ve done some good things and some bad things. We’ve benefited from economic robustness and have had comparatively good lives.  But we really need to look beyond ourselves and try and ensure that the space these younger gens grow into is healthy, optimistic, and kind- not poisoned by the visceral cynicism and condescension being spewed by our two party adherents. I want to think I've done my part to make that happen. But I don't know if I have- and if I have, whether I have done enough.

Back to dragons.  We continued the run and ended up at a Buddhist pagoda, Tran Quoc.  Pinky is laying out the history and describing the uniquely syncretic Buddhist/Confucian spiritual influences present in Vietnam.  She explains that the reason that there are always koi fish at every pagoda is because the koi represent the starting point of the eternal struggle of we humans swimming upstream in Life until we encounter and overcome the massive legendary falls called the Dragon’s Gate, and that if we are to be strong enough to make it over that barrier we transform into a dragon, the Ultimate Protector. Here I was a semi-learned dude, getting schooled by a 19yo. So much new and rich information.  Michelangelo said, “Ancora imparo.”  Indeed, Mike.  Loved it.

Pinky, Trang and I finished the run  with a coffee at a funky coffee shop only they knew about, and continued our discussions which involved US gun culture, communism vs free-market, the legend of Uncle Ho, their dreams for life, SAT scores, etc.  It was a fantastic morning. It gave me an enduring smile that lasted hours - sort of like when Nereida and I spent time with those Moroccan students in Tangier a few weeks ago.

During COVID, I took up cocktail-making. It took my mind off the ridiculousness and gave me smiles.  So, I’ve been interested in this for a few years.  The culture is an interesting one, and involves not just the skills to master the mixing, making, and listening, but also a deep knowledge of the lore behind the various drinks.  I’m an Old Fashioned guy.  That’s my go to. Simple. Classic. I’ve learned on this trip that the cocktail culture in the places I’ve visited isn’t really all that sophisticated.  I look for the OF and usually come up short. When I do find one it is usually either made from a mix or involves rotgut spirits.  In SE Asia, I fully understand this.  It is so hot here that wine and cocktails are a second thought, never the default.  Beer is king here. And rightly so. It is cold, refreshing, cheap, and available.  I’m not a night owl at all. In fact, I haven’t looked for any “nightlife” this whole trip.  It doesn’t interest me. I’m usually in my room by 6pm. So I tend to have a drink, if I want one, during the afternoon.  Before a late lunch.  I don’t generally consume much after 3 or 4 pm. It’s a bit of a ritual. But when I get to a new city, I like to know where the cocktail bars are.   

In Hanoi I found a little speakeasy (seriously, it was tough to find) in the basement of a building on a busy road, called Two Schmucks.  It was owned by a couple of locals, not wiseass Jews from Brooklyn.  No. A Vietnamese guy, and a South Asian partner  opened it. The mood was woody, dark, and jazzy.  Low ceilings, tasteful wall lights, dusky scent. Madeleine Peyroux in the background. Could have been in Chicago during prohibition. It was managed by a young man who knew what he was talking about. He knew his bourbons and ryes and what a Luxardo cherry is (though they don’t use cherries in Asian OFs, apparently).  I had a couple of nice cocktails there my first night in town after a harrowing 2-mile walk to the location dodging bikes, busses, and food vendors. I paid my bill at the end in cash.  Cash, by the way, which has Ho Chi Minh’s visage on every denomination.

One morning in Hanoi, after my run, I went out for my daily explorations.  No agenda, just walking and looking and making observations. This particular morning I noted two guys in khaki military garb tag-teamed on a Vespa, slowly patrolling the streets. They seemed very serious and very scoldy.  I also noticed that people who were on the street down from them, washing produce, cutting meat, cooking, immediately folded up whatever they were doing-ground mats, micro stools, all of it, and brought it into the house post haste.  Then when the guys Vespa-ed by, they just came back out and resumed their activities. I did some research and learned that this is a morning ritual called “street clearing” and is executed by low rank local police who are looking for people to fine for encroaching too much into the streets. It gives them something to do and can even bring in a few shekels, aka dong. This is funny because on the main roads, there is 100 times more encroachment into vehicular paths by shopkeepers, parked scooters, moped-ers, walkers, runners, grocers, and the like. 

That morning I wanted to go and see the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum at some point so I ambled my way over to that area.  I walked I passed a school.  It was gated, painted red and yellow like everything related to government is.  It included the requisite hammer and sickle flags, as well.  The kids were going absolutely nutsoid in the play ground.  No different from the US.  Yelling, shouting, grab-assing, teasing, poking, pinching.  It was quite hilarious, but comforting at the same time because it reminded me that Universals do exist. What was interesting was how the staff calmed the maddening horde down. They used a massive bass drum.  They hit it and the THRUMP and WHOOMP transmitted viscerally through the air like a shock wave, and the kids just settled.  I don’t know for how long because by this time I was beyond the gates and trying to survive crossing the street.  Not long, I'd imagine.

The Ho Chi Minh mausoleum was packed with people coming to pay their respects.  “Uncle Ho” is a national hero. He is venerated aggressively. The mausoleum was a case study at the micro level as to how the bigger picture Vietnam system works.  An overly serious and self-important unified military/ideological authority structure replete with uniforms, crisp marching and saluting, grim faces, robotic physicality, and all the rest of it, as an overarching fantasy scheme pretending to control a ferociously free-market and ultra-dynamic chaotic and lusty commerce below it.

Funny, but on this trip, I’ve noticed my past dorky interests in governance systems, which I thought were in stasis, have kicked back in.  Probably because the US system is so broken, maybe beyond recovery in its current incarnation.  Not recovery from this president. I’m confident that will happen, but recovery of our institutional makeup and functionality generally, and its ability to do demonstrable good for the people. That’s another conversation, though.  Let's just say I’m looking forward to getting to Singapore.

I did a food tour with Ella ("The Enchanting," I called her).  We had 5 people in our group including me, a mother-daughter pair - both doctors, and a newlywed couple from Vancouver, BC who were very polite. It was tremendous.  We spent 2 ½ hours together, walked all over the city, and tried all the highlights: banh mi, fermented noodles with beef, glass noodles with fish, hand-wrapped spring rolls and a savory-piquant dipping sauce, pork stir fry, sweetened rice balls, coconut ice cream.  Superb.  Ella was a wonderful host filling us up with stories of foods and the people who cooked them and she also shared an interesting tidbit.  Seems that when Vietnamese people think of Westerners, Americans specifically, they always mention how much bigger we are. They believe, and I heard this elsewhere, too, that it is because we consume so much dairy.  Milk and cheese is simply not part of the Vietnamese bounty. Hey, it's a theory.

I took a day trip out to Ninh Binh. It was a great outing which included a visit to the Mua Cave and Lotus Garden, a buffet lunch (not the best, but the goat curry was great), a bike ride through  a remote village, a Buddhist temple complex walkabout, and ended with a spectacular two hour boat trip on the waterways of Trang An.  The boat trip was beyond stunning.  King Kong: Skull Island was filmed here! I was lucky enough to be paired up on my boat with a young couple from Sacramento.  He was an MD hospitalist with a Korean/Chinese background and his wife was a Filipina pharmacist.  Delightful people.  He and I talked lots of Vietnam War stuff. They were on a late honeymoon.  The trip was so peaceful and beautiful. Our Captain was a local lady who has done hundreds of these trips. We gently moved across cool calm waters and saw dramatic sentinel mountains all around us, forest temples, wildlife (no giant simians), and transited from lake to lake through no fewer than 5 somewhat claustrophobic rock tunnels, the stalactites of which our oarslady had to navigate around.  It was simply gorgeous. 

When I got to Danang, I breathed.Going from Hanoi to Danang is like going from NYC  to Phoenix.  It was a very clear and distinct change in energy, traffic, chaos, and terrain. 8 million to 1 million in population.  Dramatic.  Danang is a beach city and it has that feel. Salty, sandy, windy, hot, humid, parasailers soaring, Jet-Skis jetting and, weirdly, coracles floating around a couple hundred yards off shore.  Coracles.  That’s not a vessel one sees every day, unless you’re Gollum cruising the Anduin. 

Danang’s local dish is called Mi Quan, which is a savory noodle dish and includes pork, fresh vegetables, crumbled up rice crackers, peanuts, lotsa basic, and all covered with a tasty thick brown gravy.  So fresh. Filling, but not uncomfortably so.  None of the food I had was bloating. But to be honest one afternoon I had a craving for nachos so found a Mexican place that provided. Not bad at all. Kind of heavy. The Margaritas were not wonderful.

I learned that Vietnam has 54 ethnic groups. I had no idea. I also learned that ethnicity means next to nothing in Vietnam.  There isn’t the strife (and ceaseless drama) we experience back in the US around these race and ethnicity. There is a group here which, while going back to the 4thC, still lives on the high mountains here, called the Cham.  This group is so interesting because in a country that is primarily Buddhist, taking its lead from China, these people integrated elements of Hindu and Islamic philosophy into their spiritual lives.  Intriguing.  One of the cultural high points in Danang is the Museum of Cham Sculpture.  Here you can see hundreds of examples of their art and learn about the archaeology around it throughout the country. And more dragons and multiple Ganesha’s too!

I had some great runs in Danang.  I’ve mentioned before that I use my runs to explore new places whenever I go anywhere. This place presented me with three landmarks I really wanted to see.  The Dragon Bridge, The Marble Mountains, and The Lady Buddha. So I incorporated them into my runs.  Dragon Bridge was a nice 7-ish mi loop.  Marble Mountain was a hot 8 mi out and back, and Lady B was a 13.1mi out and back.  I loved them. Marble Mountain was very moving for the history alone.  These mountains reminded me in a way of the Black Cuillin massif on the Isle of Skye.  This huge. Imposing, dramatic structure just plonked right down on super flat land as if dropped there by aliens.  These mountains were home during the war to a Viet Cong hospital and fire base right adjacent to a US helicopter field, which is now blasted and overgrown from disuse, like it was a scene from Fallout. The Viet Cong used to launch rocket attacks from those mountains into the base.  And here I was at their base, buying water from an old woman who could have been the mother of fighters, imagining the daily dramas back then.  Lady Buddha was a great run, most of it along the coast and some on sweltering asphalt.  I got to the statue and saw that it was, in fact, a temple complex with the Giant Lady, yes, but also a temple for quiet worship, a fat happy Buddha statue, and an ice cream and soda concession. And monkeys.  Perfect.  It was a great day out.

Something very surprising and sweet happened at the airport as I was a flying on to Singapore.  Since I was an international traveler, I had to get a hardcopy boarding pass, and the airline needed to check that I still had my Vietnam visa, as well as my authorization to enter Singapore, which was simple, free, and I had done on-line the night before.  The big board told us that the flight was on time and that check-in was to begin 3 hours before flight time. And it gave us the three stations which would be checking us in.   So, I killed a little time and then me and this French guy got in line right at the 3 hour mark.  The attendants, all young professional Vietnamese women in their well-starched blue uniforms, were preparing their stations with luggage stickers, ticket stock, and the like.  Then the time came and the board changed from “Standby” to “Check-in.” 

Well, the three women who would be checking us in all got off of their stools and climbed over the luggage belt.  “What’s happening?,” I asked myself. I thought they were off to take a tea break, and huffed.  But then they stopped right in front of me, Pierre, and the people behind us, lined up three abreast, and…they bowed to us, as one.  They bowed like it was a curtain call in some West End show, I think as if to say, “We are now ready to do our best to take care of you.” It was shocking, and moving, and I’ve never in all my travels seen anything like it.  Wonderful.  So I left Vietnam with a nice surprising glow and a big bowl of beef pho in my belly.  On to Singapore and Malaysia, the final act of this sojourn.

Thanks for reading.

Dragons & Basil (Bangkok- Part 4 of 6)

I’ve always loved dinosaurs.  Like most kids, maybe. I remember going to the Peabody Museum down at Yale as a child and being in awe of the size and imagined ferocity of these creatures. I rather liked the Ankylosaurus because they were basically turtle Thors.  Well, I arrived in Bangkok from Istanbul very early in the day and couldn’t check into my hotel at the time.  

Note: I stayed at an Amanta property and it was fantastic.  Clean, well-managed, responsive, comfortable beds, and…hot high pressure showers! I made a course correction on this trip re my lodging plans.  Due to bad luck with a couple of squalor-stays using AirBNB in Casa and Lisbon, I went back to hotels. A few reasons.  First, they're predictable.  You know what you are going to get.  No Byzantine quest to find the place and then go through a  self check-in process where you have to decode three separate lock boxes while reciting incantations in Latin as if you are going into the Vatican's Holy of Holies. Second, they generally have laundry services; and on longer excursions like this one where you are only using carry-ons, that’s very helpful and saves you the agony of going out and looking for a private operator, though there is a certain charm and adventure to that too, I’ll admit. Third, I like to have access to the staff for questions on logistics, local services, sites, etc.

In any case, I stored my luggage at the hotel and I went for a walk, which took me through some local markets, into a nice - really nice indoor air-conditioned mall, and ultimately to Lumphini Park for a nice walkabout. I was caught by surprise at 8:00 on the dot when all of the walkers and runners and bikers in the park stopped dead in their tracks and took a position of attention. Then I heard music over the speakers and realized it was the Thai national anthem.  I later learned that this happens every morning at 8.   

I continued the walk.   I then sensed movement on the edge of the pond to the left, turned my head, and this is what I saw creeping out of the muddy waters as I strolled by.

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was.  It was like I was 8 again, which I am in many ways, but this time it was more about childlike wonder than it was about laughing at flatulence.  This animal was gorgeous. Intelligent eyes, 4’ long head to tail. Its skin was dry, mottled, green-gray, and scaly only in the sense that they looked like small beads, rather than overlapping plates of armor. Still it looked thick and protective. And it had certain quadruped swagger; its body language saying, “I’d eat you if I were bigger, you tender pale morsel.” I continued the walk, smiling at I don’t know what.  Maybe by existing in the same moment with that child of Daenerys. I don’t feel like doing any paleontological research right now, but I want to say that the Gobi Desert in China is the most dino fossil-rich area in the world, isn’t it?  Is this connected to the dragon focus in Asian culture?  Dunno.

Thailand is charming and I’ve really enjoyed it.  The people are so kind and attentive.  The uniquely Thai design elements in architecture, sculpture, and textiles are unique and magnetic, and the food is wonderful, deep in flavor, and fresh.  But I also realize that what I am seeing right now is a huge city.  The place is enormous and loud and chaotic in a weirdly orderly way. Yes, they have beautiful parks situated well throughout the city to support the physically active (and the lizards), but it is still a small piece of a highly built environment.  At some point I’d love to come back to this country and get up into the mountain villages near Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Mae Hong Son, and listen to the sounds of macaques and gibbons, rather than Hondas. 

Thailand is also one of the most challenging places I have ever been in terms of figuring out my way around.  I felt truly foreign here. I always manage to get done what I need to, but English is not ubiquitous here (the hospitality industry as an exception), and the alphabet, Aksorn, derived from the ancient Khmer culture, is utterly unique (also gorgeous to look at) but impenetrable if you need to read something. I felt like a pre-schooler just staring at these indecipherable symbols. Consequently, there was a great deal of made up in the moment sign language, mostly me pointing at things and looking clueless.

The traffic here is a sight to behold, and like many other South Asian, Southeast Asian, and East Asian cities, the motorbike/scooter class absolutely rules the roads.  There are so many of them and it is as if they have no individuation.  It’s more like they act like an an ant colony, or maybe even a murmuration of starlings. Perhaps blood cells in our veins. No individual matters, but the moving, revving, exhausting, honking horde of them has some kind of proto-sapient agency. They are better understood that way. Remarkable to watch.

But not simply watch. One must participate in Life.  Not sit back and judge it.  And no, I don’t have a death wish but I do want to experience things and get adrenalized a little bit when I can. Not by cave diving, not by free-climbing, and not by bungee jumping (though I would maybe do that for money if offered).  The Uber of this part of Asia I’m visiting is called Grab.  It's like Bolt in Portugal or inDrive in Morocco. Works great. In Thailand the vehicle options to get you to your destination are varied.  Cars, vans, limos, etc.  But one of the options is motorbike. So, yeah.  You can request a scooter to come pick you up.  Because there is so much congestion the two-wheeler is almost always the fastest way to get to where you need to be, especially if you aren’t carrying luggage. You request it, the response time is fast because there is always a scooter somewhere near you, as close as a nitrogen atom.  They arrive, they give you a helmet, you verify identity, jump on the back of the bike and off you go.  Accelerating into traffic, weaving in and out of cars, dodging truck mirrors to avoid getting straight-armed, and ultimately, breathlessly, you arrive, thankful you remain alive. (It was like this fake pic)

Bangkok is so hot and humid.  It puts SC in August to shame.  And what’s funny is that one of Thailand’s draws for Westerners is the food.  At least it was for me;  but with the heat conditions I never became ravenous because that’s how my ridiculously shredded body deals with wet air and being incinerated daily. But I did become lazy. In fact one night, after a day bopping around the city, lethargic, I became a bit peckish and just hopped over to the Boss-level 7-11 next door and got some easy to prepare spicy rice noodles to make in my room. It was either that or shrimp and plum flavored rice cakes or hot chili squid Doritos. I had stopped at a hawker stall near Lumphini Park earlier in the day for lunch and had a heaping, fresh, and incredibly tasty plate of Rad Na Goong, and that lasted me until later, around 5. So, water boiled, I added it to the noodles, and “nee-ngai!”  It was done. Delicious!  And from 7-11!  I also had some pickled mango, a grapefruit and a few slices of pitaya.  Cost me maybe $3. “Such a deal,” my friend G. Himmelfarb would say.

I did starve myself for an entire day however toward the end of this BKK leg to force a ravening hunger because I had made a reservation at Gobi, which is supposed to be one of the best buffets in town, and I wanted to get the most from it. It delivered.  Honestly, kind of light on the Thai offerings, but it was constructed to serve a very international crowd.  They had  a couple of Thai noodle dishes (Padh Thái , Lǎo Thái ), sticky rice, prawn cakes, char-grilled chicken, roast whole salmon, and several steamed vegetables. Beyond that they had prime rib, a little taco/burrito section, fresh pizza (looked good but I didn’t want any), and a really large South Asian station consisting of a nice biryani, three different curries- lamb, chicken, and vegetable, and fresh garlic naan. I’m not a big sweets guy, but the dessert section was incredible too. So colorful.  Cakes, pastries, tarts, bread pudding, ice cream with fixings.  But I had a quarter ton of fresh fruit to rationalize the health benefits in the face of the insult I had just exposed my body to.

I’ve never been one to drink my calories, unless it involved carbs during a long race, or a good cocktail, enjoyed in moderation.  I don’t do soda or fruit juices, but after being here in Thailand I kind of get it.  It is so hot and humid here, so many gallons of perspiration leaking out of millions of sweating bodies, that people are going to want something beyond simple water to replenish it. Drinks are a massive part of the economy here.  Cha Yen (Thai Iced Tea), Nam Prao (Fresh Coconut Water), Oliang (Iced Coffee), Nam Manao (Lime Juice), Nam Krajiab (Hibiscus Juice), Nam Hoy (Sugarcane Juice), Nom Yen (Thai Pink Milk), Nam Dok Anchan (Butterfly Peaflower Tea).  All of these are everywhere, and they are very popular.  And so colorful!  I have seen more people drinking these than holding plastic bottles of water. I didn’t imbibe, but I do understand. Also, WTH is boba? It seems like beach ball tapioca, but I'm not sure.

Ever walk down the street and see a couple and do a double take neck snap asking, “How the Hell did that happen?”  Well, after the first day in BKK  I needed a neck massage (which I ended up getting-read on) because of this phenomenon. I have seen so many middle-aged and older white guys coupled up with gorgeous Thai women. It hit me as a bit creepy at first.  The cynic in me went right to the three ring binder “mail order bride” phenomenon. Well, I dug a little and learned that this is a bit anachronistic at this point and since the advent of dating apps, we’re seeing a whole lot more “legitimate” matches which are more a function of Western men shifting from past norms and willing to have a relationship between equals rather than ones where the middle class dude is preying on the socio-economically desperate realities of the woman. It used to be that he wanted a hyper attractive woman to be his; and she wanted a sugar daddy to take her away from the overwhelming drudgery and poverty of the Thai backcountry.  Now it is a dialogue, or at least it seems that way.

I got a Thai massage and it was awkward at first. This is one of those things one must be wary of.  I can’t even count the number of times, as I strolled the streets of BKK, that I was asked to come into a “spa” and get a “delightful” massage, the end state of which was amorphously promised at best.  What I do know is that the Sirens sitting outside those establishments were, to a woman (and they were all women)- dressed to the nines, skin forward, made up cosmetically with what can only be described as a sultry and suggestive messaging. I kept the beeswax in my ears and strode on.  So, I did some research and found a place that was certified, ethical, and had a great reputation locally and internationally amongst the traveling class.   As luck would have it was only a short walk from my hotel.  A place called Mooklada.

After a run one morning I walked into that place, sweaty and spent, and made a reservation for later in the day.  The guy asked if I wanted a man or a woman to work on me.  I didn’t care, and I told him. This was therapy and education for me.  Nothing else.  So I went and did my day and ended up back at Mooklada late in the afternoon.  I walked in for my appointment and the lobby was full of staff.  The women were beautiful, yes, but they were wearing Polo shirts and trousers, not fishnet and only fishnet.  

I got a guy masseuse, Somchai.  He was super kind and he knew straight away that I was a first timer and maybe a bit disoriented and nervous.  I had no idea what to do.  Without a word spoken he urged me to sit down and then with a tub of hot water and soap. He washed my feet. Feet are considered to be the lowest and dirtiest part of the body, and so this is a symbolic gesture of preparation prior to a therapeutically cleansing activity. After the foot bath he directed me upstairs to the massage rooms. There were four calm sanctuaries up there, each with a pad, and lovely and calming decorations, separated by thick curtains. I was the only client up there. Somchai motioned that I should get undressed and get into this cotton pyjama-like outfit for the massage.  So I put all my stuff into a bin and got into that very non-Lululemon ensemble.  Very comfortable.  He motioned that I should lay down on the mat face down, and then he went to work. Thai massage is a very unique thing. Combining acupressure, Ayurvedic practices, and the meditation of the practitioner while he/she is practicing, it is less about simply rubbing muscles and more about full constant bodyweight focused on areas the therapist identifies (for me he found that my neck/cervical area was full of tight knots and he really hit those hard - to great effect. He wouldn't let it go), rocking of the joints, cracking toes and fingers, and pull/push assisted poses and stretches.  He giggled at the end when he saw how absolutely unflexible I am because of stupidly tight hamstrings. I’m embarrassed by this as well. It was an hour treatment, not all comfortable, and I felt fantastic at the end.  I slept like a babe that night. (This a rendition, and very close.)

Not unlike this very unique idea of saudade, a nuanced “longing” I learned about in Portugal, Thailand also has a sociocultural interpersonal stance which I find to be fascinating and which doesn’t map to anything in our American culture or language.  It is called Kreng Jai, and it basically means a desire to avoid causing discomfort or bothering others.  It is a sort of a hypercharged sense of empathy and it translates into radical kindness and acknowledgement of every move of the other person so as to ensure a smooth flow of the situation, whatever that happens to be.  From a good meal served by the wait staff, to an interaction with the hotel cleaning lady to your madman Grab scooter driver, to the lady in the hawker stall who only knows one thing, and that is how to make a delectable mango sticky rice for you. It’s everywhere from the bow of greeting and thanks, to paying the handful of baht for a delicious meal down some back alley.  It is a tangible thing and the world needs more of it.

I say farewell to Thailand in hopes that I’ll be back and that I will be able to reciprocate the kindnesses shown to me, and emulate them. Also see lizards and primates.

Thanks for reading.

Late Onset God (Istanbul- Part 3 of 6)

This one is different, but the fact that I’m writing it in Istanbul is apt, since this is a place where Christianity has waxed and waned epically over the centuries. It also seems appropriate personally as my late-in-life shifting perspective can be seen to be the result of a slow-moving synthesis as "Reason and the Material" encounters "the Ideal and the Perfect."   I want to try and unpack some of that at a high level, as much for my own benefit, as your potential, but unlikely, interest.   Apologies, as usual, for tangents, discursions, and abstractions. I simply can’t help it and don’t care to, in any case. And if you want to see what I wrote about Istanbul on my last visit in 2023, right this way. 

I’m sitting in a restaurant just north of the Hagia Sophia, the air redolent of sea salt and the death cries of the Janisarries. Then, Pink Floyd’s "Wish You Were Here" emerges from the speakers. It surprises me. It’s a gut-punch of a song that usually leaves me a wreck, ever since my brother Jonathan died in ’87 while I was stationed in Pearl Harbor. He had this album in his CD player when I returned home from Hawaii and visited his empty room.  After he died, the world felt wrong; and this tragedy a jagged piece of glass causing me and my Mom and Dad to experience an intense, confused, and enduring exsanguination of the soul. During that time so many years ago I wished my brother and God were here. Still do.

Istanbul is a place where the air is heavy with history.  I wasn’t planning on coming here on this international flyabout, but Trump’s war in Iran forced cancellation of one of my flights to SE Asia, because it would have taken me into the Gulf States for a connection.  So I had to reroute to avoid flying over Iranian airspace. Istanbul is also the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, a religion I have been touched by in an unexpected and powerful way, and which all began two years ago.   

Fate conspired to have me arrive on a Saturday, the day before Holy Pascha. So, it seemed as kismet that I should walk up to the Fener-Balat area on Sunday morning and attend the Agape Vespers at the Hagios Georgios Church. So I did, fueled by a simit and double espresso.  It was very powerful, very moving, and I was grateful to see the EP, Bartholomew I,  in person. Interesting fact - Bartholomew, known as the “Green Patriarch,” for his work in environmental activism, was awarded the 2025 Templeton Prize.  

I was a creature of the Analytic School—crisp, tight, and suspicious of anything that didn't smell like a coherent syllogism, nourished by brute verifiable facts.  I wasn't an atheist, never was—those people always struck me as too (ironically)  "holier than thou" in their ill-reasoned certainty—but I was a rational agnostic who thought the Abrahamic deity had a hell of a lot of explaining to do. 

Standing here now, 64 years into a finite life and becoming more aware every day, with the miles of a thousand trail runs and hikes hammered into my body, and the ideas of so many thinkers whispered into a brain which needs to listen more,  that I’ve spent my life dancing around looking for and struggling to prove and justify the Holy.  As a rationalist I was looking for "God the Explanation." I should have been looking for "God of the Infinite Embrace"—the arc that contains the project of scientific inquiry itself which, to this point, has been an epistemological keystone; and yet it is very clearly limited in its domain of inquiry, in its methodology, and in its capacity to address teleological questions. 

My pathway into Eastern Orthodoxy didn’t start with a bold revelation or a supernova of insight; it started with the cadence of thudding footfalls while training on the dirt of Nassahegan with the voice of David Bentley Hart and others in my ears. Listening to Hart and Tyler Cowen trade rapid-fire erudition rounds on everything from Orioles baseball to Heidegger, to New Testament, to Baroque music, to Death, etc was like witnessing two friendly masters sparring, and delighting in the enterprise.  Hart, with his fifteen languages and relentless deconstruction of the "blind watchmaker" version of God, gently directed me toward an idea that was only lingering, unformed at the periphery: that God isn't a "thing" among other things, but the Infinite Ocean of Being. 

For an old student of the Medieval Scholastics and the Analytic School, the appeal was deeply cerebral because of the clear contrasts. I began to see that Orthodox theology is undergirded by a fierce Neoplatonism. It reflects a "Chain of Being" that doesn’t treat the world as a machine, but as a Thought that God is thinking. This is where Ian McGilchrist comes in, though I didn't know it yet. We’ve become a society dominated by the left-brain—the "Machine," as Paul Kingsnorth calls it—obsessed with efficiency, commodification, and objectification of the Human. We’ve lost the right-brain’s capacity for distilling Truth from the mythopoetic, the holistic, and even the silent. 

Orthodoxy offers a rejection of this clinical, algorithmic, dangerously accelerated, toxically literalist world. It leans into a more contemplative, even mystical, “Apophatic” theology—the idea that the Godhead is utterly inscrutable and beyond category. If you try to pin God down with human language, you’re tilting with knights of ether. Words like “Power,” “Knowledge,” “Good,” “Evil” are artifacts of a capacity to symbolize which is only 100K years old.  A blink. And yet this ineffable God we worship is praised within the construct of ancient, deep, mysterious, and sacred rituals.  Ritual that has been preserved in the same state for Ages and Ages, and ritual that brings order to sometimes chaotic lives.  

Language is a tool for the discrete, but God is the meta-linguistic "Pure Act." This is the "Deep Magic" of ontological inevitability.  You stop looking for a bearded anthropomorphized Voluntarist God who "flexes a muscle" or “points a finger” to stop a car crash and you start seeing a God of pure Idea, pure Experience, pure Love,  whose “Power” is merely a tangent of His Omniscience. An inevitability.  I’m reminded of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, “All men by nature desire to know.”  We all want to participate in the Big Thought. 

Seen this way it casts the bog standard “Omnipotence” attribute in a far different light. One I like. And in understanding the limitations of language and ceding to humility in the face of a truly ineffable Ontological Primitive, you see your way to taking another angle at classical Theodicy. In fact, the problem of suffering and evil is probably the most frequently deployed justification for atheism, ever. And it is not necessarily irrational to think this way if you don't push beyond our constrained and imperfect human faculties. Isaiah 55:8 nails it with “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,...”  

As Aquinas argued, God’s knowledge is the cause of things. To "know" a possibility is to give it being. In this light, evil isn't a choice God makes to "permit.” I found echoes of this in the Muslim Sufi poet and theologian ibn al-Arabi’s panentheism—the idea that the world is a mirror for the Divine, yet the Divine remains hidden behind the veil of its own light.

One of the most significant pivots for me was moving from seeing God as an "Infinite Doer" to an "Infinite Knower". If God is beyond time and space, then time doesn't matter "beyond it."  God knows all of history as a single, eternal "Now."  Because God is a single unchangeable Now.  Kind of like a photon. As  Abbé Faria taught Dantès in The Count of Monte Cristo, true power isn't brute force; it’s the perfect knowledge of how the the Logos unfolds. 

But OK.  That is all head.  All brain.  Those words are just kindling and cotton in wait for a firestone, a catalyst to inflame a boundless potential domain of Love and Awe and Humility and Gratitude.  For me, that catalyst was the Orthodox Divine Liturgy. It’s not "three tunes and a Ted talk" as the standard Protestant service is sometimes teased. It’s an initiation. When I walked into Holy Trinity in New Britain that Sunday morning in February of ‘24, Fr. Philip Beiner—a former lawyer and intelligence professional, presiding—I felt a sensory bridge back 2,000 years. The smell of incense, the darkness, the heavy weight of the Byzantine icons, the monophonic chanting—it was sacred.  Truly sacred.  It was a denial of the austere, perfunctory, and antiseptic reality within which I, we all, currently reside.   

I thought back to a winter night, Christmas time, at King’s College Cambridge service many years ago now. I had stood in that candlelit stone darkness, flames fluttering, incense wafting, people in big hats and richly colored vestments walking somberly atop the ancient rock floors, and suggested to Carol, my wife and partner at the time, about how a 16th-century peasant who, by day, worked catching eels in the nearby fens, would walk in and just  "know" there was majesty here.  That God was here. There would be no question. Because the beauty and impact would have been so far beyond his conception.  At the time, I felt nothing spiritual; I was too smart after all. 

But in the Liturgy that day, the "proposition" gave way to "disposition." And in that moment as I walked into the nave and sat down, my eyes welling up for reasons that confused me, I muttered to myself, "Oh. Here He is." And I meant it.  So very powerful. That was well over two years ago and I remember the experience like it was yesterday. 

I would be utterly remiss if I didn’t talk a little about the church I am attending.  Where I live, in Burlington, CT, I have 4 x Orthodox churches within 20-25 minutes of me.  Three in the Orthodox Church of America (OCA):  Holy Trinity in New Britain, Saints Cyril & Methodius in Terryville,  All Saints in Hartford;  and one Russian Orthodox Church, St Panteleimon, in Hartford.  My first exposure to the Divine Liturgy, that powerful experience I described above, was at Holy Trinity.  But I wanted to experience others as well.  So, my next stop was Ss Cyril and Methodius, presided over by Fr John Hopko.  I knew the Hopko name because Fr John’s dad, Fr Thomas Hopko, Memory Eternal, was a powerhouse in the formation of the OCA, an important and gifted theologian, seminarian, and teacher. Fr Tom is a name known by everyone in these circles.  He gifted us hours and hours of Orthodox material which has proved to be critical in my own nascent formation. The only criticism I have is that he could have probably said everything he needed to say in those podcasts using 33% fewer words. But I listened with nothing but respect and gratitude. And often a smile at his unstoppable loquacity. 

I later learned that Fr John is very much his father’s son. He is so clearly full of the Love of God, the love of the faith, and the love of his parishioners. And he likes to actualize that Love through words.  Lots of them, and in many directions because he has so many domains of expertise and interest: Orthodoxy, History, Fly-fishing, US Politics, International Relations, Family, others. He also has a point a view on religious practice.  A sense of a right way and wrong way to be one of the faithful.  His Five Part heuristic (and I paraphrase) is basically:  “Say your prayers.  Come to Church. Read the Bible.  Love your neighbors. Participate in the Sacraments.”  All that is spot on.  No issues from me. Do all that and you’ll live a better life on many fronts. But bring in a “Yes, but what about…X?” or “If that’s true then…isn’t it the case that X” or “Why does the church believe…X?”  You get a sigh, maybe a patient shrug, or sometimes (and I’ve told him this), you get what I really love, which is the surly and pugnacious Fr John. 

This is funny and true. During my first visit to Ss Cyril and Methodius I had sent a note to Fr John telling him I would be attending the service.  It was a wonderful service, even though I still had no idea what was going on. It was soon after Pascha, as I recall. Afterwards people venerated the icons, received the priest’s blessing and cleared out.  I just sat in the back and waited until he came out. Well, after I introduced myself, I launched into some stream of pretentious polysyllabic incoherence ending with saying something about "the very clear influences of Proclus’ and Iamblicus' philosophy on Orthodox theology."  He became somewhat huffy and grumbled, “It just gives us a language to use.”  He was in a mood and I think I set him off. Well, I didn’t show it, but it delighted me. I thought,  “Here’s a man that has an opinion, isn’t afraid to lay it down, and that there is a depth of mind and disposition in there that has considered a lot of hard edged theological questions. Many more than I have. I like this guy.” 

So here I am, an "ecclesial outlaw," living a life that doesn't quite fit the "celestial HOA rules" of rigid Eastern Orthodoxy and I understand that. I’m a "C-grade" practitioner at best, currently sitting in the Divine Liturgy without taking part in the sacraments. I read scripture (not enough), I pray twice daily. I fast (kind of). I do my best to Love and show Compassion to all (poorly, probably).  I still struggle with Pride, with Tolerance,  with giving Grace.  My language can be salty, my entendres double, and my disposition toward Humanity writ large less than kind.   But, as Gregory of Nazianzus suggested, faith isn't a prize for the perfect; it is a hospital for the broken. At least my Mom thinks I have greatly changed since attending church. She told me.  But then it makes me wonder if she's thought I've been a total asshat for the first 62 years.  ; )

I’ve spent decades running through woods, climbing up mountains, and trodding upon some corridors of power. I’ve seen enough of the "common sense" basic Scientistic and Materialistic interpretation of the world to know it is empty. Plenty of knowledge, not enough meaning.  My pathway to Orthodoxy has been a slow-motion collision with a Truth that finally makes the white noise of the world coalesce into a song. Call it enchantment. 

All of that as it is.  I may be walking a bit crookedly, and I still have more questions than the Liturgy has candles, but I finally think I know which way the grain of the universe runs. I'm no longer just an observer of the created; I’m a participant in the Thought God is thinking. It’s a rough road, but it’s the only one that feels real. 

Thanks for reading.