HOI AN

so my 6-day motorcycle trip through the central highlands is over now and i'm sitting in a HUGE hotel room with two kingsize beds and it's fucking pouring rain outside.


hoi an is a beautiful old town, "old" being relative in vietnam because most places were completely destroyed by bombs only 40 years ago. hoi an wasn't one of those places. it has all these gorgeous frenchy and chinesey buildings, most of them hundreds of years old, and because of this and its seaside charm it's a crazy tourist magnet.


after 6 days in the jungle or in towns where i was the only honky, i'm shocked to see so many broad, pasty people in one place. kind of a letdown. everything's more expensive and all the townpeople are trying to sell shit constantly, especially kids on the street with ceramic buffalo whistles and junk.



earlier today i went to a blacksmith's house and saw how he makes farming tools from bombshell fragments and flare casings. then he invited long and i into his house. his whole family sat around and we talked for about an hour. people have been like that everywhere in the highlands- warm, genuinely hospitable, happy to show me how to process rice, how to harvest wheat, how to pick black pepper, how to dry coffee, how to get raw latex from rubber trees, how to weave silk on a loom, how to make bricks. the people in the rainforests and rice fields are really amazing.


so.


i'm eating new and delicious stuff every day.


i drank goat's blood rice wine the other night.



i'm hungry. love, nicholas.