The Tiger on the Door Two years ago, I moved into a house in KDC Sáng Quang, a quiet residential neighborhood about 1.2km from where I teach. It’s a world away from the noise of Trương Công Định street. Here, life moves at the speed of the older couples taking evening walks and young families…
The Landlords of the Sky I remember the first time I saw them. It was 2017, and I was rattling along on a local bus from Sihanoukville, Cambodia, to Trat in Thailand. Staring out the window at the passing countryside, my eyes kept snagging on these strange, brutalist structures rising out of the fields. They…
The Technicolor Ghost: Finding the Divine Eye in the Middle of Nowhere I had absolutely no idea where I was going. It was April 2018, and I was fresh off the boat (or rather, the plane). I had just been hired by an agency and “dispatched” to a teaching post in Xuân Lộc District, Dong…
When the River Becomes the Destination While most travelers in Vietnam instinctively point themselves toward the coast, something quieter has been unfolding inland. In 2025, An Giang unexpectedly climbed to the #2 spot on Google’s Year in Search for domestic travel, drawing attention away from familiar beach names and toward the waterways, forests, and sacred…
Chaos & Calm: A Local’s Guide to the Ok Om Bok Festival in Sóc Trăng My first year in Sóc Trăng, a local friend turned to me in late October and said, “Let’s go look at boats.” I pictured something modest—wooden canoes drifting down the river, maybe a few families watching from the shade. Instead,…
