Hi Gram,
It was rough getting up this morning. We’ve really been pushing it all day for the past few days, wearing ourselves out. The resulting exhaustion, a slight headache, the comfortable bed, and the cool weather made an ideal mix to resist the alarm. After hitting snooze a few times, though, I woke Nattiya and asked if she wanted to walk. I may as well have flipped a switch, as quickly as she went from fast asleep to bouncing out of bed, singing and coaxing me to get up and get going! I begrudgingly climbed out of bed, took a couple Tylenol for the headache, and got myself ready.

As we left the front door of the hotel, a line of monks was a block away to the left and headed our way. We headed to the right to outrun them and keep from interfering with their trek. A zig here and a zag there, and I think we lost them. Walking along the river, there was more traffic than one would expect for so early in the morning. The street was lined with tour busses discharging people onto boats for daylong tours. Further down the street, we came across a couple restaurants full of locals enjoying their morning rituals before the sidewalk ended, encouraging us to head uphill back to the main road. There, people were crowded around a temple with car traffic diverted for a celebration or ritual. Not wanting to interfere with that, we turned down the next street and back to the river, finishing our walk along the same route we’d started. Back at the hotel, I took some allergy medicine – I think I’m allergic to the puffy coat with the broken zipper that I bought the other day – then stepped out onto our front terrace for breakfast.

There’s something about having breakfast served right outside our door that felt posh. Not only that, but the menu was simple but suited to both of us. I had yogurt, fresh fruit, and bread with tamarind and coconut jam (I know, right?) and a cup of mulberry green tea with cinnamon. She had a pork noodle soup, fresh fruit, and coffee. It was the perfect quantity and flavor to satisfy each of us and make me glad again that we had changed hotels. Following breakfast, we lounged around the room for a few hours, as has become our habit, then went for our mid-afternoon walk to see what we could see and have some lunch along Main St. At a small shop that served a mix of Lao and Croatian food, we split a couple of dishes and sticky rice while the tourists streamed past giving us ample people-watching entertainment. After a little more wandering, we ended up back at the room where I planned to get some things done on the computer.

Instead, I lay in bed and watched mindless YouTube videos for a couple hours. I can’t tell you anything about the content of those videos, but I can tell you that I felt kind of gross and disappointed at the end. I think I do a better job of avoiding the doom scrolling and couch potato-ing than many, but I still fall into that trap every now and then. I am never grateful or happy about it when I’m done, so I need to come up with some system or cue to divert my attention somewhere else when I’m tempted.

Looking to cleanse my brain a little, I headed out for an evening walk while Nattiya stayed back to make some phone calls. With music streaming through my earbuds, I wandered aimlessly just observing the world around me. I stopped at a little cafe to enjoy a coconut tart and mint 7-Up at a sidewalk table, where I watched more people stroll by. I told myself that this was both way too much sugar to be consuming this late in the evening but also such a rewarding experience and beautiful way to cap an otherwise so-so day. Refreshed – and probably on a sugar high – I sauntered back to the room, chatted for a bit with my woman, and headed to bed.