It’s hard not to like Vietnam. The people are friendly and open. Most don’t speak English, but the ones who do speak well and with confidence. They’re not afraid to look you in the eye.

I’ve just returned from a day of riding a rented motor scooter around the big national park outside of town, the one that’s famous for its caves. One of the caves is called the eight woman cave. It’s called that because eight young women died inside. Such a beautiful spot for such sadness.

According to the People’s Army Newspaper (Quân Đội Nhân Dân) of 17 May, 2009, one day in 1972 eight young volunteers were clearing a road near Eight Lady Cave (Hang Tám Cô) when an air raid sounded. The volunteers ran into the cave. A bomb landed, lodging a 100-tonne rock across the entrance. Nine days later, people outside heard the volunteers for the last time. The war ended that year and a temple was built near the cave to honour the eight and others who died keeping the road, Road 20, open. In 1996 the Government used explosives to remove the rock and found bones and hair.

Fact is, we bombed the hell out of this whole area in the early 1970’s. We bombed the cities, railway lines, we bombed the park. Following find a picture I took yesterday near the cave. Also a photo taken from an American bomber of what was left of Dong Hoi city. It’s just bomb craters and the foundations of buildings.

So I must admit, I didn’t sleep well last night. I tossed and turned, reminding myself that these people are too sweet to hold a grudge. When I first came to Vietnam, I was staying at a hotel in the old part of Hanoi, and I was reading a book about the war. Kissinger and Nixon had come up with a plan to convince the North Vietnamese that Nixon was crazy and so they’d better sue for peace at the negotiations table. Part of this plan was the Christmas bombing, cutely named Linebacker II, using B-52’s to carpet bomb Hanoi itself. It turns out that a bomb fell through the roof of the hospital next door, exploding in the operating room during an operation. Needless to say, not only the patient died. I put the book down and looked to my right, at the wall that separated my hotel from the  hospital. I wondered why there wasn’t an angry mob outside of my hotel, asking for my head.

True, we didn’t carpet bomb major Vietnamese cities the way we did North Korean ones, or Japanese or German for that matter, but then we weren’t really “at war” with Vietnam. We were there as advisors, right?

I just met a woman who asked if I’d be interested in teaching English as a volunteer at her school. I said I’d like to visit her school the next time I’m back here, but that I live in Chiang Mai. I am pretty pleased to have found Dong Hoi, and it’s only the same distance and cost as the beaches we go to in Southern Thailand. I believe next smoke season in Chiang Mai (March, April) we’ll come here.

As I’ve aged, I’ve found it harder to fall and stay asleep. Every night I was waking up after only a few hours, checking Facebook, browsing Amazon, and generally wasting time until I could drop off again. Somewhere along the line I found an online pharmacy that sold me Ambien, a newer drug that helps one fall asleep.

Even though I didn’t need a prescription to buy it online, I read the label and it warned against resisting the initial drowsiness. So of course after a couple of nights of using it as directed, I forced myself to stay awake. I remember staring at my laptop screen from an odd angle, talking to myself and drooling. Then I must have gone to bed, even though I don’t remember doing so.

The next day at worked I discovered a video on Facebook where I was wearing my underpants on my head, and giving a free-associative rant about politics while talking in the voice of the Kingfisher from Amos and Andy. I knew that something was seriously wrong. In disbelief, I watched myself roar “I’se Regusted” while stomping on my desk. By the time I managed to delete the video post it had been shared 250 times.

I had recently accepted an offer from Amazon to try out it’s Prime status for a free thirty-day trial, and to my knowledge I had yet to order anything taking advantage of one-day free delivery, but for the next two days I came home from work to find my front porch littered with boxes bearing the Amazon label. In them I found costume jewelry, sex toys, a metal detector, the entire set of Gene Autrey films on DVD, the Gabby Hayes VIP collection, and some very expensive oatmeal/raisin cookies from a cottage bakery in Vermont.

That evening I decided to forego the Ambien, and as I tossed and turned I heard a strange buzzing sound over the house. Turns out these were drones delivering even more packages which contained various herbal remedies, sex lubricants and cheap reproductions of expensive vintage watches.

That evening, just after dinner, there was a knock on the door. As I opened the door a cab drove away, and I saw a middle-aged woman dressed in a polyester pants suit of clashing floral patterns standing before me.

I invited her in and found that her name was Ludmilla, and even though she spoke very little English, learned that she had taken up my offer of free room and board in addition to a small salary to serve as my housekeeper. Though she has a doctorate in physics and had once been the director of a Research Institute, now it was impossible for her to find work in her native Latvia. I couldn’t very well go back on my word and send her on her way, so I invited her to start work the very next day. 

We are still together six months later. She’s a delightful woman who seems happy to read quietly when she’s finished with her chores. Since we can’t communicate we can’t argue. We like to take walks together around sunset. Since she’s arrived my sleep problems have disappeared and I gave the rest of the Ambien to one of my co-workers, who claims to have a hard time falling asleep.

A few years ago it became popular to encourage people to formulate a bucket list, a series of peak experiences they must have before they die. The concept pretended to encourage us to think outside the box, to eschew the everyday and mundane in favor of grabbing all the gusto we can out of life. It’s a travel writer’s dream, a resort owner’s fantasy.

A decade ago I went to Machu Picchu because the person I was traveling with wanted to. The whole way there I felt like a piece of meat with a wallet being herded towards a tourist destination. I never got the feeling I was on any kind of adventure at all, unless it was an adventure is being fleeced.

I’m happy to report that the site looked just like it does in pictures, perhaps with the addition of a thousand Chinese tourists who have recently become enamored and capable of leisure travel. The Chinese are the new Ugly Americans. They’re everywhere, dressed in clashing polyester fabrics and photographing everything in sight.

The fact is, we have no idea when we’re going to die, and so the idea that you can list items and then check them off when you accomplish whatever goal you set for yourself regarding them, is patently absurd. Likewise, a superficial visit to a place that has earned bucketlistability will not change you in any meaningful way, much less prove transformative, if that’s what you had in mind.

Far better to find the profound hidden in the mundane. Look around you and see what you’ve been ignoring or taking for granted. Stop trying to be a smart shopper in the adventure marketplace. You can’t consume an exciting life. When ordered, wonder and amazement do not appear on cue.

Much of what we do in this vast marketplace we call the modern world is to consume things we assume have value, and hopefully at prices that will prove us smart shoppers. Amazon Prime encourages us to see ourselves as members of a shopping elite, who can buy impulsively and receive the rewards of this action almost immediately.

My mother grew up on a farm in South Dakota and even when we lived in St. Louis, she still ordered our clothes out of the Montgomery Ward catalogue, delighted by how much time she saved by not shopping. The packages simply arrived on the front porch, much as Amazon packages do today, only back then they weren’t carried by drone, but by the mailman.

Consumption rarely leads to insight, or ecstasy. It’s all buildup and no payoff. It’s all anticipation and no delivery. Anyone who has ever directed a kiss in theater or film knows that the anticipation of the actually lip to lip contact is much more important and the mash itself.

Likewise the journey to enlightenment probably beats the pants off nirvana itself. Cartoonist Robert Crumb has Mr. Natural explain this to us at depth.

Dig what’s in front of you and you’re already in the right place at the right time. Long after other people’s travel photos and you’ve bought a one-way ticket to Palookaville. Facebook and other photo sharing sites and in the business to creating envy among those who wish they were anywhere but where they are.

There’s absolutely nothing “wrong” with Southeastern Iowa. True, it isn’t Western Montana or Southern Mongolia, but it’s doing a bang-up job of being what it is, which is completely sufficient for your happiness right now.

If you really want to change your location, you can do so nowadays far more easily than at any time in history. You will, however, have to face your fears and let go of the idea that security even exists, much less is preferable to what you’re about to undertake. Notions like security, or health, or it’s recently formulated cousin “wellness” are abstract illusions. Often they’re used to sell something indirectly, the way “diversity” is used to sell “affirmative action” which more directly would be called “racial profiling.”

I’d be glad to serve as a writing coach for any writers out there. My fees will be reasonable and I will do a good job encouraging any writer who pays me $30 to read 2,000 words and then have a Skype session to comment on it. I’ve taught for many years and I think I’m good at this.

I am not interested in copy editing. If you don’t know the rules of grammar, don’t expect me to teach those. I am, however, interested in supporting you as you find your voice. There’s probably something you know and want to say that only you can, and I want to encourage you to find it. As far as I can see, giving yourself permission to create a voice and then let that persona speak is the obstacle most writers are trying to circumvent.

I’ve had several books published as well as many magazine articles. I received a Master’s of Fine Arts in Playwriting from the University of Iowa’s Playwright’s workshop in 1975 and then for most of my life, supported myself by writing, performing and teaching.

Here is my Amazon Author’s page. https://www.amazon.com/Dan-Coffey/e/B005ANRTQA

I have a new novel Glass Eater  coming out this year via  Shipwrekt Books

If you’re interested, please respond to me via email at danieljosephcoffey@hotmail.com

I live in Thailand, so I’m twelve hours ahead of most of you.

I’m writing with no internet connection, and that makes me feel like I’m the first guy to scratch a hard rock into a softer rock, trying to leave a permanent record of his thoughts.

But I’ve got to remember that the writing process isn’t as important as the thinking process that precedes it. And my thoughts, though perhaps not profound, are really and truly mine.

I live in Thailand, and the people of this country are about the vote in a national referendum on a new constitution. They’re going to do this on August 7, which is my wife’s birthday. We are flying from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and then going to the beach for a few days before returning home on August 12, Mother’s Day, which in this country is the Queen’s birthday.

This wouldn’t occupy my mind so much if it weren’t for the fact that yesterday the army arrested the governing body of Chiang Mai province, taking them and their families to a military base in Bangkok for “Attitude Adjustment.” Apparently these men had been bold or foolish enough to ignore the warning that no discussion of the upcoming referendum would be tolerated.

A couple of years ago I managed to return to Thailand just in time to witness the coup d’ etat. The streets filled with tanks and jeeps, the TV stations left the air, to be replaced after a few hours by one station, showing some military men sitting at a folding table, a banner behind them reading “The Peace and Reconciliation Party.” The assured the audience that there was nothing to fear, that everything was under their control, and there would be a few extreme measures in place for a while.

That was two years ago. The initial curfews have been relaxed, but there is still absolutely no free discussion of a political nature. Anyone attempting it is taken away for attitude adjustment. Universities cannot hold seminars. Newspapers cannot publish anything unflattering to the government. The Constitution has been suspended. The military passed a law absolving themselves from any liability. They like to charge people with slander, and just the threat, especially if it involves the Royal Family, is enough to silence the boldest critic.

The International Edition of the New York Times is no longer printed in Thailand, for the printer feared he would be charged with a crime if an article critical of Thailand’s rulers appeared.

My Thai wife pays no mind to any of this. When I asked her about the coming referendum which will take place on her birthday, she said “It’s just like Mother’s Day. Another holiday.”

Maybe she’s right to be so cavalier. I’m not just worried about my new home, but about my old one, the one that send me a social security check every month, and has promised to do so for as long as I live. Fifty years ago I started working, washing dishes at a Howard Johnsons restaurant for $1.25 an hour. They took out a chunk of my first paycheck and every one after that, promising to pay me a pension. I have been receiving $1,215 a month for the last four years. The things Donald Trump is saying make me wonder how much longer I can count on that.

Thais are nice people, sweet and pretty docile compared to the Americans I saw the last time I waited in line at LAX to board a Southwest Airlines flight to Oakland. People were exhibiting frightening levels of hostility and frustration. I didn’t know what the problem was, but I avoided making eye contact with any of my fellow passengers.

When I got to my brother’s house in Berkeley, I found that most public places in that town were inhabited by homeless people. These people, mostly men my age who looked like they could use a shave, shower and change of clothes, were not the least bit apologetic about their situation. They glared at me as I walked past. Someone muttered “What are you looking at?”

I stopped by the Berkeley Post Office to mail a letter. This formerly beaux arts building was now a homeless persons camp, and the smell of stale urine prominently advertised that fact. The lobby was largely abandoned, but I saw that for convenience sake they had put several boxes out on the sidewalk. As I searched for the right mail slot, a man lying in the ice plant garden below glared up at me.
“What are you looking at?”

So I don’t know which country I’m less confident in, but I do believe that Helen Keller may have nailed it when she said “The reason no one has ever experienced Security is because it doesn’t exist. Life is either an exciting adventure or it is nothing.”