It was my plan to keep up with my online activities and possibility even attend a few Sunday churches via zoom.  So far, I’ve made it to last week’s HILR Memoir Class.  I have a Writer’s Group tonight (Boston Friday morning) that I am missing to take the night bus to Sapa.  We are going for the weekend with Tra My and family and I was somewhat confused about the conversion of days and times when I agreed to tonight’s transportation.

I emailed my group of writers in their early morning, apologizing for my bad planning, and almost immediately got a reply that I should “Have no regrets. You are growing and exploring larger worlds. Lap it up- and take us with you. Have a super time!”

In many circumstances these days, I feel the lift of community under, above and all around me.

We move house two days ago.  We left our three-floored tunnel house.  I could not shake my less than comfortable feelings for the place.  I and we got used to walking the darkish 3-foot wide alley. (I am going to try to post a video of the walk from street to front door.). I could not get over that we were walking the bottom, street level of buildings with many additions, floors on top of floors, pieces of housing stuck on to what was built before.  I could not shake the feeling of it all coming tumbling down.

However!  However, after a few days, we started running into our neighbors—we counted at least 10 families living off the tunnel—on foot and by motor bike coming and going through the tunnel.  We started smiling and saying hello, and in a few more days, they began responding.  And, we had a very nice cafe right next door that we began having breakfast every morning on a second floor balcony which looked out over the busy street.  I was still in need of western breakfast while Ed and Julia ate pho every morning.  The cafe made wonderful fruit smoothies—mango, watermelon, and mango-avocado are favorites—and I appreciated the eggs and french bread with egg coffee.

Oh, egg coffee!  Just the best!  Bitter, strong espresso with a whipped egg and milk on top.  What will I do when I leave!?

For the neighbors and the cafe, and the street of the Old Quarter that had begun to be less over-stimulation and slightly understandable, we all felt a bit sad to leave our tunnel house even without windows.

So, we moved across town.  Less than a half hour walk or 8 minutes on the back of a motor bike.  We took a cab so that we didn’t have to lug our carry on bags and back packs through the streets.

We are somewhere between the Old Quarter and the French Quarter.  The streets are not as intensely busy, there are some large bank and office buildings, there are some relatively fancy restaurants and a Starbucks (yes, we went in once, hot and tired and slightly lost.  We will never go in again.). It is hard to find small stores for bottled water and bread but we are still learning the neighborhood.  We did have pho at the street stand this morning.  We had seen the owner working on his broth last night and thought that was a good sign.  It was a wonderful sign.  Great breakfast!

I have more to say but I am not taking the computer to Sapa and I want to get this out.