Tim’s Nomad Diaries

Here in Phnom Penh during my favorite holiday, trying to get over an ugly case of pink eye and food poisoning from several days earlier , I can’t help but feeling a deep yearning for gathering around a table with all the traditional Thanksgiving food, friends, and family.

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The cuisine of any respective country, for me, is one of the most important things to experience as a traveler, right behind getting to know the local people. So, when my Hospitality Club hosts Thanh and Nhung offered to take other HC member Andy and I out to a traditional Vietnamese dog restaurant, both of us let out a bark of joy at this great opportunity in front of us.

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While in Shenzen, China, I stayed with a group of guys from Bangladesh, who where, with the rest of the muslim world, deep in the middle of Ramadan. During the ninth month of the muslim calender, falling between mid September to mid October, Ramadan is a time where Muslim followers around the world abstain from all food and drink (including water) each day while the sun is up, for the entirety of the month. According to some prominent members of the BSC (Bangladeshi Shenzen Crew), Ramadan is about focusing less on the daily rigors of everyday life, and more on what matters the most: God. It is about the realization that we are all on this planet together, some more fortunate than others in the lives that we were borne into; the aim of Ramadan is to feel what it is like to suffer, like so many people in this world have no choice but to live through, and to understand that we are no better than anyone else, all of us the same in God’s eyes.

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The capital of Vietnam for the better part of the last millennium, Hanoi is a special place, dotted throughout with tranquil parks and lakes, Classical European meets Traditional Eastern architecture, windy alley-ways of the French Old Quarters with outdoor kitchens offering deliciousness every few feet, and those magical Bia Hois–Beer Gardens–where one can find themselves in a hazy stupor of enlightenment inspired by the nectar from the gods for spare pocket change.

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