track 02: some kinda love

Where am I currently?

Sitting on the outdoor patio of the MOC Hotel in Sa Pa, situated on the cutest little street in Sa Pa (although I may be a little biased on that). But, really. It’s tucked away from the main roads in town, and the street is lined with these beautifully colored paper lanterns with all types of greenery and florals spread throughout the street. 

What did I want to write about? 

Well, I guess that solo traveling hasn’t been easy. It’s like when you see peoples’ Instagrams, and everything is always rainbows and butterflies - but, everyone knows deep down that everything is not always what it seems. 

Here’s what’s on the other side of my Instagram posts - 

1. For one - I am huge on getting a full night’s sleep. I recently had a discussion with a friend about the importance of getting a good night’s rest and how life changing that can be. Which is why it’s a little funny that I am probably on the worst sleep schedule I’ve had in a couple years. This is something I learned about myself in LA - my need for a good night’s rest - which is why I was so strict about my DND while I was there. Getting a good night of sleep can affect everything for me, so when I don’t - it’s very difficult for me to function as a human being.

So, with that being said - I’ve been averaging about 3-4 hours of sleep a night. I think that I’ve gotten about 2 or 3 nights of 7+ hours of sleep since I’ve been here. I’ve been sleeping in increments, trying to nap during the day (doesn’t always work though). This has taken a huge toll on my overall physical energy, my mental health, and my moods throughout the day. Not ideal. 

2. I’m still working on US hours. My main client is in New York, which leaves me having to make myself available during the hours of 9pm - 3am M-F. I end up falling asleep around 3:30am everyday, and because I am naturally used to waking up early, my body wakes up around 7am like clockwork. 

3. It’s been hard to balance sleep, exploring, and restoring my body’s energy without feeling guilty about the rest periods. I am definitely someone who likes to have productive days during my travels. I like to see and experience as much as I can, but I have to remind myself that I’m not really on “vacation” as much as I am trying to integrate my (new) normal life with traveling. I’ve been trying my best to prioritize what I’d like to do most while I’m in a particular city, and then let the rest of the chips fall where they may. I either have enough energy to do more, or I don’t, and I end up catching up on sleep. 

4. I am currently not in therapy. It probably would suit me well to be in therapy at the moment with this big life change, but I had to cut some things out of my life for financial reasons. So… what do you do when you’re not in therapy? Well, I try my best to create outlets to express (for example, starting a blog). I try not to let my thoughts sit inside my head, and I like to get them out whether that be through blogging, writing in my journal, voice memoing, or putting them into the notes app on my phone. This helps me at least get my thoughts out, so that I can then work on trying to decipher them - ask myself why do I feel this way? What does this say about what other aspects about myself I may need to work through still? 

I also rely on friends for support. I try not to overdo it on this though because I know that everyone has their own shit. But, it does feel good to discuss it with trusted friends to feel heard and not feel like you’re crazy. Different friends can hold different capacities, so I’m very selective on what I express and to whom. It differs from friendship to friendship. I don’t know if this makes me weird, but I just know that certain friends have the capacity to hold more support than others. And this is not to say that some friends are more supportive, it's just…like I said, everyone has shit going on.

The purpose of this is not to instill some sort of sympathy from you. It’s just to show you the realities of solo-traveling. It’s not like I picked up, left the US, and all my worries just floated away. It’s actually far from that. Which is funny, because in some sort of way - that’s what I was hoping for. But, actually, quite the opposite happened.

It felt almost as if I was regressing, like all of the progress I had made in LA had all of a sudden just gone to shit, and I was anxious, depressed, sleep deprived, malnourished, and insecure all over again. It felt very prominent when I first got here, but I do feel as if the tide is turning. The more as time passes, I am beginning to get more of a groove on my days.

What I will say is this - that although I haven’t felt as stable as I would like to feel…the feeling of actually being out and about, experiencing, and immersing myself into the culture is a blissful and exhilarating feeling - almost so much so that it has been a source of reenergizing for me. I all of a sudden forget that I have huge bags under my eyes, that I haven’t had a normal shit schedule since I’ve gotten here, or that I was just crying my eyes out asking myself if I had made the right decision. 

There’s something about not knowing where you are, or how your days are going to turn out, or who you’ll connect with. This whole time I kept thinking about the people I’ll meet along the way, envisioning a bunch of other solo travelers - most likely from Europe or the US. But, in reality, the people I’ve been connecting with most are the locals - the servers, the women running this hotel, the cook at a family restaurant in Cat Ba, my driver in Ha Noi that showed me around, or a local villager, named Chao, who assisted us on the trek into the rice fields in Sa Pa - all really soul-satisfying encounters that give me insight to what life is really like here. 

The way that my days end up turning out almost feel as if they’re carefully curated. Like, if I think something in my head (for example, feeling like I wanted to know about Vietnam culture and then my driver in Ha Noi, Chi, dropping me off at the Museum of Ethnology, or in Ha Long Bay when we were granted bouts of sunlight throughout the day after a week of overcast). It's like I think a particular thought, and then an opportunity presents itself for that experience to manifest in real life, as if the Universe was responding to my unspoken thoughts. It’s been really beautiful and instills a level of connection with the world around you. 

Today, I had no plans. It took me about 7 hours to actually get to Sa Pa yesterday, and I’ve been tired. Today was going to be a rest day. But, I grabbed breakfast in the hotel this morning, and the woman running the hotel sat with me during breakfast and asked me what I had planned for today. I told her nothing. Apparently, she didn’t like that answer, so she gave me a few suggestions before settling on the decision that I should go to the top of Fansipan Mountain. She pulled out this map, showed me where I needed to go to get on the train, then told me I would have to take the train up to get to the cable car, walk through to take the cable car up, then eventually find another cable car to get to the top of the mountain. The whole time I’m thinking - I don’t know how the fuck I’m gonna be able to figure this out - seems very complicated. But, then decided, what the hell. I don’t have shit to do today. 

Turns out being probably my favorite part of my trip thus far. I found my way to the funicular station (which ended up being a straight shot down from my hotel into the beautiful yellow colored Sa Pa Station building), and took the train up. At the first stop were gardens that you could walk through and a market of vendors selling local spices, coffee, and souvenirs. Right before you head into the cable car station is a Buddhist temple (and I really fuck with temples). 

You then take the first cable car up which is about 10 mins…Because you’re on a mountain, you find yourself cutting through clouds, but getting glimpses of the rice fields and forest along the way. It’s truly mesmerizing. Once you get off the cable car, you get dropped off in what seems like a mall. You walk through an art gallery and up to the main food court. Once you exit the food court, you can walk up the stairs and into the mist. Seriously - it was so fucking fogging, I literally had no idea where I was going or what I was going to come across. Up the stairs, you find another temple (wish I knew the names of the temples, but I don’t). You can then walk or take another cable car up to the top of the mountain. 

Fansipan Mountain is the highest mountain in the Indochina Peninsula (consisting of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) reaching 3,147.3 meters above sea level. At the top of the mountain, you find all these tourists taking photos while holding a waving Vietnam flag. I did a lot of people watching at the top. I loved watching everyone look so happy as if we trekked all this way to the top, when in actuality, most of us took the easy route by cable car. The girl at my hotel suggested that I take the stairs down from the top of the mountain - which happened to be my absolute favorite part. 

On the way down (or on the way up, depends if you were a trooper and took the stairs up to the top), you come across a series of statues - mostly Buddhist philosophers. Each with its own personality and facial expressions that eventually lead you to the Great Buddha Statue of Amitabha, consisting of over 50 tons of copper. I never really cared for shit like this before (I probably shouldn’t refer to this as shit - but, I say it with the utmost respect). But, I think since I’ve been exploring more about what my personal spiritual beliefs are, the pagodas and the statues have been highlights for me during my trip. 

There’s something very emotional that happens every time I find myself inside of a temple or gazing at a statue. The energy around these places are unexplainable, and more often than not, I find myself feeling really moved, and sometimes even crying (I am such a crier - don’t come here and judge me). I think that these sacred places also allow me to take a moment to pause and express gratitude during my prayers. I, 100% of the time, leave feeling very connected and aligned with the Universe/God/Source, what have you.

I sat in the food court before deciding to head back to my hotel - just to… take in everything that I had just seen. I didn’t even know that this was something I needed, but a simple suggestion from the woman at my hotel happened to bring me my favorite moment thus far in Vietnam. 

I took that time to really just feel grateful - to know that things may not be perfect, but these little unexpected moments happen to actually be big life-changing moments that I hope to remember forever. To know that not too long ago, I was crying over some dumb boy, or worried about how I was going to pay my bills, or struggling to cut ties with my material life - all those things seem so insignificant now. And it’s not to say that none of that matters. I don’t want to forget that I had to go through those things to get where I am now. I worked every inch of my mind, body, and soul to get myself here physically, mentally, and spiritually - but, it IS to say that I can put it all down and leave that in the past, and that it’s ok for me to revel in this life that I created for myself. 

some kinda love - loony

[Verse 1]
Something inside of me has changed
I feel different today
Cause the TV don't make me sad
The paper don't make me sick
Everything in the universe seemed to shift a little bit

[Pre-Chorus]
It's just another day in the neighbourhood, it seems
But I've been struck with a new sense of being
And if you left me, couldn't change my mind
Since you let me, I can now describe

[Chorus]
How it feels to love
Some kinda love

[Verse 2]
Dumped out my cigarettes, it's now time to second guess
Every time I've given up
Cuz I played so much pretend, I've always wondered when
I would forget who I was
Now my flaws don't make me bad, and jealousy don't make me wanna quit
Everything in my universe seemed to shift a little bit

[Pre-Chorus]
It's just another day in the neighbourhood, it seems
But somehow now, I feel a part of everything
And if you left me, couldn't change my mind
Since you let me, I can now describe (I can describe)

[Chorus]
How it feels to love
Some kinda love

[Post-Chorus]
Up above, angels sing
I can feel everything
Up above, angels sing
I can feel everything
Up above, angels sing
I can feel everything
Up above, angels sing
I can feel everything

[Pre-Chorus]
If you left me, couldn't change my mind (Up above, angels sing, I can feel everything)
Since you let me, I can now describe (Up above, angels sing, I can feel everything)
If you left me, couldn't change my mind (Up above, angels sing, I can feel everything)
Since you let me, I can now describe (Up above, angels sing, I can feel everything)

[Chorus]
How it feels to love (Up above, angels sing, I can feel everything)
Some kinda love (Up above, angels sing, I can feel every)
Thing (mm)
(ooh)