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jbaileyfansite · 5 months

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Interview with Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer from GQ Hype

Filled with cozy, Hemingwayesque signifiers of midcentury masculinity (think: taxidermy and artfully-tattered boxing gloves), the restaurant seemed perfect for a breezy, late-autumn hang in the West Village.

But there’s one problem: Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey have burgers on their minds. And while this place boasts a surplus of dead animals nailed to the wall, it somehow only serves snacks and salads in the afternoon. And as Bomer points out, Corner Bistro—a pub that, in his opinion, serves some of the best burgers in town—is just a six-minute walk away.

The British-born Bailey—who, in his black sweater, floppy beanie and overstuffed backpack, looks more like a backpacker who just rolled out of his hostel rather than one of the streaming era’s top heartthrobs—waxes rhapsodic about In-N-Out, the California burger institution, which he recently tried for the first time.

He asks the suave, Old Hollywood-handsome Bomer, who spends most of his time in L.A. with his husband and three teenage sons, where In-N-Out falls on his personal burger index. “Our boys are really good judges of burgers,” Bomer says, and for them, In-N-Out is up there—but so is the burger at Corner Bistro. And how can we send Bailey—the Viscount of Bridgerton himself—back to London without tasting New York’s best?

Our location, midway between Stonewall Inn and Julius, two of New York’s most historic gay bars, is apt. The project we’re here to talk about—the epic new Showtime series Fellow Travelers, in which the pair star—tips its hat to the legendary 1969 riots that happened in Stonewall, but goes even further, telling the story of gay liberation in the second half of the twentieth century.

Part epic love story, part political thriller, Fellow Travelers begins in 1950s Washington, D.C., with an illicit affair between the strapping Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Bomer), a State Department official savvy to the ways of power, and the earnest, energetic Timothy “Tim” Laughlin (Bailey), the kind of wide-eyed idealist who goes to D.C. wanting to change the world. When they first meet, Tim is a conservative Catholic boy; his passionate, intensely erotic affair with Hawk both liberates him and throws him off his path.

Through the decades-spanning run of their relationship, the series takes us from the Lavender Scare of the 1950s—when a McCarthy-era policy that institutionalized homophobia expelled many “sexual deviants” from government, resulting at one point in a suicide a day—to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

The series is based on the Thomas Mallon novel of the same name. But where Mallon’s book generally focuses on the 1950s and the explosive romance between Hawk and Tim, the series expands the Fellow Travelers universe to reach through the decades and cover the Vietnam War protests of the '60s and the White Night riots of 1979.

“It's been taught that LGBTQIA+ history begins at Stonewall,” says Jelani Alladin, the actor who plays queer Black journalist Marcus Hooks in the series. “It’s a kind of false narrative. Queer people have been around taking a stand for themselves since the beginning of time.”

It feels like a disservice to call a series so sexy and so compelling as educational. But Fellow Travelers does serve as an important history lesson for younger generations who may not fully understand the battles fought before their time. “It was a really dark period in American history that obviously we're not taught in school,” says executive producer Robbie Rogers, who prior to his work in film and TV was the soccer player who became the first openly gay man to compete in a North American professional sports league. “We're not taught LGBT history.”

When the first episode of the series came out in late October, a viral clip showcasing Bailey and Bomer in a particularly kinky sex scene had Gay Twitter shuddering with excitement. In the scene, Bailey’s Tim uses his power as a sub to persuade Bomer’s Hawk to take him to an important D.C. party. “I’m your boy, right?” he tells Hawk. “Your boy wants to go to the party.” In surely one of this year’s hottest scenes on film or TV, we see Bailey hungrily suck on Bomer’s toes and gamely attempt to put his foot in his mouth. Earlier in the series, Hawk gives Tim the name “Skippy” after thoroughly dominating him in bed, a gesture of affection as much as of ownership.

Sex is a powerful, world-shifting force in Fellow Travelers, but it’s also a Trojan horse. While the early episodes bristle with erotic energy, every exchange between Bomer and Bailey is about power as much as it is about sex. And the further you go into Travelers, the more you realize what’s really at stake when these two hit the sack.

“Even in the ‘50s, they had joy,” Travelers creator and writer Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Philadelphia, says. “You might be struggling, but that doesn't mean every moment of your life you're a victim of oppression. Behind closed doors they had a life—it's just that at any moment, the police could come through those doors and ruin that life.”

That unapologetic approach to queer desire is still pretty revolutionary in a big-budget prestige series on a major network. Gone are the days when gay characters were allowed to exist onscreen as long as they adhered to respectability politics. In Fellow Travelers, the queer characters are allowed passionate, unapologetically freaky pleasures.

“There's no shame attached to that,” Bailey says. “And I do think Matt's character detonates something in Tim. It's a gift to meet someone [who does the] radical act of helping you feel less shame and understand that intimacy that can be explored in so many different ways.”

Religion is a big theme in Fellow Travelers. Hawk is bound by covenant to his wife; Tim struggles with Catholic guilt. And like many queer people, Bomer and Bailey themselves have both had to negotiate religion within their queer identities.

“It took me a long time to dismantle it and to question what I was being told,” Bailey says. “Religion is interesting because it’s the voice of the shame but also [a source of] relief. There was this person that I could speak to—and I definitely did have that full conversation with a higher power. But the contradiction is brutal. To really lean into that as a gay kid who's not born into a gay family, you see both sides of what religion can provide, which is scathing judgment—as I felt it looking back—but also a real space for catharsis and nourishment.”

Bomer says he has an individualized approach to religion: “It's something that I've found for myself over years and years of exploration. It's just highly personal that way.” Bomer is proud to have raised his kids in a truly intersectional environment. “They go to an Episcopal school, but they're in school with Muslim kids, with Jewish kids,” he says. “We gave them that experience and then let them find their own way from there.”

On the way to Corner Bistro, Bomer gives Bailey a capsule tour of gay West Village. “That’s an iconic lesbian bar,” he says, pointing out Cubbyhole on West 12th street. Later, he asks if we’ve ever been to Fire Island. “You can have any experience you want there,” Bomer tells me, when I confess my anxiety around Speedos. “It's not just one thing.”

These streets bring up certain memories for Bomer. He tells us about coming up as an actor in New York in the early 2000s, at one point living in “a renovated crackhouse in Brooklyn.” Later, he worked two jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment he split with a fellow aspiring actor—none other than Lee Pace, the famous, and famously tall (6′ 5″, if you don’t know), actor and Internet Boyfriend who Bomer has known since high school. “I’ll tell you how long I've known Lee Pace,” he says. “I’ve known him since he was shorter than me, when he was 14 and I was 15.”

As gay men are wont to do, trust that the group veered off-topic to talk about vocally-prodigious divas. Bomer has just seen the Broadway production of David Byrne’s Here Lies Love, which tells the story of the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos, the wife of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. And when he finds out that I grew up in the Philippines, he tells me how much he loves Lea Salonga, the Tony-winning Filipino Broadway star who appears in the production.

We ask Bailey if he’s familiar with her. “Do I know Lea Salonga?” he asks. “She was Fantine!” he retorts, referring to her role in Les Misérables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary.

From there, we fall into a Filipino diva rabbit hole, talking about former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger (currently appearing in a well-received West End production of Sunset Boulevard that Bomer tells Bailey they must catch together), Mutya Buena of the Sugababes (an iconic U.K. girl group that Bailey and I separately saw live recently), and Darren Criss (who Bomer directed on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story—technically a straight male, but one who earns diva status for his formidable vocals and the dance he did in a red speedo on Versace).

As we near the pub, a thirty-something woman walking hand in hand with her man does a hilariously convincing impression of the Distracted Boyfriend meme at the sight of Neal Caffrey and Anthony Bridgerton casually strolling through West 4th Street.

“Her neck!” Bailey says, audibly concerned.

In Corner Bistro, with sandwiches and coffees in hand (Bailey decides on a classic burger and a grilled chicken sandwich), we settle down in a cozy booth and talk about the points in their careers where Fellow Travelers found the actors, the hard-won representation Hollywood’s queer community has been fighting for for decades, and the LGBTQ+ talents of color they’d like to support on their own projects.

Bomer, of course, has been famous since the early 2010s, when he became a star on the series White Collar, and along with Neil Patrick Harris, proved that openly gay actors could become leading men. Since then, he’s conquered Broadway (The Boys in the Band), won a slew of awards (Golden Globe and Critic's Choice trophies for The Normal Heart) and become a producer and director.

In the past, Bomer has discussed the way doors closed on him even as he was being celebrated for being an out gay actor. When asked about that now, he says, “I choose just to never look back in anger about anything. Ultimately, my career is a lot richer because I decided to be open with who I am.”

“It’s a wave of progress that Matt's been surfing and is at the front of,” says Bailey. “And it's been a real honor to be able to get on my boogie board next to him.”

Before he became a global star mid-pandemic playing the grumpy, furry-chested Anthony Bridgerton on the Netflix juggernaut Bridgerton, Bailey was an award-winning actor in both the West End and British television. Huge fame didn’t find Bailey until his early 30s, so when it did, he had a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish with his platform.

“I feel the responsibility immeasurably,” Bailey says. “I get it when people are saying you create a chair and bring people [to the table].” He talks about the connection between the civil rights movement and the queer liberation. “The Black queens are the ones who really started to fight,” he says. “It's amazing to feel politically activated. And if there's any project to do that, it's going to be Fellow Travelers. It will change the way I see myself in and the world I live in.”

The intersectionality makes the story Travelers is trying to tell even richer—most of all in Alladin’s scene-stealing portrayal of the conflicted Marcus Hooks, a pioneering Black journalist who pushes against segregation as he grapples with his own sexuality. “When I look at older men today, I'm like, You guys have endured so much,” Aladdin says. “From the Second World War all the way through to the AIDS crisis, it was nonstop life crisis after life crisis. To have been able to survive through all that, there needs to be a real, solid weight on the feet of [these characters].”

Part of the pleasure of watching Fellow Travelers is picking up on the cinematic references hidden in each scene. Hawk and Tim’s first interactions evoke the forbidden affair in David Lean’s 1945 classic Brief Encounter. When Hawk’s family settles in suburbia, the show evokes the Technicolor repression of the great Douglas Sirk melodramas. When Hawk and Tim run through the beaches of Fire Island in the ‘70s, that iconic image of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing on the beach in From Here to Eternity may flicker in your mind. And in some ways, the series plays like a gayer, hornier The Way We Were—an epic love story tossed on the tides of political change. (In this version, of course, the Barbra Streisand character is an eager foot-licking sub and Redford’s Hubbell Gardiner is a daddy with a pit fetish.) Fellow Travelers allows us to imagine an alternate timeline where queer love has always gotten as much screen time as cinema’s great heterosexual romances, giving other kinds of stories the chance at celluloid immortality too.

In the book, Hawk is described as being more handsome than Gregory Peck. But seeing Bomer in period-appropriate clothing, the Old Hollywood leading man I thought of was Montgomery Clift, the talented and ultimately tragic gay actor who starred in classics like Red River and A Place in the Sun. For a time in the mid 2010s, Bomer was attached to star in a Montgomery Clift biopic for HBO, to be directed by the great gay director Ira Sachs. “Ira is a genius,” Bomer says. “[But] I think that ship may have sailed.”

Still, when I press him about doing it in the future, he lights up. “You know, I’m [now] the same age Monty was when he passed away,” Bomer says. “I always thought it'd be really interesting to do a play about the last night of his life, when he's watching one of his old movies on TV. And he had this man who lived with him and took care of him for the last chapter of his life.There's an interesting play in there somewhere…. Maybe Liz Taylor swings by.”

What’s changed since the mid 2010s is that a lot of Hollywood’s current gatekeepers are queer people who were fighting from the bottom a decade ago. “It's the people, the gatekeepers who are now going, ‘We are going to make this [queer] story,’” Bailey says. “This narrative that gay people have to be closeted in order [for a project] to be commercial and in order for things to be interesting to people—it's been dismantled. But it's slow because it's not just straight people who think that—I think everyone believed that in the system of Hollywood.”

Nyswaner, who has been working in Hollywood since the early ‘80s, has seen that shift up close. “When I grew up in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, I never heard the word ‘homosexual’ spoken aloud,” he says. “There was no conversation that I ever had with anybody about homosexuality. It was not just bad, it was the unspeakable thing—that's how terrified people were of us.”

And while he agrees that, in some ways, it feels like the LGBTQ+ community is once again losing ground on some rights, Nyswaner refuses to accept that there hasn’t been change. “Sometimes I hear people say, ‘Well, we haven't gotten anywhere.’ And I'm here to say, ‘Oh, yes, we have.’ Because actually you can turn on the television and find gay characters.”

Fellow Travelers is the culmination of a dream for a number of the men involved in the series.

“When I met Ron, he was talking about how he thinks about this as his lifelong legacy project,” Bailey says. “And I just said to him, ‘Whoever ends up going on this journey with you, I think it'll be the same [for them] probably.’”

“In some ways, Fellow Travelers is a span of my life,” Ron Nyswaner says. “I was an infant in the McCarthy era. And then I came out of the closet in 1978 and just danced and did cocaine and had multiple sexual partners—we didn't know what was coming, which was the AIDS crisis.” Nyswaner was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1993 for Philadelphia, the landmark drama about an AIDS patient who sues his employers for AIDS discrimination. In a way, the historical span of Fellow Travelers gives the battles fought in Philadelphia their context.

Rogers remembers being a closeted soccer player in the late 2000s, watching Tom Ford’s A Single Man and hoping one day to be able to find love and take control of his own narrative. And Bailey recalls, post-Bridgerton, realizing that he could suddenly write his own destiny and vowing to seek out “a sweeping gay love story.”

Bomer, meanwhile, says—laughing, but seemingly dead serious—that it’s his goal to play a queer character from every decade of the 20th century. “A queer Decalogue,” he says, referencing the Krzysztof Kieślowski classic.

Bomer’s next project might just help him do that. He’s currently producing a Steven Soderbergh film on Lawrence v. Texas, the case that overturned the sodomy laws in Texas in 2003 but started in the 90s.

There are many more stories to tell. And as our interview winds down, Bomer and Bailey start spitballing dream projects.

We talk about All of Us Strangers director Andrew Haigh, who’s revered for his portraits of gay intimacy. “Andrew Haigh has been a special filmmaker for years,” Bailey says. “I think [his film] Weekend informed actually how I approached the sex scenes in [Fellow Travelers].”

“I’d love to play Jessica Fletcher's queer grandson who moves back to Cabot Cove,” Bomer says, referencing Angela Lansbury’s iconic role in Murder, She Wrote. “He's inherited her house and he finds an old journal in her library, and it's a case she never saw and he takes up her mantle.”

And moments before the restaurant speakers suddenly start blaring George Michael’s “Freedom ’90,” Bailey comes in with a killer pitch: “I’m obsessed with the Sacred Band of Thebes, an army of 300 gay lovers in [ancient] Greece. They partnered in pairs, this gay army, and they overthrew a Spartan army… I want to do that as a comedy.”

“Oh hell yes!” Bomer says.

“Just get all the queer actors together,” Bailey says, laughing.

“Lee Pace, everyone,” Bomer says.

“Where would we film it?” Bailey asks.

“Mykonos?” Bomer suggests.

“Flaming Saddles, down the road,” Bailey counters with a chuckle, referring to a gay bar in midtown.

“Oil us up and let’s go!” Bomer says.

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#fellow travelers #jonathan bailey #matt bomer #jelani alladin #ron nyswaner #interviews #interviews:2023 #GQ hype interview 2023 #NEW!

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falasteen7urrah · 2 months

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i want to share a piece i wrote during the first black out i experienced in gaza during this ongoing genocide.

With the threat of the ground invasion looming around, all 30-40 people gathered. My aunts relative decided to share stories like ghost stories at a sleepover.

During the 2008 war there were two phases of the ground invasion. Phase I, IDF soldiers came in, they killed and bulldozed at random, they separated women and children and told them to run. They then shot at their feet, “for fun”. Phase II, in some Northern Gaza cities IDF soldiers went door to door rallying every male. My aunts SIL tells her firsthand recount of why her husband is scared. That he and her father-in-law were taken down to the basement in troves, stripped naked, blindfolded and psychologically tortured. Some of the techniques included that the soldiers would call out a name, bring them to a corner, shoot near them, again, “for fun” all while the rest of the men would believe they’ve been killed. They did this for hours, amongst other things.

Ground invasion would be more of a scare some nights than others. Some nights it felt like soldiers would be right outside the door. We joked about barricading the door but my uncle said that would all be for naught as the cement wall was a lot easier to break than the metal door. So unless we were thinking of how to barricade the walls, we were sitting ducks. Not that there was anything to be scared of, of course [insert eyeroll].

War, a testament of man’s faith.

Fear is interesting, throughout a war it manifests differently. Sometimes debilitating, sometimes a myriad of physical manifestations, sometimes only felt deeply when expressed out loud.

October 27, 20:00.

Gaza, a territory, cut off internally and externally. With the bombing of At-Tisal all telecommunication was cut off. A flurry of thoughts plagues your mind. I had family and friends in northern Gaza, I had family on the main road, we were located closest to the eastern border, would they sweep in from the north making us safe or will they come in through the entire border, how long will I have to mentally prepare myself before they’re at our house? Ten, five, three minutes? Will this be Phase I? Merciless killing, which actually when thinking of ground invasion sounds like the most attractive option.

Being a female there is one constant fear. Whether in a warring territory or the safest first world country.

“There’s never been any history of IDF soldiers raping any Gazan.” Oh, thank god. I feel so much better. Sarcastic of course, but also settling in a way. However, I don’t know how true that proclamation was, yet in the moment it was the most comforting thing to hear. So I don’t need to be punched in the face, good to know. My sisters and I talked a lot about that actually, being punched in the face, deforming my face to be unattractive, something women used to do in vietnam and other war zones to avoid being sexual assaulted…

Outside men were gathered, an old radio was pulled out, only one radio station was a available, it was in Hebrew. An old man who was imprisoned countless time and his young adult son began translating. They had invaded, they came in by the north. Al-Shifa hospital was now marked, the largest hospital in Gaza, the hospital I volunteered at the third day of the war, home to over 80,000 displaced. Would they bomb it now? In an hour? Leave it until the last day, keeping everyone in a unique state of fear?

My dad pulled out a Motorola phone from his backpack. Huh? We all looked around in our bags if we had an aux cord headset, my mom finally found one, we plugged it in and radio sound came to life.

Boredom comes with war. That’s not common talked about and probably needs a whole thousand words on it itself for one to grasp the blandness and boredom in war. How does radio work? How do landlines work? Sound waves?

What does a blackout mean? Not only no internet, no way of hearing or reading or seeing what’s going on, but no way of communicating with the people in Gaza. Family and friends, we’re cut off. We have no way of knowing who will live and who will die, which happens every night but there’s a difference when the essence of ground invasion plagues the air.

The radio played all night long, and ever night since.

What to say? We’re alive, we’re safe, nothing happened. Except stuff did happen, not the horrors of ground invasion just the nightly norm. People died, people are dying, streets and cities flattened beyond recognition, more homeless, more displaced.

I connected to the internet. More dead, more injured, more, more, more. Amongst them, a friend. Not having internet was horrible, but off from the world, but when you do connect and all you see is death, death, death you start to avoid connecting anyways.

#save gaza #gaza genocide #stand with gaza #free gaza #gaza #gazaunderfire #i stand with palestine #free palestine #palestine #writing #save palestine #israel is a war criminal #israel is a terrorist state #israhell

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nysocboy · 3 months

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Gemstones Episode 2.4: BJ gets baptized, Baby Billy gets Funyons, Kelvin gets dissed, and Harmon gets a cat

This is my favorite of the season. Although we continue with Eli and Kelvin's intertwining darkness, we add two more or less lighthearted plotlines, starring Judy/BJ and new characters Baby Billy/Tiffany. They are all tied together by the question of eros/phileo: how can we reconcile the erotic desire that leads to permanent romantic partnerships with the love of family and friends?

A Boy and His Cat: Flashback: Charlotte, North Carolina 1993. Going in fresh, pretending to have never seen Season 1, we are introduced to new characters, the grinning, fast-talking Baby Billy, his wife Gloria, and their special-needs son Harmon, in the mall at Christmastime, Later we will discover that Baby Billy is a ne-er-do-well, constantly coming up with sleazy scams and get-rich quick schemes. He and his sister Aimee-Leigh were child stars before she went on to a career as a serious gospel singer and married Eli Gemstone. Baby Billy never forgave her for "abandoning" him.

After Harmon gets a photo on Santa's lap, Gloria goes off to shop, leaving father and son alone. Baby Billy offers to let Harmon choose any Christmas present he wants. He chooses a cat. Then Baby Billy says that he's going off to buy Funyons, onion-flavored snack rings (this will become important later). Instead he runs away, abandoning his family!

BJ's Family: Judy's husband BJ, previously a nonbeliever, converted and was welcomed into the church in Episode 2.2. Now it's time for his baptism, and he has invited his family to the event -- Mom, Stepdad, and grown sister KJ. Judy disapproves of the "filthy atheists." and they are abrasive as well, angry at being put up in a hotel instead of some of the twenty or so guest rooms in Judy's mansion, and thinking of the Gemstone ministry as a money-grubbing cult.

Yuck -- BJ kisses them all on the lips! Has he solved the eros/phileo problem by conflating the two, treating his family as lovers?

KJ's butch mannerisms have led many fans to conclude that she, or the actress playing her, is a lesbian. Maybe KJ, but not Lilly Sullivan, who married Tim Baltz on February 5, 2022, two weeks after this episode aired. This makes the later allegations of incest especially problematic.

Remember the Lissons?: We cut to Jesse and Amber hanging out with the Lissons -- the megachurch pastors planning a Christian resort -- and discussing how close their friendship has become. Jesse breaks the news that they can't get their Daddy to fork over the money to invest. He's asked multiple times, but Eli refuses to budge.

Lyle is aghast. The Gemstones are worth over $600 million; surely Jesse can afford $10 million on his own? Nope, it's all Daddy's money. Jesse will control it someday, of course, but not until Eli dies.

The Lissons are irate, lambast Jesse and Amber for being poor, and break off the friendship. I think they just liked you for your money, guys.

The Judean Desert: Kelvin and Keefe figure that they can restore the confidence of the God Squad with a 40-day field trip in the Judean desert. They walk across the Gemstone airfield, Kelvin in a military coat with a leopard-spotted beret, and Keefe in an oddly feminine black robe, with his backpack in front.

Notice the Ace of Spades on Kelvin's coat. Some fans think that he is subtly coming out as asexual, Actually, it was used by British regiments in World War 1and II, and by American soldiers during the Vietnam War, symbolizing luck, victory, or death.

But the Ace of Spades is the most powerful card in the deck, so Kelvin probably chose it to signify that he is the most powerful man in the group, the Alpha.

Uh-oh, Martin, Eli's chief accountant and right-hand man, intercepts them. Eli has refused to pay for the trip. Do you see a parallel between Kelvin/Keefe and Jesse/Amber's problems?

Kelvin bats his eyes, touches Martin's chest, and begs: "You got here too late. We already took off. Please?" Wait -- are you flirting with Martin? Homoerotic hotness doesn't work on everyone, dude.

And it doesn't work: Martin lays down the law Kelvin is forced to break the news that his father said no, thus losing even more of his authority with the God Squad musclemen.

BJ's Baptism: As people file into the Baptismal Chapel, Baby Billy from the 1993 flashback, now with white hair and a whiter grin, performs "There is a fountain filled with blood" while his new wife, the young, very pregnant Tiffany, looks on. So Baby Billy has solved the eros/phileo problem by abandoning his family altogether. But be careful: that baby is going to make you a Family Man.

Outside, Kelvin argues that he cleared the whole God Squad to attend the baptism! Nope, only he and a "plus one" are on the guest list. The God Squad guys start murmuring again. Another blow to his authority!

Kelvin promises to feed them all -- he asks his date, Keefe, to steal some food, resulting in humorous but ridiculous bits. Do you really want to eat a shrimp that's been transported from the hors d'oeuvres table in Keefe's mouth? Why not just go out for hamburgers?

Baby Billy begins the service, bragging that he's on the Christian Pop Charts now, and misnaming BJ as TJ. He must not be very close to the Gemstone family, either. Hey, the seat next to Kelvin is empty. Why isn't he sitting with his date? Is Keefe already raiding the caterers for the after-party?

Next Judy sings: "When a man outgrows the family of his origin, and they've no place in his life./ Cause he's different now -- he's got to show them how."

Wow, we're really zeroing in on the eros/phileo problem. Judy favors abandoning the family, too. She was originally going to sing "Rock my Boy's Body," emphasizing the erotic nature of her relationship with BJ (it was moved to the episode finale).

People stop to ask me, "How do you please your man?"

Take it from the black sheep baby, every way I can

Sometimes it's with fire, and sometimes with ice

Just don't get it twisted, this body's gonna pay the price

Eli takes over and completes the baptism. Judy introduces him as "BJ Christian Barnes."

I was disappointed that they didn't actually make it to Israel. It would have been interesting to see him with Jerusalem Syndrome, where tourists surrounded by so many Biblical images come to believe that they are Jesus (but I guess he is already the Messiah of his muscle cult). Plus Tel Aviv has the biggest and most open gay community of any city in the Middle East.

The full review, with some nude Israeli dudes, is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

#the righteous gemstones #kelvin gemstone #Adam Devine #Baby Billy Freeman #Jesse Gemstone #baptism

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samanthasvietnameselitblog · 8 months

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Five Interesting Nonfiction Books

"The Tale of Kieu: A Bilingual Edition of Nguyen Du's Truyen Kieu" by Nguyen Du

Since its publication in the early nineteenth century, this long narrative poem has stood unchallenged as the supreme masterpiece of Vietnamese literature. Thông’s new and absorbingly readable translation (on pages facing the Vietnamese text) is illuminated by notes that give comparative passages from the Chinese novel on which the poem was based, details on Chinese allusions, and literal translations with background information explaining Vietnamese proverbs and folk sayings.(Amazon)

2. "Where the Ashes Are: The Odyssey of a Vietnamese Family" by Nguyen Qui Duc"

Nguyen, less one of his siblings, an older sister who suffers from mental illness, leaves Viet Nam as a refugee in 1975, while his parents stay behind for different reasons. His father, in particular, as a high ranking South Vietnamese governmental official, subsists in prison for many years. Nguyen’s re-writing of his father’s experiences are interesting in that it obviously would have taken an immense amount of interviewing and temporal reconstruction. Nguyen also relies upon poems that his father had written during his time in prison to help nuance the incredible challenges of his life as a prisoner; his constant movement, the endless monotonous days, and the persistent interrogation remind me much of Xiaoda Xiao’s work on life in prisons during and after China’s Cultural Revolution. His mother tries to remake her life in the post-war regime and maintains a steadfast hope that she will be reunited with her husband.(DVAN)

3. "The Mountains Sing" by Nguyen Phan Que Mai

It’s a sweeping multigenerational story of Tran Dieu Lan and her family’s life from the 1920s to the present. Tran’s family was originally from the North. During the communist land reforms, her family was forced to migrate to Hanoi.(The Bamboo Traveler)

4. "Eating Viet Nam: Dispatches from a Blue Plastic Table" by Graham Holliday

A journalist and blogger takes us on a colorful and spicy gastronomic tour through Viet Nam in this entertaining, offbeat travel memoir, with a foreword by Anthony Bourdain.

Growing up in a small town in northern England, Graham Holliday wasn’t keen on travel. But in his early twenties, a picture of Hanoi sparked a curiosity that propelled him halfway across the globe. Graham didn’t want to be a tourist in an alien land, though; he was determined to live it. An ordinary guy who liked trying interesting food, he moved to the capital city and embarked on a quest to find real Vietnamese food. In Eating Viet Nam, he chronicles his odyssey in this strange, enticing land infused with sublime smells and tastes.(Amazon)

5. "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, of the Alpha Company, carries various reminders of his love for Martha, a girl from his college in New Jersey who has given no indication of returning his love. Cross carries her letters in his backpack and her good-luck pebble in his mouth. After a long day’s march, he unwraps her letters and imagines the prospect of her returning his love someday. Martha is an English major who writes letters that quote lines of poetry and never mention the war. Though the letters are signed “Love, Martha” Cross understands that this gesture should not give him false hope. He wonders, uncontrollably, about whether or not Martha is a virgin. He carries her photographs, including one of her playing volleyball, but closer to his heart still are his memories. They went on a single date, to see the movie Bonnie and Clyde. When Cross touched Martha’s knee during the final scene, Martha looked at him and made him pull his hand back. Now, in Vietnam, Cross wishes that he had carried her up the stairs, tied her to the bed, and touched her knee all night long. He is haunted by the cutting knowledge that his affection will most likely never be returned.(Sparknotes)

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hollyjaques · 6 days

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Overnight Train

“Hey, can I take that bag for you?”

Amy smiled at the sound of the familiar voice behind her. Struggling with her heavy backpack she turned to see Sam’s cheerful face as he stepped forward to take the load from her hands. Grateful, she let go of the wide handle as he shouldered the burden. Flexing her fingers, she welcomed the reprieve from her cargo.

“Oh, I hate this thing,” she said gesturing to her pack. “It is GONE when I get home! I may actually unpack it, take it out to the yard and set fire to the bastard!”

Sam laughed. “Oh, you’re not so keen to get home yet, are you?”

Amy cast him a sidelong glance. Was that a slight edge in his voice? She couldn’t be sure. Then he laughed again, and she supposed she had just imagined it.

“Well I have dragged this bag halfway around the world,” she replied with a laugh as she followed him to the luggage drop. “I’m done with it!”

She was on her way back home to Melbourne after her gap year, working and travelling through Europe. Not ready to end her adventures, she extended her stopover on her return flight and booked a nine-day tour from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi. She had always wanted to visit Vietnam and reasoned that she may never have a chance to come back. And so, six days ago she met up with the assortment of personalities which formed this tour group.

Amy counted herself lucky to be travelling with such an entertaining group of people, but it was Sam she’d been drawn to from the very beginning. Tall and broad, he was blessed with fierce, emerald eyes, chestnut hair which fell in soft waves just shy of his shoulders, and a light, though now thoroughly sun-kissed complexion. However, it was his voice that first captured her attention. The melodic and lyrical Irish lilt brought a gasp to her lips when he introduced himself to her. That accent was very likely her biggest weakness, and most definitely one of her biggest turn-ons.

Under the fierce tropical sun her thin silky singlet was soaked with sweat and sticking to the centre of her back. She was used to the heat, but this oppressive humidity was something else. Sam looked as though he might spontaneously combust. Rivulets of moisture ran in competing paths down his neck, back and arms, and sweat beaded on his now crimson face.

“Here, drink this before you melt,” Amy said as she handed him a chilled bottle of water.

“Jesus, it’s hot! I’m soaked more than I’ve got any good reason to be!”

Flustered and lost for words it was her turn to flush crimson, unable to keep her mind out of the gutter. His eyes glinted mischievously, as though she had passed some test which up until now, she didn’t even know she was being assessed for.

The tour guide chose this moment to usher the group aboard the train. Amy followed the others across the platform, grasped the railing and climbed the two steps to board the Reunification Express. At 15.30 on the dot, the train lurched forward with a jerk as it started its slow progress north to Hanoi. The train lumbered in its progress out of Hue and through the countryside. It was to be an unhurried pace; 14 hours to travel almost 700 kilometres.

Amy noticed that she had the compartment to herself, a welcome development considering the two narrow bunks took up most of the space inside. She laid on her bed reading her guidebook, preparing for her arrival in Hanoi, but the tropical heat had sapped her energy and now her eyelids were too heavy to stay open.

“WAKE UP!”

She sat upright with a jolt, at the loud and boisterous calls at her door. Looking out the window, she saw that she had slept for a few hours and the sky was washed with lavender and amber tones. She opened the door to find Sam swinging from the jamb, filling the entire doorway in the process. His eyes shone bright with laughter. Behind him, blocking the narrow walkway, singing some ladsy song were the friends he was taking this trip with.

“Shut up would ya, Christ!” he yelled over his shoulder, “I’m trying to tell her!”

Turning back to Amy with a smile he said, “We’re heading down the dining car a bit earlier than they told us. There’s beer,” he added by way of explanation.

“Well, that’s reason enough!” she said in reply and grabbed her bag, preparing to follow him out of the compartment. He stepped aside and waved her past him with a flourish. She let out a laugh as she curtsied and stepped out of her compartment. The train chose that moment to lurch, rocking the carriages from side to side, ensuring she fell against Sam. He reached out to steady her, holding her waist for perhaps a second too long to be purely helpful. Sam was a solid wall of muscle and she let out an involuntary sigh as she struggled to compose herself before making her way along the corridor.

She sensed Sam fall in step behind her and she deliberately slowed her pace hoping he would close the distance between them. She felt a thrill course from the back of her neck to the base of her spine and back up again. I’m sure he’s checking me out, she thought, imagining his eyes roam across the curve of her ass. She quickly looked behind her and the unguarded desire in his eyes was plain to see as they feasted on her. His gaze shot up to meet hers, his lust exposed, but instead of suppressing it, a slow, wicked smile spread over his lips and a question burned in his eyes.

Sam reached out to grab her hand, placing it on his chest. Feeling the heat of his body, she leaned against the wall of the neighbouring compartment and answered his silent question. “Please.”

In a fraction of a moment, he closed the distance between them and plunged his hot tongue deep inside her mouth to taste her. His body, a solid wall of heat was crushing her breasts, as though he couldn’t get close enough to her. His mouth devoured hers, and in that moment, she was ready to be consumed by him. His lips blazed a path down her throat to the swell of her breast, and a low moan of ecstasy escaped her own. Reluctantly, he pulled away from her.

“I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you,” he said, raggedly. “It can’t be any kind of surprise to you, I’ve been following you around like a horny fucking teenager all week.” His eyes were fierce, burning her with their intensity.

“Well, I’m no good at reading these situations. You know, I thought so, but I also thought that might be just wishful thinking.”

She felt his hands cup her ass, pulling her closer. “Read that?” His lip curled into a half-smile as he pressed the full length of his body into her. She raised her lips to his for another kiss.

With a sigh, he peered down the carriage toward the door to the next train car. “We were right behind the others, they’ll come looking,” he said, taking her hand and leading her towards the dining car.

“Screw the dining car,” she said as she was pulled along behind him, “let’s go back to my room.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t the melodious, light-hearted chuckle she was used to. It was low, it was wicked, and it was as sexy as hell. “Later,” was all he said.

Five minutes later, Amy was jammed between Sam and the window, seated at a small table, studying the sparse offerings on the laminated dinner menu. She was keenly aware of the flush which crept up her neck as she struggled to regulate her breathing. The dining car was almost full when they arrived, with only one booth available. Instead of sitting opposite, Sam had taken the seat beside her.

“Sláinte,” Sam said, beer raised as he chatted with other travellers. The mood in the dining car was buoyant. The amber sunset of this final leg was breathtaking, the dark, sultry night looming ahead.

Sam’s friend, Peter responded in kind, raised his bottle, then proceeded down the dining car with Alice, a 20-something from South Africa. Amy wordlessly raised her own bottle. She felt the flush creep up her throat, but there was not a thing could be done about it. There was nothing in his face or voice betrayed the fact that the long fingers of his left hand had slid beneath her skirt and were walking a path between her thighs ready to stroke her pussy through her rapidly soaking panties.

“Could I have this one? Uhh. Number 23.” Amy was struggling to keep her voice steady as she ordered from her menu. She took a long gulp of her beer, trying to recover a little composure. Sam chose just that moment to draw lazy circles with his middle finger over her swollen, panty-covered clit. She gasped, then promptly began coughing to clear the liquid that she was almost choking on.

“Are you ok?” Sam asked, his caring tone contradicted by the way his eyes blazed.

“Yeah, Sam. I’m doing just fine,” she said, turning to him, a dangerous glint in her own eyes as her coughing subsided. Keeping an in-depth conversation going would have been a challenge, so she was grateful for the noise of the dining car. It took until that moment for Amy to compose herself

Sitting so close, the full length of Sam's thigh pressed against hers, the other passengers had no idea where each other’s hands were. The angle of her hand did not allow her to slip her hands inside his waistband undetected, so she stroked his thickening cock through the fabric.

“Spicy Hot Pot.” She had not noticed the server standing by her table. Cheeks flaming, her wandering hand was brought to an immediate stop by the bowl being placed in front of her.

“Mmmm, Spicy Hot Pot,” Sam said sardonically. He leaned in close, under the guise of breathing in the aromatic soup. “That looks so good. It smells good. I bet it tastes good too.” As he said this, he slipped his hand under the elastic at the leg of her panties and sunk a finger into her soaking pussy. He slipped another inside as he said, “It’s hot though, you don’t want to burn your mouth.”

“Thank you, Sam, for being so mindful of my safety and comfort,” she said through clenched teeth. She was torn between feelings of embarrassment and arousal, as well as giving in to the urge to laugh at the sheer audacity of his actions under the table.

In her mind, their interplay was on display to the rest of the carriage, but nobody was paying any attention to them. Sam withdrew his hand and Amy’s jaw dropped as she noticed his fingers. Nobody is watching, nobody is watching, she repeated to herself as she saw her juices glistening as he picked up his spoon. Dipping it into the steaming bowl, he then raised it and tipped its contents into his mouth.

“This is delicious Amy, you chose well.”

Sam seemed intent on eating rather than teasing her for the moment. Grateful for the reprieve Amy ate, and as they discussed their trip, they settled into a comfortable camaraderie. Once the meal was finished however, Sam turned to her and said, “You mentioned something about your room?”

Heat suddenly flooded her cheeks and blazed a path straight to her clit, and he pressed her hand against the thickening hardness of his cock. “We have to go now, because I won’t be able to hide this if we leave it any longer,” he said in a low, urgent voice.

He stood, pulled Amy to her feet, and led her past the growing throng of people who were crowding into the dining car. Once through the doors leading to the next carriage, he pulled her against him again and assaulted her mouth with his own. She answered the fierceness of his kiss with the fire which he had been stoking all night. It took all her resolve to break that kiss and walk away from him, towards her compartment. He followed keeping pace with her, and they wordlessly headed down the walkway to her compartment.

Locking the door behind them, she then slipped the thin straps of her black singlet down over her shoulders, pulling her arms free. She felt the silky material gather at her waist. He released her mouth only to begin the assault on her rapidly hardening nipple. His tongue swirled around her sensitive areola, teasing it to a stiff peak as he cupped and massaged her other breast with one hand. His other snaked around her back and stroked the rounded cheeks of her ass. He then lifted her skirt and slipped inside her panties to stroke his fingers down the cleft between her cheeks.

“Fuck, Amy, you’ve got beautiful tits,” he whispered roughly as he began licking and sucking her other nipple.

Just as he began, she backed away from him and wriggled out of her singlet, skirt and panties. He started to unbuckle his belt and undo the button and zip of his fly. She could see the huge swell of his cock struggling to break free of its confines. Naked, with eyes full of lust she reached inside the cotton of his boxers to free him. He sucked in his breath sharply as her hand curled firmly around him and she sank to her knees.

“Fuck, Sam, you’ve got a beautiful cock,” she echoed his words, smiling slightly, her eyes locked with his.

Excruciatingly slowly she flicked her tongue in and around the tip of his cock. Precum pooled, refilling each time her tongue swept around the head. She slowly stroked the rigid shaft of his cock while her tongue continued to tease him. She kept her eyes locked with his and as she took the head into her mouth. She felt his fingers sink into her hair as he started to thrust. Immediately, she released him and smirked.

“After what you did to me in that dining car, it’s my time to tease you,” she said in a low growl.

He gulped and nodded his acquiescence. Once again, Amy curled her fingers around his rock-hard shaft and closed her lips over the head of his cock. She took her time teasing and tasting him, stopping with a smirk each time he began to thrust his cock into her mouth. Sam was letting her get away with this for now, but she knew he wouldn’t let her forever.

Pumping her hand as she took his cock deeper into her mouth, saliva trailing in rivulets from the corner of her mouth and leaving his cock slick. She watched as his eyes closed and his breathing became ragged. She cupped his full balls in her hand. They tightened in her palm, giving away how close he was. The way he growled confirmed it.

“No, not yet,” he said as he pulled away from her. “Lay down.” He stepped out of his shorts and discarded them on the floor as he dropped to his knees. He pushed her thighs apart and slipped his index finger between her labia to scoop up her wetness.

“Taste,” was all he said as he rested the tip of his finger on her bottom lip. Her tongue flicked out to do as he said and then he slipped his finger into his own mouth and sighed, “Mmmm, delicious.”

He hooked her knees over his shoulders and hovered so close to her pussy that she could feel the heat of his breath, but not the touch of his lips. Not where she wanted him to be. He insisted on this painfully slow progress until she was whimpering, squeezing her breasts and bucking her hips in an attempt to make contact. He wasn’t going to give her what she craved, not yet. He was drawing out her torture, breathing in her growing arousal as he moved up the length of her body. His mouth closed around her nipple. Back arched, she tried to force her breast into his mouth, but he drew back, only lashing the little peak with the tip of his tongue. With his palms pressed to her thighs he held open. He smiled, watching her squirm.

Then without warning, finally he plunged his tongue inside her, as deep as it would go. She groaned loud and long with satisfaction and gratitude and grinded against his mouth. He stilled her again, holding her hips firmly with his strong hands. Just as she was about to protest this control, he fucked her pussy with his tongue, sinking into her glossy depths. She groaned deep in her throat, settling her head back into the pillow. Occasionally he withdrew his tongue and trailed it up her slit to circle the hard nub of her clit. With such lightness he flicked the tip of his tongue across her clit, an action so soft it could have been a whisper. Then he flicked it harder, forcing her to realise that it had been his muscular tongue all along.

She was getting closer; her breathing was coming hard and fast. He expertly teased a total loss of control from her. His lips closed around her swollen and sensitive clit and he began to suck. She had to swallow her cries while she pinched and pulled on her nipples. Her belly clenched as the low, aching wave built, threatening to shatter her into a million tiny shards.

At that moment he moved up her body, guided the head of his cock to the entrance of her pussy and pushed hard and deep into her body, while devouring her mouth with his own. She gasped into his mouth as they both lay absolutely still. Her pussy clenched around the hard length of him. She wrapped her legs around his torso, lifting her pelvis to draw him deeper into her body and he started to thrust. Deep, penetrative strokes which she matched with her own upwards ones. They rocked together and she felt the wave peak and crash. Her orgasm broke over her and he pushed her harder with each thrust of his cock. She bit back another scream, panting hard with her release.

Sam lay still, smiling as he watched her ride out the waves of her orgasm. When he pulled out of her pussy, he flipped her over onto her hands and knees and sank his long, hard cock into her from behind. He thrust, setting a rhythm that turned Amy into a wild animal, thrashing and pushing back onto his cock, fucking him harder than ever before. The rhythm they had built was pushing Amy over the edge. She was slamming back against his cock as another orgasm ripped through her, the walls of her pussy clenching around him.

This was too much for Sam. He drove faster inside her until he was coming with her. With a final groan he exploded, filling her with his milky essence. Withdrawing his cock from her body he collapsed on the narrow bed. Spent, she lay beside him, listening to his ragged breathing. Rolling onto his side, he gathered her against him so that her back was pressed up against his rock-hard chest, and his hand snaked around to cup her breast. His breath was ragged in her ear as he kissed her there.

“Fuck, that was hot. You are amazing, Amy.”

With a satisfied little sigh, she wiggled her ass to get closer to him, closed her eyes and murmured, “I know…”

Amy and Sam were woken by voices and movement behind the locked door. Shocked out of sleep the announcer’s voice was shrill. “This train will soon arrive in Hanoi. Please ensure that you take all possessions with you as you depart the train.”

Sam planted a kiss on Amy’s cheek. “I’ve got to organise my bags, but I’ll come back to help you with your pack.” She felt a twinge of sadness as he left, knowing that their time together would be limited to only the few days they would share in Hanoi.

Much later that day she sat in the hotel bar with the rest of her tour group. Amy and Sam’s hook-up was now common knowledge, and they sat chatting with Peter and Alice. As the men went to the bar to refresh their drinks, Alice and Amy chatted about their plans for the final days of the tour. She struggled to keep the sadness from her voice when she talked about going home. “It’s ok, we’ve still got a few days to hang out together. I’ll just have to be thankful for what I get.”

“And when he goes to Australia,” Alice finished. Amy’s blank-faced stare told Alice she knew nothing of this plan.

“Yeah, Peter and Sam will be flying into Sydney after a few weeks travelling back through Cambodia and Thailand,” Alice explained. “They’ve got working visas and they’ll travel up and down the east coast for as long as their money lasts.”

A slow smile spread wickedly across Amy’s face, “Hmmm, Sam will probably need somewhere to crash in Melbourne. I might let him stay with me, as long as he earns his keep.”

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nexonmarketinsights · 13 days

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umichenginabroad · 2 months

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Week 12 - A Tale of Two Cities and a Loop of a Lifetime

Xin Chao everyone,

The last week was spent traveling through Vietnam, from Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) up to Ha Noi (the capital), and then along the Ha Giang loop which took us into the beautiful countryside of the north. The trip was the first experience of what we felt were genuinely foreign lands. The language, customs, and pace of life felt unique to what we had known.

After our nine-hour, cross-hemisphere, journey we landed at the busy airport in Ho Chi Minh City. We had procrastinated our visas so we had to finalize our rushed, on-arrival application at the airport. A few hours later than we expected, and with millions of dong lining our pockets (~ 100 USD), we stepped out into the night. Our Grab (Asia’s Uber) driver took us to our hostel. He drove us through downtown and wow. Droves of scooters clad with anywhere from one driver to a whole family and their dog maneuver around cars, pedestrians, and each other to get to their destinations with speed.

We couldn’t peel our eyes away from the dozens of collisions that seemed imminent and deadly but would flow into near misses. Through our translate app, the driver confirmed that collisions happen far too frequently and that the traffic rules are more like suggestions rather than codified laws.

After hurriedly checking in, we rushed out into the streets surrounding our hostel. We immediately fell in love with the hustle and energy that came from every street vendor, flashing sign, and musician, even the cats and dogs of the street seemed alive and rapt in the world they were in.

After a delicious first meal of pho and seafood, we wandered into the nearby night market and “backpacker street”. There were vendors selling everything from frog legs to knock-off Adidas, from traditional silk garments to the “best” Bahn Mi in Vietnam. We kept walking and found ourselves in what we’d later figure out was known as the “backpacker street”. A bustling nightlife street where tourist’s attention is competed for above all else. The glamour and shine from the building facades frankly felt disingenuous and scammy. We did have a few memorable moments, the passionate live rendition of the song “Zombie” by the Cranberries and a fire-spitting performance from a Vietnamese girl.

The next morning we woke up, early and bleary-eyed, to catch our tour bus leaving for the Cu Chi Tunnels. The tour took us through the Cu Chi region, north-west of the city, for a lengthy in-depth look into how the Vietcong (who in many cases were the local farmers by day) defended against the might of the US in the Vietnam War. We learned about the amazing and often brutal resourcefulness of the Vietcong, from the hidden traps made out of recycled American gear to the building of the over 250 km network of tunnels. It was a fascinating insight into the war from the other side's perspective.

After our tour, we made it back and crashed, waiting for the start of our next adventure: Ho Chi Minh street food on the back of motorbikes. With our immodium at the ready, we swung our legs over the back of our drivers’ bikes and joined the mass of speeding vehicles. The four-hour tour took us into six different districts and many more exotic bites. From caramelized rice-covered bananas to duck fetuses, the guide took us into the back streets and to his favorite childhood vendors. He colored each meal with a story of the relevance and history behind every dish.

After parting with our group, stuffed but determined to make time out of our final night in Ho Chi Minh, we called on our friend Bridget’s nightclub recommendations. The first bar we went to ended up being closed so we decided on Bam Bam. The club's dancefloor and bar are situated in the basin of an empty indoor swimming pool. We danced to the hits of 2015, whipping the night away.

The next day we signed up for a full-body, 60-minute massage because of the price ($15) and how many people had recommended we try this spa. However, when the masseuse spent 30 minutes on one foot our excitement turned to dread. Our request was lost in translation and instead of the back massage we were fantasizing about, we got an aggressive foot and leg massage that left us fighting back tears and laughs in equal measure.

We stumbled to the airport to take our flight to Ha Noi. That night, after checking into the backpacker-friendly hostel (free beer from 7-8 pm), we rushed into the surrounding streets of the Old Quarter. We enjoyed a traditional Vietnamese meal and washed it down with our first cup of Egg Coffee. The drink was the highlight of the day up to that point, it is essentially a cup of black coffee generously topped with whipped vanilla, sugar, and egg yolk. An invention that came from the milk shortage the country experienced during the decades of war in the 20th century.

We hurried back to the hostel to catch the hostel-sponsored bar crawl and then proceeded to have one of the best nights out during our time abroad. A night made all the better when we met up at the first stop with our friend Kaye who had just come from the airport.

The next morning we forced down some brunch at the Hanoi Social Club recommended by Bridget and then headed off to the Serene Spa for our second attempt at a massage. I can’t recommend this place enough, we were greeted with tea and given a form to fill out that let us choose what kind of massage, how much pressure, and which parts of our body we wanted them to focus on or avoid.

We left feeling dazed but very much at peace with the world. We met up with our friend Erin (she was coming off a couple-day Thailand trip) for an early dinner and then we boarded the sleeper bus that would take us, overnight, to the town of Ha Giang.

The Ha Giang Loop

From Thursday morning to Saturday afternoon Erin, Kaye, Sam, Viv, and I rode on the back of a motorcycle along a loop through the northern countryside of Vietnam. Over mountains and through valleys, on dirt roads, and over rivers, we traversed 400 km of road in 3 days with a group of around 15 others. The experience was easily the best part of our trip and it was something that couldn’t help but put a deep smile on your face. One of the Irish women in our group said - “This is the second time doing the loop in two weeks, the first time literally cured my depression and I just needed to experience the exhilaration and peace with a different tour group as soon as possible.”

Day 1

We made it to our hostel around 6 am and were given 90 minutes to nap before breakfast was served. After a quick breakfast, we got a quick overview of the next three days and then met our drivers.

Our first stop was a boat tour on a river that cut through the mountains and made for scenic photos. We then made stops every half hour or so to stretch our legs and to take in particularly scenic overlooks. These frequent stops would sometimes include roadside markets, ranging anywhere from one person’s food stand to rows of shops with a variety of goods.

Before making it to that night’s hostel, we overshot the town it was in to get to a mountainous overlook into China, which borders the northern parts of Vietnam. Once back, we settled into the hostel, took our much-needed showers, and scarfed down the innumerable Vietnamese dishes. Most of the places we ate brought out dishes that each had their own food item which could be assembled and mixed with rice in your bowl. Anyway, after another one of these communal meals, we tried our hand at the traditional Vietnamese bamboo dance which involved four sets of two bamboo sticks that would rhythmically bounce and then clap in the air, the idea was to bring your feet in and out of these bamboo “jaws” before closing. The dance took a lot of concentration and several tries before we confidently stepped through the moving formations.

Day 2

The next day we woke up similarly early and hit the road around 9 AM. Our first stop was at the start of a stone path that led to a short climb up a local peak. The climb itself was very enjoyable and reminiscent of parts of New Zealand. Along the way, we reached what we had presumed to be as high as we could go when several little Vietnamese children appeared behind a rock above us and extended their hands, “We know the way up, do you want to see?”. I trusted these kids with my life. These children of the mountain guiding us to the seemingly treacherous summit felt like it was out of a storybook.

After another memorable lunch, our final stop before the night’s homestay was a nearby waterfall. The fall emptied into a swimming hole with a bar and benches installed on the rocky slopes surrounding the basin. We spent over an hour following the example of the locals by jumping off of progressively higher parts of the rock face.

As it was our final night in the loop, the chef and drivers prepared and served a feast. Throughout the meal, our group leader led us in rounds of “happy water” shots, some liqueur they called corn wine.

Each round went something like this:

“Are you ready??” - “Yesssss!”

“Are you ready!?!” - “YESSSSS”

“Mot… Hai… Ba… DZO(yo)!” (1… 2… 3… Cheers)

Repeated I think for six to seven rounds, by which time the food was cleared and tables were being rearranged to make room for the night’s karaoke dance party.

Day 3

The next morning we were dropped off at the local village market. Piglets, live fish, and enough random (health) drugs to supply a pharmacy were just a few of the things being sold. We then had lunch in a town where almost all of the traditional buildings were made out of clay, each one-bedroom house was selling for around $1000 if anyone reading this is interested. The town was also a blue zone or a place where its inhabitants routinely live to be 100+ years old.

We made it back to Ha Giang, bums hurting and hearts broken to leave our trusty motorcycle drivers and companions. We boarded the bus back to Ha Noi for our 6-hour ride back to the city. The drive was more eventful than I could have expected, aside from the customary aggressive driving there was an extremely close collision with a pickup truck, even by Vietnam standards. So much so that the driver got out of the vehicle and confronted the driver of the pickup truck. All occupants of the bus were glued to the windows along the side of the bus as our heated driver proceeded to slap the truck driver with full force. The moment was awkward enough but, in his rage, our driver brought the truck driver up into the bus and slapped him in front of us while ridiculing him in Vietnamese.

It was something we didn’t know how to respond to but I guess it made for a good story.

The bus was pretty silent after that, and I felt an internal sigh of relief when we arrived at our destination.

Once we checked into our hostel, Kaye, Sam and I wanted to see the city at night again before leaving. Our midnight strolls took us to two different Bahn Mi vendors and a juice cart.

The morning after we assembled our least dirty outfits and then went to the nearest Gong Cha Tea to try some Southeast Asian Boba. Afterward, we ate at Pho 10 and ran some last-minute shopping before our mad dash to the airport.

I’m writing this on the other side of our 15-hour journey back to Sydney. I can’t help but feel like there was so much more to see and I could easily spend a few months exploring this beautiful, energetic country.

If you are considering where to go in Southeast Asia, almost every traveler we talked to who had been to Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, etc, all felt Vietnam was their favorite if not in their top two favorite countries in the area.

I hope you enjoyed and thank you for making it this far.

Take care everyone,

Grant Touchette

Aerospace Engineering

University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia

#umichenginabroad #ipewinter24 #australia #ipeunsw #GrantTouchette

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goffhaney24 · 2 months

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Consider Extremely Ways To Generate A Money Transfer To Vietnam

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