mekong red.

The hamlet my grandparents are from has a large Khmer population and its unsurprising considering the history of the region, but I think that the province this place used to be (before they restructured them last year) had the highest Khmer population in all of Vietnam. It probably still does, just under a different name.

As I sat at the usual breakfast spot you probably hear just as much or maybe even more Khmer being spoken than Vietnamese. Khmer pagodas and Khmer script are seen everywhere you go.

The Sun did not play nice today, and my body still hasn't acclimated to the hot temperatures of rural Vietnam from the cold London, but there are some things you must adapt to for the sake of your own well being.

Any hang ups one might have regarding hygiene or bugs, you very quickly learn to get over it, not even like I was afraid of bugs before( I like bugs, I think they're neat), but there is a sterility in the West or at least most definitely in England that demarcates what is 'ours' and what is 'theirs' and never the twain shall meet. You will see very suddenly that there are no borders, no such lines exist between you and them. They will be there, they will be everywhere, in places you thought were safe, there will be bugs. Accept it, move on, trust me, life becomes so much more easier that way.

Vietnam might honestly be reinvigorating my love for biology, everything here is so ecologically rich its crazy the amount of bugs, mammals, birds, reptiles and fish just everywhere is so incredibly cool, I find myself taking pictures of everything and being fascinated with all of it.

My grandfather randomly gave me a small little bird and told me that it had fell out of a tree and to release it on the ground so that it could be with it's parent. As I gently put it on the ground in the backyard it hobbled its way into a small ditch where it hid under some ceramic gates. Seeing this, my grandfather caught it again and began to look for its parent which turned out to still be nearby looking for its offspring. Upon seeing the parent my grandfather placed it on the ground, this time at the front of the house and they reunited. I was worried for it seeing as it looked injured but a few minutes had passed and both the parent and the child had flown away.

After they both left, I began to get curious on what kind of bird it was and so I searched what the most common birds are in this region and found that it was a Eurasian tree sparrow. I even had to delete a bunch of old photos and a few apps so I could find the space to instal Collins Bird Id on my phone to confirm its species.

The amount of times I find myself doing something around and about birds is kind of ridiculous. To be honest I don't even really love birds, don't get me wrong I like them they just aren't my number one group of animals, its just that somehow I found myself studying them for my dissertation and my dissertation supervisor made me do another project on birds seeing as I was already studying birds for my dissertation and as such I have a disproportionate amount of knowledge, not really on birds themselves, but on studying them. Waking up at four AM to conduct a bird survey still haunts me to this day.

Later, in the evening, I went with my uncle and my aunt to a house where her relative's shrine was. I think there is nothing quite more authentic to the Vietnamese experience than carrying a plastic stool on the back on a motorcycle going to a house to offer food and burn incense.

My grandparents have a large backyard at their house, probably the size of four or five football cages (if that measurement means anything to you) and houses all kinds of trees growing all kinds of fruits. In the backyard chickens walk around freely, returning to their coop to nest or to sleep, chickens that look more like wild birds than the factory raised broilers that dominate in the west. At the back of the backyard is a veranda which overlooks my grandfather's rice fields. Where the winds blow heavy and hard, a welcome break from the sweltering sun. A wooden chair, a blue hammock and a glass table. I've been sitting there a lot, drawing, relaxing, scrolling...

I've been on the phone a lot. Both as a way to hide from having to talk to relatives with broken Vietnamese that ask all kinds of intrusive questions, but also because I have nothing else to pass the time. Well, there is more stuff, like reading, but for some reason I've been too lazy, much too lazy. Still the same me, even in another country.

I've been getting myself reacquainted with the house and I've been looking at all the medals and awards hung up on the wall for the first time with the proper ability to learn what they mean.

It is not wrong per say, to say, that my politics and understanding thereof began with me looking deeper into my peoples history. So I felt a great pride confirming that my grandfather fought against the Americans and not for them, even knowing that, if you're from the South, you will most likely have relatives who fought for both. But I've never met any of them, I've only met my grandfather, and this old man, once fought against American imperialism?

Today was the first day I went into the city and the atmosphere was dominated by the shadow cast upon by Tết. Lines and lines of marigolds, orange and yellow, apricot trees and kumquats, bikes stalled on the side of roads or slow rolling as heads turned by to look. The asphalt paths were bursting from the seams as streaks of smoke trailed out of exhaust pipes on the busy market roads.

Vietnam is a changing place, yet many things still stay the same, the same flags fly on the side of the road, faded by the sun, the hammer and sickle, and the yellow star, across the same street are rows of buildings, French colonial with the indochine twist, on the ground floor are empty store fronts with walls of windows yet to be filled.

I did not sleep a lick. In spite of that as it hit 6 AM and I got up to brush my teeth, I feel alive, not like how sleepless nights are back in London, it probably has something to do with the fact that I drank three cups of Vietnamese coffee yesterday, one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one at night. Now I sit here attentive and ready to drink another in the morning.

Back in London I make cà phê sữa đá every morning and thought maybe repeated drinking has built a tolerance because really I don't feel any more or less tired from drinking it, I just make it because it tastes nice. Having now drunk 4 cups in two days soon to be more most likely I now realise I have undercut just how much caffeine I use to make it.

This morning I went with my grandfather this time to get Hủ tiếu once more and I did not realise how much of a genuine battle it is to pay for someone who is older than you, I was able to persevere with my grandfather by telling him that my mother wanted me to and thus he obliged, but the same tactics would not work with my grandmother and I eventually I just gave in, but now I'm wondering if I should try harder next time.

The rest of the day I spent doing not much of anything, just sitting outside and hanging out different places but one of my cousins arrived with his family and we went to cut down stalks of bananas in my grandparent's backyard.

All that effort without sleeping led me to become dead tired at around 6 PM and shortly after I showered and ate dinner, I went to bed to fall asleep.

I've gotta take notice of just how well rested I can be when all my days are spent doing something or the other and falling asleep early. As it turns out, being inside on my computer all the time is not conducive to achieving a healthy amount of rest. But its not like I didn't know this before.

I woke up this morning at 6:15 am and was invited to eat Hủ tiếu by my grandmother at a place near my grandparents house. Before we left, my grandmother told me she broken her arm some time ago and showed me the two pieces of metal that they put in her forearm. She said that because she's too old they would just leave it in there She laughed as she said she'd be buried with these. In response I laughed too.

As we walked around the neighbourhood, she told me the names of neighbours and showed me my uncles house next door that's still being built and my other uncles house that he moved into recently. She talked to her neighbours and introduced me, one of the phrases I heard a lot was "Việt kiều về" which to the best of my abilities translated into 'overseas Vietnamese returned home'.

Being an overseas Viet is not as uncommon as I thought, even in rural Vietnam it feels like every single person has a family member who has a cousin from America, a daughter in America, an uncle in America, some political emigrees, some economic, it makes things easier for me, some people are actually impressed with my Vietnamese levels, someone was talking about how someone else's daughter or niece from America couldn't even speak a word of Vietnamese, whoever you are, you've saved me.

After eating, she brought me around to another uncle's house to drink coffee that my aunt was selling and eat a fruit that I cant remember the name of... I remember the Vietnamese word for milk was in its name and so I searched up milk fruit and lo and behold there it is: Vú sữa, or apparently 'Star Apple' in English which is very different from the Vietnamese because the literal translation from Vietnamese to English is breast milk. I didn't get it until I was taught how to eat it by pressing into it and splitting it into pieces and funnily enough it does secrete a white liquid akin to milk.

While at my uncle's house I met one of my cousins and things really have changed. The little cousin that used to bite and scream is now reserved and responsible, while the cousin I gave my DS to with pokemon x and y is two years from finishing school and has his sights set on university. Doing the usual family reunion circuit, there's always something new, the rowdy kids are quiet teens, the quiet teens are responsible adults and there's a whole new set of rowdy children you've never seen before.

All my previous holdings about feeling like a leech have been completely abolished upon being put to work on my grandfather’s backyard, laboriously watering the plants while simultaneously getting pelted with bites from fire ants with an insatiable thirst for blood. If I don't keep my feet moving for even just a second they get bombard your feet and just start biting, what evil little creatures, but they really are nothing in the face of mosquitos.

At night I went to my aunt's house who lives a little further away along with my cousin to meet some more cousins to eat hotpot despite the fact I just ate rice for dinner and I ended being given beer to drink and I drank too much too fast while eating very little and while I don't really get 'drunk', I kinda instead just get sick. I didn't get too sick this time, just the normal antihistamine reactions and a somewhat sick stomach but after a few hours I was fine.

I have a very vivid memory of this very same uncle who gave me beer to drink, giving me beer back then and I ended up puking my guts out. I don't drink often (and when I do its not beer), but I also don't say no to when I'm offered, for some reason I think that maybe I'll just magically develop a better tolerance and get better at drinking. I will say that the taste of beer from then to now is very different. I actually didn't mind it's taste this time.

As soon as I stepped of the plane you could feel the heat and humidity, the kind that clings to your skin, familiar to the skin but heavy on the lungs. I was back.

If the air in London is cold and cutting, the air in the south of Vietnam is warm and suffocating, each breathe I took felt deeper than any other as I hobbled myself out of a sore back and numb legs over to immigration.

As I left the airport the first faces I saw where my grandparents and I noticed that my grandmother's face had sunken in than last I had saw, but who seemed healthy still, but my grandfather who was old and skinny then, looked old and skinny still as he took another drag from his cigarette.

After a 12 hour plane ride and an hour or so wait through immigration and baggage (surprisingly quick for Tân Sơn Nhất airport!) I embarked once more on a 5 hour car ride where we interstitially stopped for breakfast and lunch and I ate food that I was much too delirious and tired to enjoy while I felt the belt of my high waisted trousers dig into my stomach as I still struggled to get used to the new air.

As we got closer and closer to our home back in the Mekong Delta I noticed once more how much things have changed since I were a child. We used to have to catch a ferry to cross this river, now there's a bridge with arches and pillars taller than the horizon. Even from last I came in 2023, the roads are much wider than they were before.

Eventually we got home, showered and I fell asleep for 16 hours and missed my cousins trying to see me, but graciously let me sleep.

I woke up at 5 AM this morning, to arrive 4 hours before my flight departs. I slept at 2 AM, I'm sure I'll get some catch up on the plane. 12 hours. At this point, I've been on more 12 hour flights than I have 1-4 hours.

Before I left home I turned back the cards on my desk calendar. April, for when I get back. In the early morning I got the bus to the station with my parents, I could have went alone but I had 3 suitcases with me, one for myself, the other two filled with sweets, snacks and clothes to bring to our family back home. I took the Elizabeth Line all the way to Heathrow, going to the airport had never been more convenient but sometimes I do miss falling asleep in a taxi and being awoken hours later by my parents.

As I talked to the woman at the check-in counter she noticed I had a middle seat and asked if I wanted a window seat. I said yes with a smile. She told me to talk to her at the gate and she said it was possible I could get a seat next to the emergency door. I said goodbye after I checked my bags in, it was warm but unceremonious, we'd be calling everyday after all.

I walked up and down the gates and shops, bored and listening to music. I did this for a few hours until I finally could go to the gates and I sat there for a few minutes until I inched closer and closer to the counter trying to find the right timing to talk to the woman at the desk again until eventually, upon seeing someone just come up and talk to her I decided to do as humans do and I walked up and asked about the seat of which she told me to wait a few minutes to see if the person whose seat it was arrives and if not the seat was mine. At first I didn't really care, the window seat was a neat bonus but upon actually getting the seat and seeing that it was a front row seat with incredible leg room and that there was no passenger in the middle seat, I began to get afraid at what felt like incredible founts of luck for no real reason. It got even worse when the book I was reading started talking about plane crashes, and I'm not typically afraid of planes, in fact I like them, if not mostly for the anticipatory nature of going from one place to another, but good omens are often caveated with bad ones lurking in the horizon.

I had thought that omen had come quicker than I thought as I placed my passport down and then suddenly could no longer find it. As I got myself into a panic, I ended up asking the passenger on the same row as me and as soon as I asked if she had seen where I placed my passport, I found it in my pocket, its weight masked by my phone and without even wasting a breath before I finished my sentence I said I found it and we shared a laugh. Bad luck dodged right?

As it turns out, even with extra leg room, it did nothing really for my comfort aside from the fact that I could leave my seat without bothering anyone and go to the toilet with ease, in fact, I didn't sleep at all. I drifted in and out of pretend sleep this whole flight, before I eventually gave in and watched 'Bugonia' (2025), CRAZY FILM BTW. Incredible performances by everyone, even Stavros. Weird tho. But I don't hate weird.

Soon after I finished the movie, I tried to sleep again, to failure to which I got up once more to go to the toilet and by the time I got out they had turned on the lights again, the simulated morning has arrived, and in the light I could finally read again.

I'm enjoying Martyr! a lot, but soon I had to put it down as we began to arrive. It was 5 something AM in Vietnam, and the next day had come.