Da Nang · Ha Giang · Bangkok

Nine days out, and the list is shorter than the doubt

The flights are paid, the first four nights are confirmed, and everything after that is a list of things I have told myself I will handle when I get there. Which is, I think, the honest condition of leaving. The apartment for the three weeks after the hotel is still with the host; if it lapses I extend the hotel and lose a little money and no sleep.

What I actually care about is whether the work survives the move. Two months is long enough that the novelty wears off around week three and the real question surfaces: can I ship on a Tuesday in a city where nobody expects anything of me? I will find out in public.

Why Da Nang, and not somewhere more obvious

I wanted a coastline, a functioning café economy, and a time zone where Europe is awake in my afternoon rather than my night. Da Nang does all three, and it does the last one better than anywhere in Latin America. The morning is mine, the afternoon belongs to clients, the evening is dinner.

Bangkok comes second because after a month of quiet I will want noise, and because a thirty-day stay is the neat unit the visa rules hand you. There is one small arithmetic problem with that which I am still solving.

Shipping while moving

Rule I am setting before I leave: one shippable thing a week, however small, and the trip does not get to be the excuse. Writing it here so it costs something to break.