"Rusted brandy in a diamond glass//everything is made from dreams//time is made from honey slow and sweet//only the fools know what it means." -Tom Waits

How one of the roughest nights of my trip turned into one of the best mornings of my life.

I fell asleep at 2am and woke up at four, covered with mosquitoes and red bites. The fans and aircon had both switched off so it was sweltering hot and a late night swim in the ocean had salted all the water out of me. I was so thirsty I couldn't speak. Trying to not wake up my mates, I went to the bathroom to brave the tap water. But alas, this too had been shut off.

I walked out of the room - we're staying at a pretty interesting little beach hostel called Hoa's place - and made my way to the dirt road that adjoins the dormitories. I saw a fire burning across the road and walked towards it. A man waved me over and I squatted with him for a minute by the fire. I said, or croaked, "Water?" He opened his cooler, handed me a big ice-cold bottle and charged me about 30 cents. I drank nearly the whole thing and thanked him profusely.






So, now I'm awake, it's four in the morning, and I don't tend to go back to sleep. I only like to wake up once a day. It's jarring enough as it is. I had a flash of someone saying yesterday they wanted to catch at least one sunrise, and that it had sounded like a pretty solid plan. I snuck back into the room, grabbed my camera and walked the 100 meters to the beach.

I was not alone.






I had no idea that I was joining a local ritual of taking in the sunrise with a morning swim in the shadow of Marble Mountain, but so I was. At first, one or two, then in groups, alone, on foot, on bicycles, on motorbikes. Boys and girls, young and the old, the rowdy and serene, in boxers or bathing suits or wrapped in towels. Some had soap already scrubbed into their hair. A lot of them found it somewhere between very amusing and not really acceptable that I was there. But this is an opinion that I have decided to ignore, soundly.
















I shot for maybe an hour as the sun turned from a blue suggestion to blazing orange and red. Already hot, even as a sliver in the horizon. Then, as the locals packed up and headed in, I did too - back to Hoa's for a morning tea and to write this for you, my loves.

Yesterday, in the evening, a man outside our Hoi An hostel was preparing an altar with incense and carvings, sheets of fake printed money and a string of shot glasses filled halfway with a clear liquor. I asked him gently, "For your gods or your ancestors?"

"Yes," he replied.

Location:Vietnam