I took a plane to Thailand last night, my friend and I, on a whim. We have vague, almost non-existent travel plans for the next 3 weeks and it feels good. My heart is healing from a devastating breakup and it feels good to be on the other side of the world. I'm eating again and moving my feet.
We flew through Beijing and I watched the sun rise over the city from the plane - just behind the wing, black fading into orange and pink. Everything they told me is true: the sun is different in Asia. It's larger, more orangey, like a thick free-range yolk. We stepped into the airport and the sun was shining strongly through the windows, making long dramatic shadows. It felt warm and new, an embrace.
Beijing was cold and almost post-apocalyptic, too clean. A stark contrast to Thailand - intensely colorful, atrociously hot. We landed late and the streets were still alive after midnight. Fried fish and green papayas, corn milk, coconuts, bins of ripe fragrant fruit. We bought mango & sticky rice from a woman on the street and ate it in our air-conditioned hotel. Delirious and exhausted, my eyes sinking into my head, it's the best thing I ever remember eating. The ripe mango, floral, sweet and juicy (it's nam dok mai mango season); salty-sweet sticky rice soaked in coconut milk.
The streets smell like durian, jasmine flowers, roasting bananas, sewage, and sweat. It makes the states feel so sanitary (in a bad way) - everything in plastic, boring, watered down.