Food on Moments in the Miles

A Plastic Stool in Hanoi

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We didn’t smell it before we saw it.

We turned the corner and the tree caught our eye from all the way down the street. Wide and yellow and impossible to miss, branches spreading out over the road like it had been there long before the buildings on either side. It stopped me mid-step. I still don’t know what kind it was, only that it gave the whole corner a quality the rest of the block didn’t have, something that made you slow down.

We hadn’t been looking for anything specific. Just hungry, just walking, letting the city pull us wherever it wanted. The street was already thick with motorbike exhaust and the heat Hanoi carries at dusk, and then underneath all of it: pork fat, charred bread, something green and fresh.

And below the tree: red lanterns, strung and glowing. Bold yellow letters on the sign: Bami Bread — Bánh Mì. And a crowd, locals and tourists shoulder to shoulder, nobody seeming to care which was which, perched on tiny plastic stools, yellow and blue, eating with the focused satisfaction of people who had made a good decision.

We got in line without discussing it.

That first visit, we just ate. Stood at the edge of it all, sandwiches in hand, watching. The shop was run by two women who moved the way people move when they’ve done something together ten thousand times: no wasted motion, no instructions, a kind of silent fluency. Bread split open with both hands. Pâté spread fast and sure. Herbs dropped in by the fistful, unmeasured, unhesitating. Orders called out, filled, handed off.

I’ve worked in restaurants most of my life. I know that rhythm. There’s a specific kind of pride in executing something simple so well, so fast, that it looks effortless. I recognized it immediately.

We came back the next day. And the day after that.

On our final visit they were slammed. The kitchen was moving at a pace that had no room for anything extra. We could see it from the street: the focused quiet of two people deep in the work.

No wasted motion, no instructions, a kind of silent fluency.

So we waited. One of the women looked up, caught my eye, smiled, and waved. She never stopped moving while she did it. She kept building the sandwich in her hands and took our order at the same time.

The place was packed. Not an empty stool anywhere. We paid, and before we’d worked out where we were going to wait for our food, she waved us around the counter.

No words. Just: come here.

So we did. They unstacked two extra yellow stools for us. Then one of them walked to the cooler and came back with two cold Bia Hà Nội, which we hadn’t asked for and hadn’t paid for.

Jesse and I folded ourselves onto those little plastic stools, tucked into the corner of the kitchen, knees almost at our chins. The cans were sweating before we got a grip on them. First sip: light, crisp, the exact temperature the moment called for.

And then we just watched.

The crack of bread splitting open. The quick, confident spread of pâté. Herbs tossed in without a second glance. The two of them moving around each other in a space barely big enough for two, communicating entirely in glances and small gestures and the kind of timing you can’t teach. Outside, the crowd noise: laughter, the clatter of stools, the low hum of Hanoi doing what Hanoi does. The red lanterns swaying slightly above it all. Inside: focused, alive, completely unhurried by the chaos six feet away.

We smiled at each other, me and Jesse, us and them, the way you smile when language isn’t necessary. When you’re just glad to be exactly where you are.

The sandwich, when it came, tasted the way it always had. But everything around it was different.

Hanoi doesn't miss with bánh mì.

I’ve thought about that kitchen a lot since we left Hanoi.

Not because it was the best bánh mì we had, though it might have been, but because of how uncomplicated it felt to be there. Nobody was optimizing or cross-referencing reviews or wondering if the place two streets over was better. Just people, hungry, eating something made well, in the open air, under a yellow tree strung with red light.

I work in restaurants. I have spent years on the other side of counters like that one, in the heat and the rhythm, moving fast and quiet with people I didn’t always need words with. There is a belonging in that world that I don’t know how to explain to someone who hasn’t felt it. It lives in your hands and your feet, in the way your body knows where to be without being told.

In that kitchen in Hanoi, the version of me that knows what it means to be in the weeds, to take pride in the work, to earn your place at the counter, was recognized. By strangers, in a language neither of us spoke.

That’s not a small thing.

Back home, wherever home is that season, I notice how quickly I slip back into managing life instead of living it. Comparing. Structuring. Even lunch can start to feel like a problem to be solved correctly.

But on those stools, there was no correct. There was just the cold beer and the warm bread and Jesse next to me and two women who let us in without being asked.

I don’t want a bigger life.

I want a closer one.

Closer to the street, to the people in front of me, to the rhythm, instead of standing just outside it waiting to be let in.

Sometimes you just need someone to wave you around the counter.

Hanoi at that hour doesn’t ease you in. It just absorbs you.

What Travel Taught Us About Human Kindness

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Chiang Mai, day one

Our first hotel in Chiang Mai put us one block from everything, right in the middle of old town. The night market was right there. So was the 7-Eleven, its door chiming open and shut in a steady rhythm.

Don’t judge. If you’ve done your research, you know they’re the holy grail of corner stores in Asia.

We had come straight from Bangkok, and you could feel the energy change the second we got there. Chiang Mai is calmer. Motorbikes still moved past and the street still hummed, but at a volume you could hear yourself inside of.

What stopped us was ten feet from the 7-Eleven door: a small food cart with at least six locals sitting on tiny, colorful plastic stools. That’s always a good sign in a foreign country. If the locals eat there, you should too.

As we walked by and made eye contact with one of the men eating, he broke into a wide smile. He pointed to his bowl. Looked at us. Smiled from ear to ear.

“Good,” he said.

That was it. No pitch. No explanation. Just one word and a grin that said everything.

He stood up from his tiny stool, almost ceremoniously, offering us his place. So we sat down.

A bowl of soup

The couple running the cart greeted us like we weren’t strangers at all. No English. No shared vocabulary. Just warmth.

As they cooked, steam rose into the humid air, carrying the smell of fresh Thai chili peppers. It was sharp and bright, almost sweet at first. And then it hit. Our eyes started watering before we even took a bite.

We laughed through the tears.

The food came quickly, steaming and fragrant. At the end, they brought us extra soup. We tried to pay for it, and they gently waved us off. Not a promotion, not a strategy. Just generosity.

We returned to that food cart several times during our stay. Not just for the food. For the feeling.

The realization

That first day in Chiang Mai set the tone for everything after it. And it was only the beginning.

Throughout the next eight months traveling across Asia, we encountered countless acts of kindness, moments that reminded us, again and again, what humanity looks like at its best.

Some invitations don't need words.

Human kindness doesn’t require language, wealth, or a reason.

It exists in eye contact, in shared space, in steam rising from a pot on a noisy street.

You don’t remember a place for what it looked like. You remember who was there, how they made you feel, and how you made them feel.

Slow down enough to notice

Kindness hides in plain sight. If we had rushed past that cart chasing landmarks, we would have missed it entirely.

We started building “nothing hours” into our travels — time with no plan except to wander, sit, observe.

When you slow down, you notice more. The vendor who adds an extra scoop. The stranger who gives you directions without being asked. The smile that feels bigger than a transaction.

Speed just makes it easy to miss.

Give. Receive. Repeat.

Kindness flows both ways. Sometimes you receive the extra soup. Sometimes you’re the one offering help — carrying a bag, sharing directions, translating a map.

Sometimes you're the one stirring the pot.

Travel taught us that generosity is less about grand gestures than about participation. When you show up open, the world often mirrors it back.

The invitation

When we think about Chiang Mai now, the first thing we remember is how much easier it was to breathe there after Bangkok. Then the plastic stools, the steam rising into thick air, the way our eyes watered before we even took a bite, the couple waving away our money with soft smiles.

And when we think about those eight months across Asia, it’s not the landmarks that rise to the surface. It’s the people: the generosity, the unexpected warmth, the reminder that goodness exists everywhere.

That’s what stays.

The next time you travel, look for it. Look for where the locals gather. Sit down, even if you don’t fully understand the menu. Let yourself be invited in.

You don’t need perfect language or perfect timing. Just openness.

Kindness is rarely loud, but it’s everywhere. Travel just teaches you how to notice it.