In June, the five of us ventured on our first non-European vacation together, destination: Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. To say it was eye-opening is akin to saying that fireworks are colorful. Daily, our horizons were pried open. Even something as basic as sidewalks I found to not be what I had always assumed they were. I always figured sidewalks were for walking alongside a road. Wrong. Sidewalks are real estate. Sidewalks are where you watch soccer with your family, or play “go” with the police officer on the beat, or create an impromptu parking lot for scooters, or store pots of julienned bamboo shoots, or make vats of sauce, or conduct all kinds of commerce from sharpening keys to cutting hair to selling rice morsels wrapped in banana leaves.

Though the constant horizon-prying-open was sometimes exhausting—the daily reckoning of my narrow world-view hardly had the same languid relaxation as lingering over a three-hour meal capped off with vin santo—it was also exhilarating. And it made our world feel closer, more connected, more possible.  

Below I include photos of typical moments when we'd feel our brains expanding, taking in more knowledge, more air, more light.

Hint: For better and more consistent picture quality, click on the first picture until you get a lightbox you can use to scroll to the right (squarespace can be a little wiggly with presenting all the photos properly in grid form). If you like this post, please let me know and share!