What Lived Behind My Bed in Vietnam
Of course the sand on my pillow came from my hair. And the sand alongside my bed? It must have been tracked in by my shoes.
As for the trail of sand piles inside my desk drawer—well, my sad old hand-me-down desk was probably just finally dislodging from the wall.
None of that bothered me.
Until about two weeks later.
The sand inside my desk drawer had morphed and multiplied into a mess no half roll of toilet paper could clean.
I messaged the apartment manager for help and photographed everything.
I packed up my laptop, water bottle, snacks and mosquito spray and worked from the outdoor cafe.
When I came back, the drawer was spotless. But something was off. My bed—flush against the wall when I left—now faced the opposite direction, squeezed against my armoire.
I zoomed in on the photos I’d taken earlier.
Before I could make sense of what I was seeing, I looked at the wall where my headboard had been.
Large chunks were peeling.
And the wall itself was moving.
That’s when I knew.
The sand on my pillow was not from my hair.
The sand on the floor was not from my shoes.
And that sad old hand-me-down desk—the very one I am working on right now, in Da Nang, Vietnam—was not dislodging from the wall.
It was being eaten.
By hundreds. Maybe millions. Of termites.
My first thoughts came fast, in no particular order:
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They'd laid eggs in my scalp
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My laptop was next, and they'd crawl out while I typed.
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My passport would be ruined and the police would haul me off to jail because I had no proof I lived there.
And those maggot-looking, slimy things were under my mattress chewing their way through while I slept.
Most people would pack and get the hell out
I didn't.
I've handled worse—the monsoon that turned my street into a river, my only debit card swallowed by a Russian ATM, the Komodo dragon I mistook for a garden statue until I reached to touch it and it bolted.
Bravery gets you on the plane.
Knowing what's a real risk, how to stop it from becoming dangerous, and what to do when it does—that's what saves you when you're all alone.
I am a Graceful Roamer
Friends call me Roamy
I left the U.S. at 60. I slow-travel the world alone, living in villages and small coastal towns.
I wrote down all that I learned
43 pages on how to recognize when an ordinary travel problem is turning dangerous—the steps to take, who to contact, the questions to ask.
The real plan, for the night you need one
Organized around where things escalate fastest when you're far away from home and on your own:
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MONEY—the card that's blocked or the ATM that won't give it back, nowhere near a branch that can help
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HEALTH—the bite that swells, the fever that climbs, no one beside you to call a doctor
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HOUSING—the place that isn't what the listing showed, after dark, your luggage on the sidewalk
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DOCUMENTS—the passport, visa, or mail that never arrives, and the exposure that follows
