My stomach is happy with a burrito, wrapped in a toasted tortilla and stuffed with egg and chicken and salsa and refried beans by a long-haired French man who’s been in this seaside town, tending his groovy, Indian-themed restaurant for nearly thirteen years. And so, inspired, I sit on the low table with my feet on a low bench back in the restaurant downstairs of our hostel, waiting for the bus back north.
The five of us chat, unhurried after days swimming the beach and strolling through the night market and eating corn dogs. There is American music, stuff of the late 60s and early 70s, turned up and reverberating softly through the restaurant. The bar is fronted by a brown and white pattern of zig-zagged bricks. The shelf behind the bar is dark wood and holds bottles of wine and beer and whiskey. There are colorful cloth hangings on the wall. And then this chorus comes over the sound system, singing,
Country roads
take me home
to the place
I belong:
West Virginia.
And I’m not from there, but for a second it feels like I am.
(sunrise) Taiwan (sunset) 