All the sights!

[mianngu]

Tell me about the most beautiful place you have ever been. Somewhere that took your breath away and never gave it back!

When I was in college, I spent one summer in Costa Rica volunteering and exploring. A large chunk of time was spent at an eco-lodge in the jungle. We had to hike in to get there. There were solar lights and water via a gravity spring. We stayed with researchers helping to mist net and worked with locals doing jobs like building wells. The eco lodge sat at the summit of a group of rolling hills and on one side it hung over a cliff, the rainforest stretching out below you for miles. It was the most beautiful place I've ever been and I'm so grateful for my time there.

[merlin]

The most beautiful place I ever been was not so much a location but a moment. It was during my second tour in the military and my first to sea. I was the new guy on the ship and was still trying to find my sea legs after my tour in Iraq.

We had hit a port in Thailand and I had rented a house for me snd a bunch of sailers to crash in. Bring young men, we all wanted two things after a month spent at sea.

Booze and women.

So we went out to the beach. I bought a bottle of Thai whiskey and posted up at a bar facing the street. It wasn’t long before the guys I was with found the company they sought. Some tourists looking for a fun night others locals from the town. I talked to a girl from Australia who smelled of cheap beer and fresh flowers she wore in her hair, but my mind was else where and she found someone more engaging.

Soon, young men came from the town, looking to make money off must Thai fights. I placed bets and drank my fill. Around me I watched humanity. The violence. The sex. The booze. A heady aroma of vices.

I walked down the muddy street bottle in hand, while men fought and couples groped and at the edge of it all I saw it.

A elephant and a child.

The elephant was still an infant, smaller than a horse. The child was dressed in traditional Thai garb, as if putting on a cultural show . The child smiled and disappeared in the jungle. A single moment, shared only be me , a child snd an elephant.

And there i stood, drunk with one foot in debauchery and innocence.

And then I left it behind. I drank, I fought and flirted. I took Australian girl home. I was everything a sailor was. Everything a young man at war was supposed to be.

But for a single moment, just for me, I saw the duality of man. The dark and the light. The good and the bad.

Also Thai whiskey is amazing and we all should try it.

[Alexander Salkin]

@mianngu I loved visiting Cancun the other year. It was just beautiful, romantic, and exciting.

@merlin That was interesting and it feels very Hemingway. I used to have a buddy in the Navy who had a similar, if less juxtaposed experience in Thailand. I prefer your take on it, though!