Hoi An In A Glass

 

Yesterday, during my night walk on the terrace, I was listening to Travel and Leisure India audio stories … having run out of my usual fiction podcasts. The episode was about Hoi An. As the author spoke about the delicious coffee, I was taken back to endless drinks that peppered my stay in Vietnam. From green tea and black coffee to iced beer and cocoa. 

Having stayed at home most of this year, I can't wait to travel again. Surrounded by trees. Away from my laptop. With just my sketch kit nearby. Till that happens, I've decided to open my travel sketchbooks and get transported to my favourite places. Sketching and travelling are so entwined, that unless I sketch in a city I feel I haven't experienced it.

One such memory is of the refreshing herbal drink at MótHộiAn. Adorned with a lotus stem and lemon leaf it was a welcome respite from the drugging heat. I can still taste the sweet floral notes of the drink and it brings back all the joys of strolling along the lantern-lit lanes flanked by yellow houses and flowering bougainvillaea trees. Now, as I paint it from memory and some photos, I think … there should be a 'Hoi An Yellow' shade of watercolour out there …