When I was in Mexico, I got desperate for some English reading material by the end of the month, so I plunked down US$10 for a copy of the newest issue of Dwell, which I was surprised to find in a bookstore on Cozumel.

And what a fine investment! In the back were samples from the new travel mag Afar, which I’d heard whispers of back in the spring. As soon as I got to the Miami airport, I bought myself the full issue.

It’s so refreshing to read a magazine that isn’t explicitly gunning for a particular market segment. Street food and fancy treehouses, fancy French knives and Berber villages… Check it out, if you have a chance. And you should have a chance, because it’s quarterly–just about the pace I can handle for magazines.

With Perceptive Travel, though, I’ve almost completely lost the thread since it jumped to monthly! Fortunately, I did drop in recently and catch “A Dollar and a Dime in Vietnam,” by Richard Sterling. What starts out as just general commentary on the function of small change in many countries turns into a specific story, with a specific moment, the sort of which (for me, at least) is one of the main reasons for traveling.

Even though the odd moments of kindness can happen at home (and Sterling does live in Vietnam), I suspect you’re more open to them as a traveler, when you’re coasting on guest etiquette, as opposed to resident habits. And if you’re lucky, that attitude will persist a little too, after you get back and before you’re back in your rut.

Specific to odd kindnesses of taxi drivers, I just realized that the fact that Egypt was the first place I really traveled has colored everything since. Because Cairo is a hideously polluted, overcrowded city where everyone is out to grossly overcharge you or feed you food that will make you violently ill, well, every place after has seemed positively hygienic, courteous and completely uncorrupt.

And I’m of course grossly overblowing the Cairo stereotypes, but that has a benefit too. When I returned to Cairo in 2007, after nine years’ absence, the stereotype had built up so horribly in mind that I was pleasantly surprised and touched at nearly every corner, when people were polite and not grabby and quoted me an accurate price on a bottle of water.

Still, though, no cab driver ever did what Sterling’s motorbike guy does in his story…