I am writing this from Langkawi, Malaysia. It is the first sun and heat that we’ve had since Cambodia. And yet, we find ourselves grieving our departure from Vietnam. It really got under our skin. It is a beautiful and diverse country. It is creating its own destiny. Here’s a few random things: Sapa Back […]
Point of Interest
Sapa – Ethnic Villages
Y Lin Ho, Lao Chai, and Sapa Market Thursday morning arrived and it was a beautiful sunny day. At 9:00 Sece (sp?) showed up for our tour. The driver was none other than Tommy’s brother. Sece is “White” Hmong, and was born and raised in Y Lin Ho. Sapa is the largest city she’s been […]
Fansipan
We woke up Wednesday morning, looked out the window, and saw something we hadn’t seen in it seems like weeks – blue sky. Shocking as it was, we decided to seize the day and check out Fansipan. Fansipan is the highest mountain in Southeast Asia. Hundreds of years ago, monks built a series of pagodas […]
Sapa Comedy of Errors
We went to bed Sunday night planning on getting up early Tuesday to head off to Sapa in the Northwest mountains of Vietnam. The Women’s Museum of Vietnam was slated for a visit “tomorrow.” At 5:00 a.m. Ellen woke me with the statement “I think we may go to Sapa this morning!” We checked our […]
Ha Long Bay
We were looking forward to the cruise on Ha Long Bay for a while. It is comprised of 1,969 islets, most of which are limestone karst. We’d hoped for a luxury cruise, and the bus we boarded early in the morning suggested that we’d lucked out. The journey took about 3 hours, with one stop […]
Hanoi Free Tours
If you notice the splash picture, they really like their eggs in Vietnam. Here’s another version: The multi colored ones are quail eggs, which you see frequently on menus. We’re going to intersperse a few Hanoi shots in this post, but the main theme is free tours. We just mentioned that we wanted to do […]
Trang An
We finally arrived at the Joy Libi Guesthouse in Ninh Binh starved at about 11:30 p.m. The hostess graciously offered us ChocoPies, which are exactly what one would expect from the name. We crashed quickly, and got up the next morning. I had my first salt coffee. It was pretty good, tasted like caramel. The […]
Thung Namh Bird Park
We slept well, and woke up to rain. The forecast suggested that chances of rain would diminish as the day went on. We decided to go to the Thung Namh Bird Park, as we’d heard it was kind of a hidden gem. I don’t know if it’s just that it was Sunday, but the place […]
Lantern-City – Hoi An
Due to a bonehead move on my part, we are now spending the afternoon in the Da Nang airport, waiting for our flight to Hanoi. I accidentally booked our tickets for March 14th, rather than Valentine’s Day, February 14th. So let’s make some lemonade, and catch up on our posting. Hoi An sees over 3 […]
Marble Mountain, Lady Buddha, Am Phu Cave
We’d heard a lot about Da Nang and the Marble Mountain. Also, wanted to check out the Lady Buddha, as we haven’t seen many female buddhas, let alone a lady. So we signed up for the tour. Ellen woke up the morning of feeling quite ill from a cold. We considered skipping the whole thing, […]