September 2016 - Joe and Liz

Central Coast Vietnam: Huế and Hội An

September 29, 2016

HUE From Sapa,we took the bus back to Hanoi where we spent the night before catching a short flight to Hue, the former imperial capital of Vietnam. From the shuttle bus, Hue looked like a more manageable city. Busy, interesting, but less chaotic than Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. Many Vietnamese people travel here, and even the tourist neighborhoods pandered less to western expectations and preferences, and the city felt more like a city than an “America theme park,” as some tourist areas end up ...

Blog Post, Vietnam

Sapa: Mountains, rice, and a touch of colonialism

September 16, 2016

Restless in Hanoi, we debated where we should head next. When planning our trip, we had decided that we would skip Ha Long Bay. Magnificent as it may be, the cruises are expensive, their quality is hit or miss, and our idea of hell is being trapped on a small boat with strangers and overly enthusiastic tour guides. However, the Australian we met the night before raved about it and convinced us to at least consider our options. We shopped around at a few of the tour operators in Old ...

Blog Post, Vietnam

Hanoi: A Tale of Too Much City

September 8, 2016

We only spent two nights in Hanoi—though we’ll likely pass back through early next week—so we didn’t do a whole lot there. Here is a quick rundown. We flew to Hanoi from Saigon on a clearly Russian plane than touched the Hanoi tarmac at about 3 p.m. We hopped in a car that or hotel sent to pick us up, and we sped along a long, smoggy highway listening to a mix of smooth jazz and techno. For reasons we have yet been able to articulate, we quickly liked the feeling of Hanoi better than ...

Blog Post, Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh City

September 8, 2016

(Written September 5, 2016) Our time in Ho Chi Minh has come to an end, so we thought we would do a short recap of our time here as we wait to fly to Hanoi. The first day we got here, we slept for about 3 hours and then wandered around Ho Chi Minh trying to get our bearings. It was Independence day, a national holiday weekend, so some things were closed, but it still seemed incredibly busy to us. We intended to watch fireworks on the river bank at 9:00, but instead went to sleep at ...