Close your eyes. Imagine Vietnnam. No, not the images of bombs exploding over rural villages. Open your eyes and close them again. Picture vibrant green rice paddies, farmers in conical straw hats, bent over tending their rice with wooden tools. Picture water buffaloes refreshing themselves in a muddy winding river, with karst limestone mounts rising […]
We arrived at the little organic farm that housed the open air bamboo cooking school laden down with all of our stuff. A big backpack and day pack each, plus a rugged little rolling suitcase. They looked at us as though we were insanity itself, but were polite enough not to say anything. We were […]
Hue is a popular spot in the tourist guidebooks. They’ve all been here. Frommers, TripAdvisor, and of course Lonely Planet. How do I know? Every restaurant and guest house in town has their @mentions printed on a sign out front. That’s all well and good, especially if Hue delivered the goods. But in my mind, […]
Hoi An was one of the “bucket list” stops on our travels through Vietnam. A busy trading port until the 19th century when the river silted up, the old town is a colourful warren of wooden trading houses whose designs were heavily influenced by the Chinese and Japanese merchants that set up shop here for […]
Da Lat is a gorgeous highland town in central Vietnam, with a distinctly European feel. The climate stays a steady 23*C (74*F) year round, and gorgeous pink bougainvillea spill out over French Colonial buildings that stretch up onto the hills overlooking a tranquil town lake. In short, it’s utopia. It began life as a spa […]
And now, for an entirely new way to travel. We boarded the “sleeper bus” at 8:40 am for our seven hour trip to Da Lat in the central highlands of Vietnam. After the intensity of Saigon, I was desperate for somewhere less masochistic, and so we escaped to the mountains. Shortly out of town, we […]
History is like a multi-faceted gemstone that reflects and refracts the light brilliantly from the many directions in which it faces. All too often, we are taught the story that shines the brightest from the direction we’re looking, and forget that from the other side, the view is dull and dark. We have a tendency […]
You sense it the moment you arrive in this city with two names. Ho Chi Minh City pulsates, its arteries flowing with the choreographed chaos of its streets, streaming with motorbikes who flow without hesitation through every free space, even if that’s the sidewalks. Saigon is in constant motion, a hive of activity. The air […]
I didn’t know if I’d write about this, but as a lay on a gurney at the side of a crowded Cambodian ER, I knew I had to. What I saw in that fluorescent lit room told the story of these people, and their history in a way that reading a book, watching a documentary, […]
Medical inequality exists everywhere in the world, and I experienced it first hand in the Hopital Calmette in Phnom Penh. Nothing against the hospital. The staff were wonderful, but our experience proved that money can buy health — and we bought it. What just happened? I went from having an annoying little gastrointestinal issue to […]
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