You first havc to know that Vietnamese don’t traditionally celebrate birthdays. According to their Buddhist tradition, being born means you have not yet achieved nirvana and escaped worldly pain and suffering. By contrast, a death…
In other words, Merry Christmas from Vietnam! And from the North and South Poles combined... We'll be off the grid for a few days, including Christmas Eve in a tribal village and Christmas Day in…
In Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon), you see and hear a lot about the new capitalism and the future. In Hanoi, the seat of the communist government, you see and hear a lot about Ho…
When you spend days and days with a person, even if they are your hired guide, you eventually start to get very personal. When we talk about our own lives and ambitions, our companions often…
There are no more kings of Vietnam, but the old royal city of Hue sits midway between Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon in the south and Hanoi in the north. More aptly it was located far…
You expect to step back in time when you visit the ancient port city of Hoi An in central Vietnam, and with the right perspective that’s what happens to you. Here, for thousands of years,…
It's been six weeks, over 40 posts and about 1500 hits from readers since we arrived in SE Asia. So we thought we'd share some of our favorite moments so far. Feel free to share your own…
After six weeks of travel, it was time to get a hair trim and color refresher. We had passed many hair shops within a ten minute walk of our hotel and they all looked pretty…
Like all great rivers of the world, the Mekong disappears into the sea in a large region SW of Saigon. The Vietnamese call it the Nine Dragons, because it actually breaks up into nine major…
In Saigon, there are few notable tourist sites to visit outside of Chinese influences (the madcap market in Chinatown and some interesting temples there) or French influences (the wide boulevards and parks, the colonial buildings,…