Tag: Vietnam

If we hadn’t met Marie (in the yellow tee) and Marko from the Netherlands during our My Son ruins tour outside of Hoi An, we probably wouldn’t have gone to Can Tho.  They spoke so glowingly of the Cai Rang floating market in Can Tho, the largest city in the Mekong Delta with 1 1/2… Read More

Trang is 18 years old and a freshman at a local university in Ho Chi Minh City. I was seated across from Trang at Ralf’s Artisanal Gelato in our budget hotel neighborhood of Pham Ngu Lao. It was my second trip to the gelateria in spite of a double scoop’s costing $5.26–exorbitant by Vietnamese standards.… Read More

Meet My (pronounced ‘me’ with up tone) and Andy. We met crossing a street in Ho Chi Minh City when I pointed out a traffic light behind us to be a guide. My is Vietnamese American in her last year of studying chemical engineering at U of OK in Norman. Andy is out of college… Read More

Upon arriving in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), we were living in the lap of luxury for two free nights at the Park Hyatt Saigon and I felt like getting used to that type of pampering.  My first full day in HCMC began with a 5:50am swim in the hotel’s outdoor pool followed by a… Read More

We took a boat back from the ruins. You can see MK on the left at the end. During the boat ride, Australian Gary in the orange t-shirt showed me how to use some of the camera functions of my iPhone. The $12 tour included bus and boat transportation for more than an hour each… Read More

I wish I had taken a photo of the owner of our Hoi An homestay on Cam Nam Island—Dat Cam Homestay. I think the name might be a play on “dot com” but I’m not sure. This was our room—  very comfortable for $16/night. The owner is a 54 year old widow who works non… Read More

Gabby whom we had met in Dong Ha had recommended that we go to Banh Mi Phap, a French boulangerie in Hue.  On one of my stops at Banh Mi Phap, I reconnected with Yuan and Clemente, a French couple I had met at my first breakfast in Hanoi at our B and B Hanoi… Read More

On Christmas morning in Hue at breakfast at Poetic Hue Hostel, I met Julia and Klaus from Cologne, Germany. Julia had gotten a Master’s degree in the Netherlands (for $10,000, a bargain by American standards) in a subject I had never heard of–tourism destination management.  Her program met in the Netherlands for six months, Australia… Read More

Per the Lonely Planet description, Vinh Moc is the remains of a coastal North Vietnamese village that went underground in response to unremitting American bombing. More than 90 families disappeared into three levels of tunnels running for almost 2 kilometers and continued to live and work while bombs rained down around them. Our guide, Hua,… Read More

I met Gabby, an amazing 35 year old American woman who speaks 9 languages and founded a nonprofit that helps children with disabilities in Vietnam, at breakfast in Dong Ha. Did I mention that she is blind?  Even though Gabby and I only conversed for an hour, I learned a lot from her.  She took… Read More