Nha Trang... read more

On Friday night Larry and I boarded a rickety old train and spent the rest of the night (10 hours) being bumped and rocked around our 4-person "deluxe sleeper" on dirty mattresses which may have been nice 15 years ago. It was the beginning of our Sapa experience! We arrived at Lao Cai Station (on the Chinese-Vietnamese border) at 6:10am and boarded our 1-hour shuttle bus to Sapa. The ride was absolutely breathtaking! (LOL...Sometimes we lost our breath because of the beautiful scenery, other times it was because we thought our bus would fly over a high cliff when it zipped around the sharp corners!) Upon arrival at our hotel we were surrounded by women and girls of the H'Mong tribe. In surprisingly good English they asked us our names and where we are from. After ... read more

Although Larry and I were only in Hanoi for two days, we managed to squeeze a lot in. Arriving from Hong Kong mid-day, we spent our first afternoon checking out Hoa Lo Prison Museum (nicknamed the 'Hanoi Hilton' by US POWs during the American War); fighting with scam artists (a.k.a. taxi drivers); researching trips to Halong Bay (which we would depart for the next morning) and Sapa; and touring the epicentre of old Hanoi, Hoan Kiem Lake. By early evening we were exhausted, but still managed to catch a performance of traditional Vietnamese water puppets. Having previously read about this traditional art form, I was curious to see what it was all about, and catching a show at the Municipal Water Puppet Theatre was definitely worthwhile. A Vietnamese art form of at least 1000 years old, ... read more

For the next leg of our journey Larry and I headed to Hong Kong for a world-class skyline, delicious food (which was unfortunately sometimes accompanied with nauseating odors), and a quick reminder of the modern world as we recuperated from China and prepared for Vietnam. Getting to Hong Kong was an adventure in itself. We had originally planned to fly from Xi'an on Friday, August 22nd, but due to a massive typhoon ended up at the airport with tickets and luggage in hand and no way of getting there. Trying to make the most of our situation we fought with insurance companies, stuck close to anyone else in line who spoke English, and finally managed to find a hotel room at the anything-but-classy ARIPORT HOTEL. (Yes, according to their brochures and business cards, it was the ... read more

Arriving in Bejing on a Sunday afternoon, we dropped off our stuff at our friend Nicole's apartment and spent the rest of the afternoon registering with her building management and the local police. Nothing like visiting a communist country! Kicking off Beijing in style, we later feasted on a traditional Beijing meal of Peking Duck, dumplings, caramelized lotus root, bok choy, and various other sauteed vegetables. Monday morning was an adventure! We had signed up to take a tour to the Great Wall through a local hostel, but when we tried to find the hostel for our 7am departure..... we realized that neither one of us remembered where it was. We panicked, we ran, we unsuccessfully asked for directions (from people who didn't speak a word of English), .... and then at 7:15am we somehow managed ... read more