Blogs from Hué, Thua Thien - Huế, North Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 72

now it continues to unfold. my family lineage. the tomb of my ancestors. my mother's mother's family temple. these are my roots! we arrived in hue and checked in for a solid night's sleep. the next morning we would hired a car to visit my great grandfather's uncle's tomb. i had no idea what was in store. i just knew we were to leave at 7am. yikes. the next morning 7am, bright and early, aunt huong, uncle vinh, + mom were ready to go. remember they are in their 60's! i guess they wake up early at that age right? dressed and ready to go. we drove into the country. the rice fields were spotted with tombstones made of 10 feet wide sandstone lotus flowers with a hump of grass inside each of them. that was ... read more

Hello everyone! Sorry to bombard you with emails but following our visit to A'Loui, home of Fueng, our sponsored child, we just had to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard if you will.. We were picked up in Hue at 8 by World Vision, a driver and Huang, the female interpreter and Social Development Leader. The drive was 5 hours until a year ago when completion of 2 bridges reduced it to 2 (thank goodness - done enough 'bums on seats' already). A'Loui is a town based in the foothills of the Loas/Vietnam boarder, site of the infamous Hamburger Hill massacer of the VN war. This area is striclty off limits to any foreigners unless accompanied by an international organisation such as W.V. Consequently we were only the 6th and 7th westerners (and only ... read more

My second stop on my tour through Vietnam was a bit of a disappointment and vaulted me full-speed into my quarter-life crisis. I was enjoying the tranquility of a cafe and biology book when Joshua brought his tourgroup into the same very cafe. Since I am a clandestine tourist of the same tour in the sense that I am staying at the hotel for free and doing solo-sightseeing on the same itinerary, it is fairly important to not appear to frequently before the "real" tourgroup. Just as they were sitting down, Joshua's phone rang, and was flung across the cafe to me with a quip of "W.H.O. Cambodia." It was indeed Dr. Massimo, my intended advisor for my internship at said institution. His Italianized Inglese came crackling over the line. "Sofia, I have some bad news ... read more

Here are what happened during my time spent in South and Central Vietnam, as part of a trip between Thailand and China. Ho Chi Minh City was my first stop. Having been there 8 years ago, I was not intending to stay long. I settled in Pham Ngu Lao, a backpacker area, and during the next 2 days, I revisited some sights which I had been to previously, including the Reunification Palace and the History Museum. Nothing too special to write about. Anyway, HCMC looked a bit different now, with more high-rising, modern buildings in its business district, whereas its people appeared to be more energetic than they were in 1996. For me, this time was more exciting as I had to travel at the back of a motorcycle, not on a tour bus, around ... read more

I dag har jeg igjen vaert ute paa motorsykkeltur og sett paa monumenter. Var aa saa Royal Arena, som er en arena fra 1884 hvor elefanter og tigere pleide aa sloss med hverandre til Kongen og Dronningens fornoeyelse. Kom frem dit relativ tidlig, og det var taake som floet over hele stedet, og jungel som omkranset det. Fikk veldig en Indiana Jones foelelse, og det var skikkeligstemningsfullt. Traff paa en hel gjeng med unger, som alle ville ha tyggegummi og penner. Jeg trodde det bare skjedde i film, og at unger i vaar tid heller ville ha penger, men nei da. Foelte meg litt utilstrekkelig naar jeg ikke hadde noen tyggegummi eller penner. Deretter dro vi til en kolle som US Army brukte under krigen til aa holde Hue. Fantastisk utsikt, men ille aa vite alt ... read more