My ride to Koh Samui, as always, was eventful. I got picked up from my hostel in Koh Lanta at 7:20 in a van. I was squished into half of the middle seat because the other half plus the seat next to me was being taken up by everyone's luggage. And another person was in the seat next to me. It was so uncomfortable. I thought it would only be like that until we got to the bus. Nope. That was the bus. Thankfully, about 3 hours into the trip, the girl next to me got off, so I had all that room to myself. Only 3 solid hours of discomfort. Not bad. The van dropped us off at the Suratthani pier and gave us ferry tickets. I bought some snacks and got on the boat. ... read more

Hanoi started with a rude awakening. RUDE. Nancy and I took a night bus from Phong Nha to Hanoi. I took Advil PM (hadn't gotten the Valium yet) and slept fitfully next to the bathroom with the door that kept swinging open. My earplugs mostly stayed in my nose. At 6am, we were awakened by all the red lights in the bus turning on and a Vietnamese song BLASTING through all the speakers. You know those songs where it's a woman and a really wavering voice? Imagine that waking you up at 6am on a bus filled with red light and not being able to turn it off or down. This was followed by what I can only describe as a Communist March. Nancy and I were bewildered, to say the very least. We got dropped ... read more

Finding a Halong Bay cruise is HARD. First, there are about a million companies you could go through. Some of them are real, some of them are fake. When you read reviews for Halong Bay cruises, you find things like this: "mainly older people and couples" "party boat, booze cruise" "cheap, dirty, bad service" "worth the money, beautiful, mostly old people" Being a solo traveler who didn't want a booze cruise, I had to do some extra research. I found a company on a reddit forum called Ocean Tours that seemed perfect. I sent them an email and signed up. 2 nights, 3 days for $135 including accommodation, food, transport, basically everything but drinks. It was for people in their 20s and sailed around the bay in a different way than the rest of the cruises. ... read more

We arrived at our hostel in Da Nang, which is another coastal city. We got settled and went out for another motorbike ride. We had spent a little over $5 on the motorbike rental and wanted to get the full value of the money out of it, after all. We drove along the coast up to the peninsula. On the way, it started raining, so we pulled over at a little cafe where no one spoke English. I tried to ask for coffee. I tried to ask for Coca Cola. I tried to ask for tea. They gave me warm beer. Once it stopped raining, we continued on up some mountain roads with beautiful views of Da Nang. We drove up a very sketchy steep narrow concrete road for a long time. At one point, the ... read more

The bus ride from Da Lat to Nha Trang was pleasant. It was 5 hours, there were 5 people on a relatively big bus, and the views were gorgeous. We would through mountains with waterfalls coming within inches of the road. I read my book (The Stand by Stephen King), listened to podcasts, and stared out the window. When we arrived in Nha Trang, it was nightfall, and I walked a few blocks to my hostel where I was enthusiastically greeted by the entire staff! Tintin is my favorite hostel staff member of all time. He spent the whole two days calling me "sista" and going out of his way to be helpful. I got settled into my four-bedroom door (under the bed lockers!!!) and hung out in the lobby for a bit. When Sylvan arrived ... read more