Monthly Archives: February 2016

We have been back for a week now. We are nearly aligned with the clock. But aligned with the country, the culture?  Not yet. I need to figure out what to do with this blog. I see that although I haven’t posted anything for several days, people are still checking it. Today there are check-insContinue reading “What to do next?”

This is a picture of bad pho. I don’t know what I did wrong. I bought marrow bones and boiled them for between 4 and 6 hours. I probably shouldn’t have put in that oxtail, which was fatty. But there are other problems, too numerous to mention. The truth is that none of the food backContinue reading “Back in the USA”

Joe and Faruk, having  a discussion. Our last adventure in Viet Nam. We left Hanoi and went to Halong Bay, about 3 hours east, and got on a little cruise ship (about 30 people) and spent 3 days and 2 nights moving around through the most amazing gorgeous seascape I have ever seen, beyond imagining.Continue reading “Halong Bay”

Tuyen drove us around the north side of Hanoi on what looked like a new highway. Here is where the new developments are happening: huge apartment buildings that look like “projects” but aren’t. They are expensive and desirable. No streetscape, all high-rise, at least in this picture. This is called “Singapore-style.” Nearby, one developer, Vinhomes, has covered manyContinue reading “Hanoi, discussions”

Looking into the breakfast room at the hotel The Sapa Express train from Hanoi arrives in Lao Cai at 6:30 am. It’s still dark. There are vans in the parking lot and a lot of talking about who belongs in which van. Then uphill around hairpin curves for about an hour to Sapa. Sapa has been inhabitedContinue reading “Sapa”

See update at end of post, about ethnic minority experience. When we set out from Sapa, heading into the valley towards a series of ethnic minority villages, these three women immediately began “following” us. “Following tourists” is a job. They followed us the whole 6K , chatting in English with a very limited vocabulary, andContinue reading “Questions that someone from the US might ask about the lives of ethnic minority people in Viet Nam”