“Buy from me! No! Not the same as one you already have. Same-same but different!” Sapa is a small town so high in the mountains that the streets are perpetually covered in a sheen of mist and cloud. The entire region, when you can see through the clouds, is simply stunning. Miles of soaring mountains
We’ve been traveling for over six months. Â At this point we have slept in over 75 beds in 57 different cities and have taken 11 planes, 12 trains and 35 buses. We can now emphatically state that public transportation is gross. Being cooped up with several hundred people for hours at a time is never
A Mausoleum is not the same thing as a Museum, a fact that Vinnie didn’t know when he ventured into Mao’s final resting place last November. Those commies keep Mao on lock down.  You can’t get into the Mausoleum if you have a phone, a camera or any method of recording what you see inside those
In Vietnam every meal is accompanied with Chili sauce but it is certainly not the Chili sauce that so many of us have come to love. Though if you search hard enough, you can spot some Sriracha imitators! The chili sauce in Vietnam is mild with less garlic and heat. You can heap tablespoon upon
Some days are stranger than others. The strangest days usually involve some form of public transportation and/or farm animal. I thought having a rooster for a seatmate on a public bus was the height of absurdity. It wasn’t. Yesterday in MuiNe, we reached new levels of the bizarre and unusual. We rode an Ostrich. We watched
People had warned us that Vietnam had gone the way of Thailand: that is to say overrun with tourists, notably backpackers of the white and dreadlocked variety. This did not sound cool. There is a huge tourist scene in Vietnam but avoiding that crowd is unbelievably easy. Don’t get on a tour bus. Yes, it’s
Traveling as a couple has it’s advantages – you tend to have less harassment from touts, there is always someone to share in the inevitable travel frustrations and it’s cheaper to stay in your own room rather than a disgusting communal dorm. But there is one serious hardship – you are NEVER ALONE. Vin and
J’adore the children at Thien Phu’oc orphanage in Saigon. I was hesitant, dare I say nervous, to volunteer at an orphanage in Vietnam.  Not only had I never worked with children with disabilities but I was uncertain about how to volunteer exactly. Should I just call and show up?  Is it ok to barge in and
As a college freshman there are few things more important, or more fragile, than the reputation that you create for yourself during those first few weeks at school. At Kent State the freshman are banned to the lowliest housing – the dorms furtherest away from any of the classrooms AND all of the bars. The
