You’d think I just wouldn’t want to stop writing about our travels in Vietnam, but truth be told it’s been almost a month since I went to task on it. The process is always a tad bittersweet for me. Vietnam was wonderful and it was hard. Some days I miss the place so much I …
In the last few days before we left Thanh Hoa last September, I asked Mr. Thanh to help me with some shopping. I really wanted a hammock. They are all over Vietnam, in all sorts of styles. In Hanoi, street vendors try to sell them to the Westerners–“Silk. Very nice. You buy only $20.” I …
I have a reading this evening at Marylhurst University, and I’ve managed to whittle what had been a chapter down to two pages to read aloud: Not one of the two dozen children who live at the baby orphanage come out to greet us when Jo and I ride in, ringing our bike bells in …
I’ve been trying to update this page for some time now with pictures, but rarely can I get on and even more rarely can I upload pictures. What a shame. So what’s been happening? Last Sunday we went to the beach with students from the first year: Giang, Giang and Thanh all came, the last …
Thanks to the kindness of my student Chinh, we were able to hitch a bus down to Ninh Binh and a cab ride out to Tam Coc. She has always lived within an hour’s drive of the beauty that is Tam Coc, but had never been. It was my pleasure to bring her along for …
And the definition of wealthy changes wherever you go. In Vietnam, I make enough money to afford us to spend our weekends in Ha Noi, traipsing around the city eating expensive Western food and taking taxis to museums. I come back to Thanh Hoa and gripe about the insanity of prices in the northern capitol, …
After more than nine weeks in Thanh Hoa, we finally returned to the beach that sits only 15 km away. I’m not sure what took us so long to get back there, but either way the situation was remedied. I had the middle of the week off, so on Wednesday morning we took a taxi …
How is it that no matter where you are life does not go according to plans? Our time has been cut short by more than a week; a week that we were going to spend traveling around the country. Unfortunately when our visas were renewed, they only gave us until the 12th. I will finish …
On Saturday afternoon we headed out to Vincom Towers to visit the arcade. You can imagine our disappointment when we arrived and the doors were locked, the room was empty. Of course there was a sign, but we couldn’t read it. Frustrated, we decided to walk around the mall and just happened to stumble upon …
