Tag: Asia
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On Friday, we went to Macau. We had gone back and forth on whether to go, but in the end decided that we wanted to complete our trifecta of Not China while we were in the area. Macau isโฆvery odd. It was a Portugese colony starting in the 1500s, and now itโs the gambling capital…
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We picked a difficult time to visit Hong Kong. We had booked this trip several months ago, before protests picked up in June, and as the trip grew closer we watched the news carefully and with increasing alarm, especially when the western news stopped covering the protests and it became increasingly difficult to find accurate…
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On Sunday, we had an entire day on our own to explore the city. We started with coffee, of course, before heading to the weekend jade and flower markets. The jade market was a set of stalls selling wood, jade, and other stone jewelry and sculptures. The flower market had a lot of flowers, but…
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A quick disclaimer about this collection of blogs – during this trip we visited three regions that, while China considers them to be part of China, consider themselves varying degrees ofโฆnot China. Hong Kong and Macau are Special Administrative Regions of China, and Taiwan doesnโt have an official status because no one can agree on…
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We spent our last two days in Vietnam wandering around Hanoi, the capital city. Our hotel was located about a mile from the Old Quarter, which, as the name suggests, is where the original city was located. We spent most of Saturday on a tour with Dang around the city. In contrast to the south,…
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On Thursday, we flew to Hanoi and drove to Hแบก Long. While we were on the bus (it was almost a 4-hour drive from Hanoi to Hแบก Long), Dang started telling us about the attitude toward Americans in the north. He told us a story about a tour group he had last year that included…
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As I sat on a bicycle and was towed up a hill in the Huรฉ countryside by a Vietnamese woman on a moped, it occurred to me that even if we had just been scammed out of $12, this experience was probably worth it. We started the morning with a quiet walk to the Citadel.…
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On Monday morning, 17 of us (a much more manageable number) took a boat ride on the Thu Bแปn River to the Kim Bแปng traditional carpentry village. It was lovely and cool with a nice breeze. Along the way, we learned a little more about Dang and he taught us about traditional ways of life…
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On Sunday morning, I spent sunrise walking along the Saigon River. This was a brilliant idea I had at 5 in the morning when I couldnโt go back to sleep. It was slightly less hot and humid, and there was less traffic, which helped with crossing the busy streets to get to the dock. The…
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When we told people that we were vacationing in Vietnam, we inevitably got one of two answers: an excited โwow, thatโs awesome!โ Or a confused and slightly alarmed โwhy?โ The probability of getting each answer had a generational skew; people who had solid memories of the Vietnam war were much more likely to question our…