River fun in Kampot, Cambodia

Martin and Dillon help create my first river blob experience. Exhilarating! Y’all should give it a go!

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

Controlled chaos, the end of the well oiled Vietnamese tourist trail for me. I learned some history at the War Remembrance museum and drifted gently down the Mekong Delta.

A surreal paddle down the Mekong Delta.

I provided most of the paddling of course.

No fear.

In Saigon (as well as Hanoi) college kids come out to the park and practice their English. White skin helps you become prey 🙂

How the War Remembrance museum begins. Informative, shocking, and makes you think about American involvement abroad. Well worth the visit.

Traffic on the road? No problem. Side walks are fair game.

Social dance at the park.

My best eating experience in Saigon. Order lunch in a tight alley, get ushered into a home where I share a table with a young girl. I take her picture, she takes mine, and I watch TV with grandma in front of the ancestor altar. And the food was tasty! $2 for a full plate with tea, watermelon, and soup.

Dalat, Vietnam

Dalat was my favorite city in Vietnam, likely due to the cooler weather and less touristy feel. The French made this their getaway back in the day. Its high elevation helped them (and me) dodge the crazy hot weather elsewhere in Indochina.

Central lake that was unexpectedly 6km to walk around when I thought it was going to be a 30 min stroll.

Strongest waterfalls I've seen here. You had the option to rollercoaster (yes, rollercoaster) down to these falls. I was too cheap to spend the $2 to do that and walked.

This is one way to bridge the gap between romanized languages and their character based past. Roundify.

The wine produced here was decent! Haha at least to the wedding reception open bar level.

Cable car built by the Austrians that dropped us off at a Buddhist temple. Go figure.

The view out into Dalat city.

Nha Trang, Vietnam

I ventured my way down south and arrived to the Russian beach town of Nha Trang where I mainly did activities like snorkeling and bike riding.

All Russian signage. There is a direct flight from Moscow to Nha Trang. Never seen so many Russians in my life. Wish I could communicate with them.

Going out snorkeling and tried scuba diving for the first time!

South central style pho. Breakfast everyday!

Nha Trang beach. View toward a big amusement park that's accessible by cable car.

Bike tour

Brit and Aussie teachers from Singapore with our guide.

Just biking through town.

Mountain biking time

This fruit is directly translated as "breast milk." Decent tasting.

Waterfall swimming. Water is so dark due to water depth.

More swimming

Personalize your tour

We’ve all been on subpar tour packages. We’ve been unwillingly taken to businesses and ended up paying more than the sticker price (What? The cable car/coffee/jeep aren’t included?). So when you’ve had the last straw, you exclaim, “Screw it. I’m doing it my own way!”

To instantly awesomify your next tour, (and by “you” I mean “me”)

Prep
1. Identify the objective.
Oh, the tour office has a hike that would cost $25. You think, “I could do that on my own…”
2. Figure our how to get there.
A detailed Trip Advisor posting on the Lang Biang mountain hike is 2 years old. They say to use bus #5 from Dalat. You cross reference with the restaurant and hotel. Nope, there ain’t no bus #5. Use “Lac Duong.” Um, can you write that down? And where exactly is the bus stop? The posting also says it’s difficult to find the hiker’s trail when you get there but helpfully posts pictures of the correct turns. You take some vital screenshots.
3. Stock up.
Ritz bits with cheese. Gummy worms.

Approach
1. When in doubt, ask. Don’t be a man.
2. Accept mistakes, many of them. You are winging it in a foreign country after all.

Top left: Screenshot of correct turn onto hiker's trail. Bottom: Waiting for the bus with motorcycle riders preying on passengers. Top right: Near collision with excavator.

Execute
1. Bus costs 20% more than expected.
2. Bus almost collides with heavy machinery.
3. Bus conductor helpfully points out return bus schedule.
4. No map at trailhead.
5. You can’t find the hiker’s trail and end up using the road where jeeps make you eat their nasty exhaust.
6. A Trip Advisor reviewer: “With 2 small children we messed around and took many breaks on our way up and it took 40 min to reach the top.” You take 3 hours.
7. You meet nice hikers who share reconnaissance info and offer to stick with you since you’re solo. “Naw, I got this.”
8. You make it to the 2000+m summit! Great city views.
9. As you descend you ask a ranger how to take the hiker’s trail. She helpfully points you in the right direction.
10. You see horses painted like zebras!?
11. Downpour on the way back. Luckily you’re on the bus already.
12. You celebrate with a fantastic cup of Americano in the “Swiss Alps of Vietnam.”

Top: You can take pictures of these "zebras" with Vietnamese cowboys and cowgirls. Go figure. Middle: At the top! Bottom: Walking through the pine trees on the elusive hiker's trail

Overall
Personalized touring = instant adventure.

Hoi An, Vietnam

Hoi An was spared from American bombing and is now a riverside town primarily known for silk and tailors. One can tailor make anything here. Suits, gowns, hats, shoes (sneakers, sandals too), trekking pants?! Even bikinis. Cost of suit (jacket and pants) ranges from $90-150. If an Aussie says it costs more to dry clean than a tailor made dress shirt ($20), then something is really out of whack! Here are some scenes.

First fitting. I ended up revisiting them 3 times. I’m just a princess when it comes to custom made.

People light incense around twice a day. Ancestor worship and praying for good fortune. Full moons and beginning of months are also times of lighting incense. Strong customs.

Me being a stalker again. Quite a beautiful photoshoot!

Sign with “fixed prices.” Good information for the savvy bargainer.

La plage. A nice bar fully equipped with everything you’d want at a beach. I did the pull ups and yoga routine. (That’s a routine??)

Scene: sleeper bus. Wife: "I can't sleep with this Vietnamese conductor man laying on the floor between me and my husband." Conductor: "I gotta hit the sack, man, screw it." Husband: "I'm just going to put on my headlamp and pretend nothing's happening. I've seen worse from the wifey. This is nothing."

Part 2: Motorcycle tour

There was a lot going on in this motorcycle tour. Here are more experiences.

Ho Chi Minh trail

Dip in the hot springs!

Large green haul

My 2 favorite signs - 1. There ain't no city here. 2. Matching game

China beach. I guess this looked like China to the Americans

Monastery perched above rice paddies

Another awesome view

Danang, looks like London to me.

Part 1: Motorcycle tour Hue to Hoian, Vietnam

This marks the first time I used the services of the number 1 ranked Trip Advisor establishment in a locale. The 3 day 2 night trip averaging 200+km per day presented a lesser trekked Vietnam, touching the Ho Chi Minh trail and the Laos border. I think easy riders are the way to go for motorcycles!

And we're off!

Our views in central Vietnam

Taking a refreshing dip in a waterfall

Juicy chicken wrapped in glutinous rice.

Vietcong tunnel. A whole village of 350 people lived in here for 6 years.

American tank

Red signifies mines have been removed

Nature calls

I have a friend who found himself rudely called to duty while hiking up a holy mountain.

This site displayed many Buddha statues etched into various caves pocketing the mountain faces. Hanging bats were chirping and an irrational fear of contracting rabies floated through his mind. A sweet Canadian mom and her two daughters he had met at the foot of the mountain eagerly advised him to explore the caves thoroughly and crawl through various passageways. “There’s more to it than it seems!” they chimed.

As my friend scrambled up some easy boulders, convinced of the veracity of the family’s claims, he felt a sudden intestinal pang.

It’s coming, and it can’t wait.

Topping out between fallen trees and stones, he discovered the roof was a bed of leaves. Without further ado, he carefully but hurriedly deposited his payload into a small hole, covered it with shrubs, and used some half dead leaves to clean his backside (his mental calculus at the time reasoned dead leaves were too brittle for the task, and live ones could carry microbes, so he took the middle road). He scanned the surroundings and was assured that he was alone. The deed was done. What was done could not be undone.

Feeling lighter, he down climbed and cheerfully started a conversation with an Aussie pair, who remarked that this site must have been at least a thousand years old. They handed him their DSLRs and smartphones to snap a few photos amidst the pokerfaced Buddhas. Sure thing.

If I were in his place, I really don’t know if I could have done it. What audacity!

Hanoi, Vietnam

Hanoi: a bustling city that brought me back to the Taipei of my childhood. I was quite singular in my tourist endeavors here, intentionally doing just a thing a day. A visit to the Museum of Ethnology, cooking class, the water puppet theater, the only rock climbing gym, and walking around Hoan Kiem Lake were all good times. I was hampered by a cold that took me out 5 days.. Bummer.

Woman in traditional Ao dai by Hoan Kiem lake

Turtle tower at night.

Games out of nothing.

Big pimpin by the lake.

Street food!

Prosperity and fortune. My name has the "prosperity" character on the left.

Cooking class. Papaya salad. Spring rolls. Lemongrass chicken. All quite edible!

Water puppets

Vietclimb. Heavily French.

Musician in the water puppet theater

Swans in West Lake.