Vietnam
Empty road beneath Fan Si Pan near the town of Sapa
[Vietnam] I heard there was this incredible single lane paved road that wound its way around Vietnam’s highest mountain – Fan Si Pan – and headed toward the Laos border. There was a place in Sapa that rented Russian motorcycles, and so I set out. It was empty road winding through jungle and mountains in […]
Halong Bay (2)
[Vietnam] Utterly perfect weather. We periodically climb off the boat and fool around on various islands. We hike on some, explore caves on others. Huynh tells me of his desire to work for one of the new hotels. Getting any sort of entry job requires an enormous bribe to the manager – roughly $500. It […]
Five of us motor through Halong Bay
[Vietnam] I rent a boat, and with it comes a boatman, a guide, a cook, and the boat’s owner. We meander for several days among and through hundreds of islands, stopping to buy meals from floating seafood farms. Shrimp, eels, fish, crab, scampi. As we wind our way through the limestone karst formations that make […]
The town of Bai Chay
[Vietnam] I walk out of the small, dilapidated Hanoi terminal, and find the first taxi that will drive me the four hours directly to Halong Bay. Later, I find myself in a tiny three room hotel on the shore of the seaside village of Bai Chay. Only this morning I had woken up on the […]