Seat of Our Pants

Vietnam in photos

Check out our photos of Vietnam by clicking here. You can check out all our photos in the photo gallery page here.

The compromise

Please let me preface this post by saying: I am not pregnant! So…I think it’s absolutely natural for the ol’ biological clock to be ticking at my age. And, not only that, but the clock wants to stock up on cute ethnic baby clothes while we’re traveling. We won’t be back here until after the [...]

Cyclo shmyclo

If you find yourself in Hanoi and are considering accepting a group tour that includes a cyclo tour around town (imagine a bicycle with a basket in the front , where you sit) – put the brochure down and walk away!!!! We’ve seen a number of these caravan cyclo tours slowly making their way down [...]

Bummer!  Ol’ Uncle Ho’s 40 year old mummy was closed to the public today. As a runner-up excursion we made our way to the Ho Chi Minh museum. Oh. Great.  Sweet. Well to our great surprise, it was actually kind of sweet, but not for its subject matter, which was of course not ground breaking. [...]

What’s This?

We’ve seen this type of marketing all over Hanoi. Phone numbers have been painted on every available space: on walls, garbage cans, post boxes and fire hydrants. We think the numbers have to do with either taxis or women of ill repute. If any of our readers care to find out, the international dialing code [...]

The Elusive Mummy

We’ve tried to get a look at Ho Chi Minh’s mummy three times now, and there always seems to be something that gets in the way. Today we got to the mausoleum nice and early, only to find it closed for the day. It’s a pity – I’ve always wanted to see one of the [...]

Summit!

It took us a day and a half and 6 blisters to reach Mt. Fansipan’s summit, which was pretty spectacular, as this video shows.

Layovers

We just discovered that we have a 10 hour layover in Hong Kong en route to Sweden (our next destination). Bacon volunteered to illustrate how we all feel about it. Does anyone have suggestions about what we should do with our 10 hours in Hong Kong?

Fansipan Trekking Report

Here’s a little report on how to climb Fansipan in two days. I’m leaving it here for anyone to read: hopefully it can help a prospective hiker to decide if the hike is something you may want to do.  

Sapa – an overview

If you plan a trip to Sapa, arrange to arrive early in the week. We arrived on a Tuesday and found it a peaceful mountain town with plenty of options for shopping, local trekking and relaxing. As the days passed we noticed a dramatic increase in crowds, culminating in densely packed streets on Saturday for [...]

TMI

Trekking injury report

Why complaining seems silly

Martin and I are in decent shape. We haven’t exercised since leaving home (that is, if you don’t count the 33 oz curls we do while writing these posts). The Mt. Fancypants trek kicked our butt but we don’t have any room to complain – look closely at this group photo and you’ll see that [...]

Throwin’ em back

We hit up the outdoor market for breakfast the morning of our trek up Mt. Fancypants. While loading up on carbs and thinking healthy trekking thoughts, we sat opposite this group of H’mong men who were throwing back moonshine. It was 8:00 in the morning. To each his own.

Sucker bracelet update

It’s official. We’re suckers. Sapa’s handicraft-touting women batted their eyelashes, took our money and left us branded with these brightly colored reminders of all the unnecessary purchases we’ve made. Well played Sapa ladies, well played.