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Author: Heather

Watching Football in Vietnam

Watching Football in Vietnam

When we arrived at our Homestay on An Binh Island we heard cheering and yelling coming from the next door neighbor’s house. Our host smiled and explained that they were watching “the football match” (football meaning soccer, of course). Later when we were relaxing in hammocks we noticed some of the younger members of our host family circled around a laptop watching something intently and occasionally jumping up and shouting. When they noticed us staring they explained that Vietnam was…

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Vietnamese Moto-Culture: Guest Post by Dan

Vietnamese Moto-Culture: Guest Post by Dan

One of the things I found most interesting about Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) was the scooter/motorbike culture. HCMC spans 2096 square kilometers, has 8,000,000 people, and what feels like twice that number of motorbikes. That’s a big city. That’s a lot of people and a lot of motorbikes. I had been warned, both by friends and by travel guides, how hard it was to cross the street. I was ready for this though. I’ve been to Bangkok and Beijing,…

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Homestay on An Binh Island

Homestay on An Binh Island

After our day exploring the floating markets we decided to continue our stay in the Mekong Delta region at a homestay on An Binh Island. Our hotel in Can Tho arranged a shuttle to take us to the ferry station in Vinh Long where we boarded the ferry to An Binh. We wandered off the ferry looking confused and were quickly accosted by moto-taxi drivers offering to take us to our homestay. We were a little hesitant about jumping on…

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Visiting Vietnam’s Floating Markets: A Day in the Mekong Delta:

Visiting Vietnam’s Floating Markets: A Day in the Mekong Delta:

Yesterday afternoon Dan and I took a bus from Ho Chi Minh City south to Can Tho, the biggest city in the Mekong Delta region, with the goal of getting up early and spending a day at Vietnam’s famous floating markets. We fist heard of the floating markets while watching a travel show on Netflix and it looked like an experience we couldn’t pass up. After some initial confusion about where where to buy bus tickets we successfully made it…

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Four Days in Ho Chi Minh City

Four Days in Ho Chi Minh City

We are four days into our trip and I’m struggling to put my impressions of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) into words. We arrived at 1AM on Wednesday night after almost 20 hours of travel and I have to admit that, in my exhausted and jet lagged state, I did not love Ho Chi Minh for the first couple of days. We spent our first two days wandering around the city, trying to get our bearings and trying not to…

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What We Packed

What We Packed

When I started telling people about our plans for this adventure I got a lot of questions about what we would pack for such a long trip so I thought it might be interesting to share what we ended up bringing. We knew we wanted to do this backpacker-style, which means no rolling luggage. We’ve traveled with backpacking packs on our last couple of international trips and it is definitely much easier for negotiating trains, buses and other public transportation…

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The Decision to Go

The Decision to Go

It seems appropriate to start this blog with some background information about me and why my husband, Dan, and I have decided to leave behind our life in San Francisco and go on this trip.  I am originally from San Diego, California and I moved to the Bay Area twelve years ago to attend college at UC Berkeley.  I instantly fell in love with the Bay Area and when I graduated from college in 2009, at the peak of the…

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