colleen stinchcombe

From Siem Reap I flew to Hanoi. On the plane, I sat next to two Americans from… Florida, I think? (I remember the man’s name was Richard because it got said several times, but I can’t remember the girl’s name.) Yet again, I hadn’t organized transportation from the airport, and so as we got ready…

I have some work to get done, but I know I’ll have the afternoon to explore, so I go down to breakfast and try to make friends. There I meet a New Zealand girl named Caitlin who doesn’t have solid plans, so I convince her to go with me to Crazy House and Maze Bar.…

Well, I survived the night bus, which was both better and worse than I had imagined. Better: No locals hopped on our tourist bus at night & robbed us, our driver didn’t speed or drive recklessly, the air-conditioning was in working order (these are the horror stories travelers told me about as we waited to…

After a day in Haiphong, I take an early morning flight to Da Nang airport and then a car to Hoi An. There are other, more scenic ways to travel but the hour and a half flight was (I just double checked this because I couldn’t believe my bank statement) $18.40, and uh… yeah. Hoi…

Note: I am writing this about a week later and my memory is hazy about the details of the day, so we’ll see how this goes. Last night, I made plans with four people I met on the boat over dinner – Jack and Caitlynn, who are also from Seattle(!) and Zwen and Stella, two…

If you go to north Vietnam, most would say you’d be missing out to not see Ha Long Bay. I’d agree. The area was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1994. Essentially every tour company sells a package, and you can do a day trip cruise or a multi-day cruise where you sleep overnight…

Not as much to report today as it was mostly a travel day. I fell asleep around 11 p.m., woke up at 2 a.m. to a nightmare that I’d had to tackle my dog out of the way of a moving vehicle, and didn’t fall asleep again until 5 a.m. Made the relatively mild 8…