Hello from Catba Island! a fairly large island in Halong Bay, about four hours’ bus ride and two hours’ boat ride from Hanoi. It’s gorgeous here, and much nicer than Hanoi…lots of open space, not too many people, no aggressive moto drivers, and generally much more laid-back. And the scenery is *amazing*. Halong Bay is [...]
Apologies for the last email; I hit some random key on the keyboard, and before you know it, well… I arrived in Hanoi this morning on the night bus–it turns out not to be too bad, only 12 hours between Hue and Hanoi (not bad for some 800 km). Some of the roads are good [...]
Well, I’m learning more about the tourist scams in Vietnam. It seems every country has a different way of ripping off tourists: in Thailand, it’s blithely upping the asking price, in Cambodia, it’s guilt-tripping. In Vietnam, it’s slipping extra items into the bill. And mysteriously changing the price, usually halfway through negotiations, or post facto. [...]
Oh, Great Mother, never again. I can’t believe I actually *did* that… So, I spent yesterday morning wandering around Hoi An, and napping–I’ve been feeling a bit tired and so have been sleeping more than usual, to forestall any new colds. The vendors had all watched me wander around for several days now, and–this being [...]
First, I had a very surreal moment last night when I opened up Yahoo! News and found Liberate headlining the tech section…weird. You never really expect to see people you know in the news. ( http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=569&ncid=738&e=1&u=/nm/20021228/tc_nm\ /tech_liberate_dc , if you’re interested.) I hope things are OK there, but I suspect not. I’m rather glad to [...]
