Hill Country
After our visit to Cát Bà and Hạ Long Bay, we took one more excursion from Hà Nội. We visited the mountainous northern region of Sa Pa, home to the Mountain Hmong, with a side…
Shopping & Handicrafts
It will not shock you to learn that Vietnam has a rich, deep culture of making beautiful things, and that those things are well represented in Hà Nói. From the 36 Streets to craft villages…
We All Scream For Museum!
Hà Nói is a capital city, and has the allotment of high quality museums you’d expect as a result. From fine art to historical to ethnographic, Hà Nói has it all. So let’s go museuming.…
Are You Experiencing?
Shopping is an experience, and one of our favorites, but it’s hardly the only way to engage with culture wherever we are. There’s performance, generally of some historically culturally relevant art forms, like the Apsara…
Cát Bà: So Long, Hạ Long Bay
You know Hạ Long Bay. Maybe not by name, but by iconic representation. It’s like Bayon Temple in Cambodia. The name probably causes a puzzled look, but once you see a picture of those massive…
Swimming To Vietnam
Getting out of Cambodia was surprisingly pleasant. First, when we’d dashed through the Siem Reap airport on arrival, after 30+ hours of travel, I think our eyes were too crusted over to properly appreciate how…
Haircut à la Hà Nội
There are other places that do this in Southeast Asia, but it wasn’t a thing in Cambodia. Of course it’s a Thailand thing. You’d expect that. And it’s not the dominant model anywhere, but it’s…
Phnom Kulen: The Holy Mountain
Two days before our departure to Vietnam we have one last adventure: a visit to Kulen Mountain. We’ve pushed it so far back in our schedule because it has the potential to be the most…
Temples All Around, Barkeep
This region of Cambodia, the beating heart of the ancient Khmer Angkor kingdom, reminds me of nothing so much as Carthage (here and here), in the sense that you can’t swing a cat without hitting…
Arts & Crafts
At first blush, Cambodia seemed to us to be a relatively handicraft light culture. Obviously, that’s not the case. Anywhere. There’s weaving, painting, leather work, ceramics, printing… What fooled us is that the aesthetic here…