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…
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…
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…
A Horse Walks Into A Bar…
On the evening of Day Two post-apocalyptic fall, I abandoned Dorothy and headed out on a solo visit to Siem Reap’s famous night markets. The night market area is also the locus for what’s known…
Limping To Cambodia
I am very, very good at figuring out how to get things done. I may not be the person you want setting the course, but if you tell me what you want done I’ll figure…
DTour To AgriCulture
Chicago’s most obvious benefits are Chicago-centric: museums, galleries, restaurants, neighborhoods… The less obvious benefits are regional. Chicago is hard by a ton of really interesting places and beautiful sights. The Indiana Dunes are an hour…
The Old City, And How It Got Its Name
The Old City is home to many of Istanbul’s greatest hits: Topkapi Palace, the Hagia Sophia, The Blue Mosque, and the Grand Bazaar. The problem is that every one of these locations is on the…
Kapadokya: Land Of Fairies
Or, as it’s Anglicized and better known, Cappadocia. Ground Zero for Instagrammable hot air balloons. If you know us you’ll be unsurprised that we didn’t go aloft. What may surprise you, and certainly surprised us,…
… Not Constantinople
We keep going on about how the places we’ve been visiting are so old. “Ooh, Guanajuato dates to the 1500s!” “Holy shit, Marrakech was founded in 1070.” “Wait a minute, the Phoenicians lost Carthage in…