Hanoi was cool. It’s a wildly interesting city were everything is simultaneously super fast paced and also very laid back. Of course traffic is the craziest thing to a new comer to Vietnamese cities, but after a day or two the at first madness due to complete and total lack of rules becomes a beautifully symbiotic dance. If you need to cross the street, just … Continue reading Hanoi to Cat Ba On Two Wheels

We arrived in Hanoi and after serendipitously seeing an old friend’s (actually a previous professor’s) insta post that he was traveling SEA for 2 weeks we were able to meet up with my old pal Frank Cirioni and his betrothed for a beer and some dinner on our first night. We spent the next day and a half seeing the sights of Hanoi and checking … Continue reading Sa Pa: A Two day Tour

I preface this with the fact I am not a perfect Vietnam war scholar and am sharing information as it was presented to me at the UXO LAO visitor center. If anything below is incorrect and you have more knowledge please email me and I will look into it further. Thank you. I’ve mentioned before the visible impacts the varying changes in governmental structures over … Continue reading UXO LAO

Laos has an interesting history. The country was under French colonial control from up until peace conventions disbanded most European colonies in 1945 at the end of World War Two. The French influence is definitely still present in this city in everything from the small quite streets and their architecture to the French style baguette breads found all over the city. Interestingly one of the … Continue reading Luang Prabang: The French City on the Mekong

On the bus ride back from Pai Athena and I were stuck in the way back of a minivan, surrounded by backpacks as we careened around the twisty road. Three nauseating hours later we made it to Chiang Mai. We got in around 1pm and had originally intended to just get a bus to Chiang Rai that day, but right as we got there the … Continue reading Chiang Rai and a Slow Boat to Laos

They call it “getting stuck in the Pai hole”. Just one of many plays on the word Pai (pie) in this town. The pai hole itself refers to overwhelming sense of comfort that this tiny northern Thai town can create leading many to stay much longer than first intended and as can be seen by some of the “locals” staying indefinitely.  It’s a strange town … Continue reading Pai: True Backpacker Heaven

There’s a reason so many travelers love Chiang Mai. It has a little of everything for all different types of people. Hostels pop-up like weeds all over the city and range from 90THB ($3) to 3000+THB ($100+) a night. Every corner has a travel booking agency with activities like hiking nearby mountains, ATV rides through the jungle, elephant experiences and so many more. And then … Continue reading Chiang Mai: Everybody’s Home

A small metropolitan area, New Sukhothai services tourism to the old city 14km west. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, old Sukhothai contains the ruins of more than 40 temples of all different sizes as it was once the capital of Thailand 700 years ago. Broken into 3 zones, the central, northern and western it offers a great few days of ruin sightseeing and countryside exploration. … Continue reading Sukhothai: The Ancient Capital

We got to Thailand in the late afternoon and bought a sim card for the googling. 7 days, 5GB of data….179thb. For those of you keeping track at home that’s about $6. We got a taxi to our hotel being prepared to get extremely ripped off but the taxi driver was very friendly and told us how he loved picking people up from the airport … Continue reading Bangkok: Definitely not the silent city