Most Memorable Moments: Vietnam

•Adding Singapore—one more country added to our trip
•Waking up on overnight train to see lush green Northern Vietnam with a rich grey sky and fog low over the fields
•Vietnamese couples showing actual public affection in the parks (what would have otherwise gone unnoted was particularly welcomed after five weeks in India)
•All of the parks, period: beautifully kept parks in both Hanoi and Sapa
•My favorite porter on the trek offering me his hand on steep terrain (a roughly 65 year old tiny man with two gold teeth, hiking circles around the rest of us, carrying our food, making our food, throwing back rice wine, and taking more hits of tobacco on the water bong than any of the other hilltribe men combined.)
(That same porter showing Zack how to use the bamboo water bong)



•Trekking through fields and fields of rice paddies…with nothing in view but fields and fields of rice paddies.
•Mid-hike jumping in the stream

•Crossing Indiana Jones-like bridges
•Vietnamese lady at train station selling “sexy lady lighters”
•Playing Frisbee in the park in Sapa with Mike, Tate, and four Vietnamese school boys


•Vietnamese faces
•Vietnamese children: hands down, the cutest children in the world
•Cave spelunking

•Eating phoo with chopsticks on tiny, wobbly plastic stools on the street with Vietnamese instead of in restaurants with tourists for a quarter the price
.Walking through the market



•Watching Vietnamese exercise at sunrise in the park and the next day joining in for aerobics
•My birthday! -balloons, seven dollar hair cut with twenty minute head massage, water puppet show, birthday gifts, birthday pig, and the “Funky Monkey” nightclub
•Being given a pair of earrings from a woman in a shop because it was my birthday
•Asiana Airlines (always a pleasure with Asiana—not to be confused with Air Asia which is atrocious)



•The glory that is the Korean airport: comfortable for sleeping, pristinely clean, free internet, showers, food vouchers for long layover, complimentary musical performances and cultural museum with free crafts