Well, my month in Vietnam is winding to a close. Here's a recap of the specifics for how I did Vietnam!  I don't think you need a full month to see this country; I probably could have planned better and finished this all in 3 weeks. And if I had planned it a little better, I could have definitely squeezed in two places in the south that I thought sounded interesting, Mui Ne and Da Lat. (I intentionally bypassed Nha Trang, the popular beach city, because I heard it was overrun with Russians and discothèques blasting cheesy dance music.) By flying from Ho Chi Minh to Da Nang, I sped up the trip a bit, then have kind of lagged with blocking off too much time in Hanoi as "down time" in between side trips to Cat Ba and Sapa. However, one of the things I've enjoyed most about this trip is having time to actually sit and write for the fun of it, and having the opportunity to do this here has been nice, especially since I found a great café with air con that hasn't seemed to mind me camping out in it for hours on end.

All right, without further ado, let's get down to business.