How I Did Vietnam

Jenne Raub May 16, 2015

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.

*Did not bring this fellow home with me*

Things I Wish I'd Packed for SE Asia

Jenne Raub May 16, 2015

All things considered, I'm a pretty good packer. Definitely, a light packer. Very light. So light I didn't pack certain things I really wish I had with me. Here's a list:

1. Hand sanitizer

I realize this will be strange for some people, but personally I find hand sanitizer really gross. It's goopy, it's wet, it doesn't make me feel like my hands are clean. I'm one of those hot-water-and-soap folks. But here, where there can be a real lack of places to wash one's hands after using very questionable toilets, some hand sanitizer would be welcome. Add touching unpleasant surfaces like hand railings on buses and trains into the mix and hand sanitzer is one item I definitely wish I'd added to my bag. (Of course I have two bottles of the stuff back home, why didn't I think to just throw one in, just in case?)

Hanoi'd

Jenne Raub May 16, 2015

"Hanoi'd" was the name of my last blog post that was randomly deleted when I went in to edit it. Thanks to the Squarespace app, there's no way to go in and get an original draft; for some inexplicable reason, the copy deletes and the document saves, so there's no way to get it back. Very, very annoying.

I thought it was apropos to keep "Hanoi'd" as the title because that is an apt description of my life over the past week. Thanks to some lame planning on my part, I gave myself a little more time in Vietnam than was necessary, and won't be flying to Singapore until Tuesday. This means that I've had loads of time in Hanoi, despite side trips to Cat Ba Island and Sapa. Way more than needed. And I already wrote about my trip to Cat Ba, but thanks to Squarespace's stupidity, I'll do a quick recap to get all ten of you readers up to speed.

A quick update

Jenne Raub May 15, 2015

So two of my most recent posts have deleted, thanks to some kind of issue with Squarespace's app/design/software where the words in my posts randomly disappear, then the post resaved with the content over written. When I get back to Hanoi tomorrow (I've been trekking in Sapa), I will rewrite and repost. Bear with me! And maybe think twice before you go with Squarespace to publish your blog.

How I Did Vietnam

Things I Wish I'd Packed for SE Asia

Hanoi'd

A quick update

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