I took a break from blogging about empowering people via human motivation, innovation, building better workplaces and whatnot in May of 2012. Since then, I started a business, ended a long term relationship, ended a business, went traveling in Southeast Asia, took a TEFL course, fell in love, moved to Thailand and got a job: teaching blogging to high school students, and fell out of love.
Read MoreI was in Anchor Wat in 2009, so I skipped it on this trip. I spent a few days in the Capitol, Phnom Penh and then headed to the beach. Phnom Penh is pretty meh. The thing that made me crazy is that there was garbage piled up in the streets, as if the garbage collectors were on strike. In some places it was 3 meters high. Talk about a disease
Read MoreIt is a short ride from Nha Trang to Da Lat and a beautiful one. I spent a few hours driving through the mountains and had a welcome respite from the heat. Da Lat is a slowly crumbling French mountain town, that just happens to be in Vietnam.
Read MoreHue is the most beautiful city I have seen in Vietnam, it was the old imperial capitol and it still shows. It’s also a place for artists and education is highly valued here. As I head south the food gets better, one can only eat so much noodle soup!
Read MoreI have been in a lot of caves. All the major ones in the US and a bunch of others around the world. Thien Duong Cave, better known as Paradise Cave is 31 km long! Tourists can venture in for the first 1.5 km. This part of the cave has a huge walkway and great lighting, the designers of the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park have done a phenomenal job.
Read MoreMy last stop before Hanoi was Ba Be lake, a national park with 3 interconnected lakes. I did a homestay in a village on the lake and stayed for two nights at a place called Duy Tho. It was beautiful and affordable. I rented a boat for a day, which was expensive and loud, but I got to see the lake.
Read MoreI just spent four days riding through the Ha Giong area. It’s what the guide books call Vietnam’s final frontier. It has a lot of historical value as Ho Chi Minh spent a bunch of time there, it was a safe haven, it’s also on the border with China. You have to buy a permit to enter the area.
Read MoreToday it took me 7 hours to travel 125 kilometers. Most of that time was spent going 50 kilometers on a single track road, ok, trail, throught the backcountry. It was the most challenging day I have ever had on a motorcycle in 15 years of riding and I’ve ridden cross country in the US twice and been as far as the end of the Pan America Highway in Panama.
Read MoreThe second day on my new bike brought me to Than Uyen, it’s a good thing I ended up going back to Hanoi, if I’d continued on from Son La directly to Than Uyen, like I had planed, I would have ended up at a road that stops at a river and no bridge! I might have been able to hire someone with a boat to transport me, but luckily I did not have to deal with that.
Read MoreIt took me 5 days to decide on a motorcycle, I ended up with a 2009, Yamaha, YBR 125G. It cost me a bit more than twice what I thought I would spend. My research was based on what I could find on the web, which is advice from folks on a very low budget. I’m also on a low budget, but i don’t care how much a bike costs, i care how much I can sell it for, how reliable it is and how comfortable it is.
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