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Much of the country was devastated in the American War, but a few ancient towns survived. Hoi An is the most popular of those. Almost all buildings in the old center have stood for centuries, and even newer neighborhoods try to be sensitive of the past. I have occasionally complained about towns that sold their…

The bus between Hué and Hoi An is so boring that all I remember of the last time I used it is being disappointed that it uses the new tunnel rather than climbing over the mountains separating former North and South Vietnam. So I used a motorcycle tour that took me all the way west…

On my last visit, they were still restoring the royal citadel of Hué, destroyed in the American War. Now several more buildings are completed, but there is still lots of empty space with the scars of that war. The walled old quarter is still beautiful, tranquil, and amazingly untouched by tourism. The eastern end of…

The city of Hue is famous for improbably elaborate meals. Went to a restaurant that I discovered four years ago and instantly loved. It hadn’t changed, except now a tour bus was parked outside. Had my usual ten-course lunch, starting with spring rolls. How would you serve spring rolls? Put them on a plate, add…

Spent a few days on tiny Monkey Island, just off Cat Ba. The area’s highlight is Halong Bay, a dream seascape of steep karst mountains rising from the South China Sea. But I have been there before – and the sky was overcast – so I decided to check out some islands. My island is…

Everyone here has a cell phone. There are phone shops all over the place, and they are all similar: a big and usually brightly colored and slightly fading sign over the door announcing “iPhone” or “Apple Store”, a brand-new sign wrapped around the display cases saying “Samsung”, and the actual display cases which are filled…

Didn’t feel like just taking the train back to Hanoi, so I got on a rickety local bus south to a big lake, at Thac Ba. It’s so off the tourist trail that it took me an hour to find a hotel – not labeled as such of course – ignoring several locals explaining that…

Bac Ha is much more impressive than Sapa. Trails run along the mountainsides, high above the valleys with great views. There are fewer villages up there but I had a great guide, Hung, who comes from a minority village himself and got us invited into numerous private homes. The houses of the Flower H’Mong tribe,…

The countryside around Bac Ha is a vertical version of Sapa. Roads wind along the edges of mountains, with beautiful views of valleys and endless ladders of rice terrace upon rice terrace. Scattered between them are the minority villages, just as poor as the ones near Sapa. They build with mud walls here though. The…

All around Sapa are the tiny villages of the H’Mong and other minorities, who live mainly as rice farmers. Every accessible piece of land in the valleys is terraced. I spent seven hours walking among the fields and villages, away from the tourist roads. We had a major thunderstorm yesterday so the paths are soaked.…

Sapa is at the northern edge of Vietnam, at the border to China. I am not planning to cross over into China though, they have tightened the visa restrictions so much recently that it’s not practical. I hope China won’t destabilize… They’ve arrested a politburo member recently. Anyway, Sapa is high up in the mountains,…

I have done all the obligatory sights on my previous visit, so I had time to see the neighborhoods of Hanoi, and talk to the people who live there. I had a guide who took me to the hidden little alleys and distant places where tourists do not normally venture. I have seen barbecued dogs.…

Roaming the little alleys of Makassar near the harbor, some little wider than a meter, and as always responding to all calls of “hello misterrr”. At one point there was a bunch of older children in an Internet café, and Google Translate actually let us communicate, after a fashion. The crowd quickly grew to 20…

Makassar is the largest town on Sulawesi, and has very little touristic value. Found a nice neighborhood at the old port, some distance from the center. Lots of old wooden Bugis boats, tightly packed, being loaded by people carrying sacks of cement, sugar, vegetables, and more. Talked to a sailor who loves to read Goethe…

Just returned from a two-day trekking tour north of Rantepao, with a local guide. The countryside is hilly, with many fields, bamboo forests, and small villages. Everything is bright green, as only rice paddies can be. We followed the walls between the paddies, but it had rained the night before and the paths were very…

Got the full ceremony today. The bodies were brought out after resting at home for a year, and pushed up to the family home (pictured – note the peculiar roofs)  one last time before they’ll be finally buried. There were hundreds of guests in large wooden pavillons built specifically for this ceremony, plus a couple…

Rantepao is a town in the middle of Sulawesi. It’s hard to get here; the interior roads in Sulawesi are so bad that it takes three days by bus from one end to the other. There aren’t a lot of tourists here and the town doesn’t have a lot of tourist facilities, besides a number…

More muck diving plus corals. Saw lionfish that looks like a mobile circus, stingrays, and lots more of those oddly named nudibranchs that look like many-colored jewels on the corals. Also a mimic octopus trying but not quite succeeding to blend into the seafloor, until it shot off to safety, away from all those big…

Sounds charming, does it, but it really means diving over a dark sandy seafloor. The guide pokes this and that with his pointer, and suddenly a small school of fish bursts out of the ground, or a warty Devil Scorpion Fish gives up its perfect camouflage and swims away, or a fish with tall fins…

Gave myself a birthday present today: I am now a licensed open water diver, after completing the last set of training dives. All were out in the sea, none of that pool nonsense. You learn how to put the gear together, buoyancy, losing and recovering mask and regulator, emergency procedures, and dive planning. Plus practice…

So what do you do in a dive center? Dive, of course. I don’t have a license but they have instructors. The reefs seem a little less interesting than the ones at Pulau Weh (see way down on this blog) but of course they don’t let me dive the really deep places. Got to change…

I so love getting up at three in the morning. Well, it got me out of Jakarta and to Bunaken, a small island off the coast of Sulawesi, which is a large Indonesian island northeast of Java. Bunaken is very quiet; there is just one tiny village. People come here for diving. On unrelated news,…

The fastest way to go from Yogyakarta to Jakarta is by train. The luxury executive train may lack elegance (and speed) but it’s certainly spacious and comfortable. Eight hours of rural panoramas of Java: endless rice paddies, little villages, lakes, and green hills in the background. Jakarta continues to fail to enamor me. Not only…

Java isn’t like Bali, it’s more like Indonesia. Gone are the posh resorts, the vans with tinted windows, the busloads of Australians invading temples like cellphone-wielding locusts, and the westernized malls. Yogyakarta, or Jogja as it’s called here, has no synthetic attractions and caters mostly to locals. Very refreshing. Much cheaper too. Rented a becak…

I have been to Bali before but never to the northern end. They have some pretty major mountains and a volcano there. The water temple is on a lake at 1200 meters. The temples themselves are not accessible but they have a big platform where monks do a sort of brief pray-in, scheduled by a…

Time to leave the Gilis… The speedboat I had booked promptly broke down before it could leave, and we had to wait for another one. In Indonesia such things are not a reason to get upset. The minibus that brought us from the harbor to our destinations got stuck in Denpasar’s traffic maelstrom, no news…

The Gili islands are wonderfully relaxing, but after a while it does get a little tiring if every local I talk to drops into that signature whisper after a minute: hashish? Ecstasy? Cocaine? “Super duper mega radical maximum fuckin’ bloody fresh magic mushroom”, end quote? Just a block behind the beach promenade, the locals have…

Drugs are illegal in Indonesia so you have to promise the dealers not to report their offers. Enforcement seems a little lackluster.… Read the rest

There’s three tiny islands off the coast of Lombok, called the Gilis. Small green jewels, quiet, wooded, no motor traffic, endless beaches. Gili Trawangan has the most visitors and the occasional party, so people call it Gili Tralala. I got a traditional hut in a very nice resort. The island is small enough to walk…

The ferry was canceled on Thursday so I was stuck on Flores for another day. Chartered a motorcycle with driver to see more of the Island and some caves. Very friendly, green, and pretty little villages. Afterwards he showed me his home and seven days old son. The Friday ferry to Sumbawa was going, rather…