Quick Update: We’re still alive and kicking!

by Sharon

We have finally made it to Thailand!  After spending over a month in Vietnam and then three weeks in Cambodia, we have finally crossed the border into the most heavily touristed country in Southeast Asia.  Unfortunately, we only have 13 days to spend here since a tourist Visa is only 15 days and we experienced […]

Top 10 Unexpected Changes Due to Long-Term Travel

by Jason

There have been a number of changes that have occurred to me as a result of quitting my job, selling my stuff and moving to Asia for at least a year. Some of them have been rather unexpected. The following is a list of those unexpected changes. My tolerance for what’s considered “dirty” and what’s […]

Observations of a Privileged American

by Sharon

Most parents never dream that these words will ever come out of their children’s mouths: “we have been homeless vagabonds for 3 months”.  There are things that I have learned within these past 94 days that I may not have discovered had I never gotten on that plane (granted it was just to Vancouver, but […]

Good Night Vietnam

by Jason

Sharon and I have now left Vietnam and are currently residing in the quiet beach town of Koh Kong, Cambodia. In this post I’ll wrap things up on Vietnam and reflect on our 5-weeks there. Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves. It’s pretty cool to say that we traveled almost the entire country, entering their northern […]

The Art of Vietnamese Wedding Crashing

by Sharon

Jason and I crashed two Vietnamese weddings during our 5 week stay in the lovely country.  We were technically invited to each wedding (not by the bride or groom, of course, that would actually be legit), but no invitation is really needed to attend these festivities. City weddings and countryside weddings are two very different […]

Vietnam Culture 101 - What I Wish I Knew

by Jason

During our 5-weeks in Vietnam, Sharon and I picked up a good amount of knowledge about the Vietnamese culture. In this post, I’d like to share some of this information. The first few bullets center around things that are good to know as a tourist—information I would have loved to know before I got here! […]

The Science of Packing

by Jason

Greetings from Saigon, Vietnam, our home for the next few (and the past few) days due to Visa extension issues. We initially tried to extend the Visa ourselves, which unfortunately failed after a day of jumping through hoops. Our cheap and fast Vietnamese hookup in Dalat had issues as well. Now, our Visa is getting […]

You know you’ve been in Vietnam for too long when…

by Sharon

I gave China a Top Nine list, so it’s only fair to give the same honor to Vietnam.  Granted, the change between China and Vietnam wasn’t extreme for us because we had been in China for a month already before entering Vietnam.  Nonetheless, after spending four weeks in Vietnam, there have been some interesting epiphanies […]

What’s Communist about China?

by Jason

Happy New Year! This reflection on China comes from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam where we enjoyed ourselves last night with lots of beer and locals in the park. Before arriving in China, I had been thinking about a certain question; what does Communism look like? Additionally, what is it like for Chinese people […]