Travel: Vietnam

10 Signs You’ve Been in Asia Too Long

by Jason

Asia can be quite the culture shock when you first arrive from the western world. Once you start getting accustomed and understanding the traditions, however, you’ll find Asia to be uniquely appealing and you will truly start to appreciate it. The following quiz, though, is for someone who may have found Asia a little too […]

The Struggle of Trip-Planning & The Creation of UnAnchor

by Jason

During our year-long trip, Sharon and I planned our tourist sight-seeing days in many different ways. We used “Lonely Planet” guidebooks, “Eyewitness” guidebooks, Wikitravel.org, local tourism brochures, and numerous other online resources. All of these resources were helpful, but none of them solved the planning process effectively. “Lonely Planet’s” recommendations were hit and miss in […]

License Plates From Around Asia

by Jason

One of the traditions I’ve tried to keep for each country I visit is to take a picture of the license plate. It has been interesting to compare something as common as a license plate throughout the various countries we’ve visted. In this picture post, I’ll share the different license plates we’ve come across throughout […]

Your Taxi Options - East Asia Style

by Jason

One of the more interesting things I’ve observed during our time on the road has been the differences between what constitutes a taxi in a particular country. Here in South Korea it’s unfortunately just a boring Hyundai 4-door sedan. Sure, the driver drives like a maniac, but that’s no different than the US. It’s not […]

Farewell $1 Pad Thai. You will be missed…

by Sharon

As I write this post I am crammed in a sardine can of a sleeper train on our way to Beijing.  Each open compartment has six beds- three on each side of the walls, with the highest bed nearly touching the ceiling.  The size of the beds are smaller than a twin mattress and are […]

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 […]