Nobody bombed Hoi An. North Vietnam, South Vietnam, even the Americans in their flying fortresses decided the ancient port city of the Champa Empire with its softly Southeast Asian old town and 16th… Continue reading
A friend recently informed me that there is indeed a War on Christmas. “Oh yes,” she said with the utmost gravitas, “They’re making it very hard for us to celebrate it.” As… Continue reading
My bus pulled up for a WC break on the way to Phuong Nha, Vietnam. A man drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany. Thousands of miles apart, but it’s… Continue reading
“Oh my god, she’s the cutest thing EVER!” cried Megan, one of the two other tourists besides myself following our local guide down the mountainside of Sapa, Vietnam. “I want to take her… Continue reading
Hanoi is of course many things, but one seems like a logical place to start. And nevermind that two come to mind first. So we’ll begin with the primary denizens of the city,… Continue reading
Sometime after that dawn bus ride and before the late night landing in a different country, and on a different calendar page. Somewhere since the home I know and this city I do… Continue reading
We needed to get to the train station and the sign on the Marrakech bank said 46° C. My boiling brain calculated for a second…115°F? Yup. No, no way my ex-girlfriend and I… Continue reading
Travel is a capricious deity. I see it as a Her, a capricious She, giving me a perspective I respect, experiences I appreciate, and a sense of life on earth that I find… Continue reading
We’d been like followers of some not very popular religions sect, gathering off-hours to worship in someone else’s oversized church. That’s how Thessaloniki’s train station felt during a rail strike, but a few… Continue reading
Farm bills and agricultural subsidies are always a big deal, from the US to the EU, and definitely in Switzerland. This baffled me a bit. Swiss agriculture? In a country that wealthy and… Continue reading
