City Lights and the Great Outdoors

WARNING: It's been a long time since we've updated the blog... you might want to grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine for this one! Hope you still enjoy, we are definitely tiring of moving around but loving the places we have been lucky enough to see...

As we sit on a balcony perched perfectly overlooking the Sapa Valley, craving a bottle (or even a glass) of wine for inspiration but settling for yet another giant Larue beer, Chris and I have trouble believing that a week ago we looked like the main player from Frogger, eking our way across the insane traffic of Hanoi!  We've gone from Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh city) to Hanoi, followed by Cat Ba and finally Sapa.  The balance and contrast between vibrant, crazy cities and chilled-out countrysides has been perfect for being able to appreciate both sides of Vietnam. It is totally crazy that we have been here for three weeks- this country has so much to offer! We have been pretty ambitious in our travel plans here and yet there is still so much more to see!

Not a bad view for $15 a night!

City Lights: HCMC vs. Hanoi

Anyone that knows me will understand that I am absolutely no history buff.  I am generally more fascinated by natural phenomena and science-world type places than I am historical museums.  That being said, the places we checked out in Vietnam (specifically HCMC) blew me away.  Vietnam's history is so closely entwined with the reason the country is the way it is today that learning more about the American (Vietnam) War and the perception of it here has been nothing less than fascinating. We visited the War Remnants Museum, the Cu Chi tunnels, and Reunification Palace in HCMC. Though people worldwide (including many Americans) seem to feel that the involvement of the US in Vietnam was outrageous, because Canada is so close in both proximity and relations to the US, we are often subjected to American Pop culture that glorifies the American soldier and the US perspective of the war.   It was quite the experience to see it portrayed from the other side! All accounts of the war at both the museum and the tunnels were extremely anti-American. This may seem completely logical and I would tend to agree from their perspective.  The part that gets weird and almost so uncomfortable it’s funny is that in no way are the Vietnamese accounts of the war subtle.  A movie shown at the tunnels literally describes Vietnamese soldiers being given awards for "killing many Americans", and the soldiers were given the title "American Killing Hero".  I'm not sure if this is something that was lost in translation or if this is an indication of the Vietnamese people's nature. It does seem fitting simply because the people here seem to say what they mean, mean what they say, and what we might consider to be bad manners or abrupt is just them being straight up.  Still, this most extreme situation caught us completely off-guard! It pales in comparison to women shaking their open hands at us when we go into a shop to ask a question. Another interesting piece about Vietnam is that you really notice being in a communist country. Social networking websites like Facebook are blocked on most internet browsers.  There is definitely a different feeling in the North compared to the South, but all over the country there is a sense that people do not speak freely about the political situation.  We met up with a friend-of-a-friend living in Hanoi, and after speaking with these expats it is clear that there is no freedom of speech! People are afraid that ‘someone is always listening’ and will not discuss certain things in public.  This is so new to us, seeing firsthand how there is such a noticeable difference in lifestyle in a communist country.

These tunnels were made for the Vietnamese people.  This one was apparently "widened for tourists".  We're giants here!

Checking out the war planes at the War Remnants Museum

Anyway, speaking of North vs. South, though Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh are the two biggest cities and share the same chaotic feel, there were definitely a lot of differences too!

Here is our points breakdown in the HCMC vs. Hanoi showdown!

Food: HCMC! Lots of cheap food stalls on the streets, Hanoi it was hard to find! Eating is always the most important --2 points

Shopping: Hanoi. Great place to go to buy art, tailor-made clothes or in our case a tailor-made silk duvet cover! Score! And score for Hanoi shopping --1 point

Partying: HCMC. Cool night scene for travelers with 50-cent beers and random side streets packed with little chairs spilling onto the street --1point

Entertainment: Hanoi. Home to the very odd theatre show concept- Water Puppets.  Check it out if you go, just for the weird factor! I wouldn’t say it is good or bad, just funny and random! For a little bit of Vietnamese crazy --1point

Buildings and layout: Both cities have different looks.  In Hanoi the buildings are older, with very narrow shop fronts that head back away from the street in a long, skinny shape. HCMC is more westernized with taller office buildings and high-rises. The streets in Hanoi are much narrower than those in HCMC. No points are awarded to either for this category as they are very different and may appeal to people in different ways (although we lean towards the South on this one, because at that point we were craving a bit of Westernization)!

The city lights of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

The crowded streets of Hanoi.  Can you see me amongst the motos? Look for the person a foot taller than everyone else!

HCMC: -1 point because our friend Jeff got Dengue Fever here… bad one! Luckily he is on the mend now and back home safe and sounds!

Hanoi: -2 points for noise pollution from all of the honking motorbikes, which would be on par with HCMC if it weren’t for the skinny streets in the Old Quarter! The second point is being deducted for safety reasons.  You have to walk on the hazardous roads because the motorbikes are parked on the sidewalks.  I got hit in the hand by the wing mirror of a passing car! Not cool!
So the winner for us was Ho Chi Minh City 2-0, though we were feeling pretty tired and chill by time we got to Hanoi so we didn’t get up to too much there comparatively. Constantly being on guard for motorbikes and the incessant honking of horns get under your skin after a while! So we were keen as beans to move on to somewhere with less traffic and more green space.


Enter the Great Outdoors: Cat Ba Island and Sapa

Chris was in full form - sweating so much it was dripping off his hat!

Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the ‘Wonders of the World’.  It has giant limestone karsts that jut out of the water, covered in lush green plant life and peering through mist that gives them a mysterious, majestic look.  Unfortunately Halong Bay has been exploited by tourism.  We read that over 2 million tourists visit the area annually- that works out to more than 5000 people per day! The water and air pollution brought on by hundreds of tourist boats visiting the site have taken away that untouched beauty that everyone comes to see.  Cat Ba Island, however, is the main island south of Halong Bay that features the same limestone cliffs, but is further away from the tourist trail.  We spent three peaceful nights there and clambered through dense jungle for 16km one day, visited a small village in the mountains, went kayaking amongst the karsts and hung out on a boat as it wove through fishing villages and crab farms.  It was absolute heaven to be working up a sweat (and I mean a LOT of sweat) due to physical activity and not just walking to a restaurant or around a temple. To be able to sit and eat Pho on the street without a motorbike passing by every second we well and truly appreciated. We wanted more of this type of travelling…

View from on top of Cat Ba Island.

Stopping for a swim late afternoon before winding our way back through the islands

   Enter Sapa. We were in Sapa and the surrounding area for five nights and it was basically love at first sight! We found a home away from home for the short time we were there.  Chris was in heaven because Sapa is a mountain town.  Mountains = higher elevation = significantly cooler temperatures = no sweating your ass off! It was a welcome break from feelings sticky again five minutes after you towel off from your shower. Sapa is the home base from which people go on hikes and overnight stays to visit hill tribe villages in the mountains and experience a different way of living.  This is also something that has become more touristy, but Sapa didn’t feel too overrun with tourists to us. *side note: the computer is suggesting that grammatically the word “touristier” should be used in the last sentence, yet if I change it the red line comes up saying it’s a spelling error and suggest “touristy” to fix it. Grammar and spell check need a conference call!* Anyway, we checked out a village the first day we arrived and were blown away by the beauty of its location and charm: children playing in the river, splashing around, naked and happy; pigs, chickens and water buffalos roaming the paths that wind through the rice paddies and huts; women preparing dinner, or sitting weaving a new bag or blanket to sell at market. All a totally different world to us, it felt like we were stepping back in time and we loved it.  We spent a couple of days riding motorbikes around and hiking in and amongst different villages.


We liked the motorbike thing so much that we hired one for two days and went on a 3-hour journey to another smaller nearby mountain village. The ride was awesome though butt-aching, and we got to see the countryside in a different way both there and back, winding around roads climbing the side of a mountain looking down to the rice-paddied valleys below. Awesome! We ended up in Bac Ha. Bac Ha is the home place of the Flower H’mong hill tribe and is known for its Sunday market. This market gave me an emotional breakdown- literally.  I was okay through the part that had giant vats stewing weird meat chunks of bone, internal organs, feet, tongues and whatever else.  I reached breaking point when we got to the animal market and saw the dogs on sale for Sunday supper.  It was absolutely horrifying.  There’s not even any meat on them and they’re man’s best friend people!  There are certain things we have seen here that we will never understand.  Seeing the way that animals are bought and then strapped onto a motorbike alive really does give me the ability to understand my vegetarian friends better.  Especially since these animals likely live a happier life than those sold in our supermarkets. It has been important to us to appreciate where the meat on our plates comes from because if you can’t watch a pig getting hog-tied, weighed and listen to its ear-piercing squeal of protest, then how can you eat it? In any case, the food in Sapa has been some of the best food we’ve had in Vietnam and you know it’s fresh from the farm because you’re surrounded by it.  We could’ve stayed another week here, but sadly we move on to Laos tomorrow.

This is Bao of the Black H'mong people. She was our forced guide to see Cat Cat Village.  Lovely woman, except we thought tipping her $2 was generous until she told us we had to give here an extra 50c more! Then after we caved she asked us for a ride back into town on our motorbike.  She was cheeky but colourful that woman!

Love the water buffalos here! They're like big dogs (except the Vietamese don't eat them)!

The saying "it takes a village" is so accurate in the rice fields of Sa Pa

We’ve heard absolutely great things about Laos, especially the food and the people. Vietnam has been a crazy ride and such a diverse country, but it’s also exhausting to travel in.  Mostly because you always have to have your guard up and can never accept something someone tells you as the truth. As an example of the incredulity of some of these scams, here are our top three taxi experiences:

3. A taxi driver drops us off outside our hotel, but has to get right to the front door even though he’s driving down a back alley that is so crowded he’s practically scraping past the buildings on either side.  We finally get there and Chris pays, and the driver tries to ‘escape’ without giving Chris his change back. He was going so slowly that Chris just walked along beside him and opened his car door to stop him.

2. After negotiating a price for a taxi cab, the driver forgets to turn the meter off. When he drives us to our desired destination and the meter shows the price to be half of what we had agreed to pay, we give him the lower price and ignore his protest as we get out of the car.

1. Headed to the bus station, we ask the taxi driver if he will use the meter after he quotes us an exorbitant price to take his taxi.  He tells us that the meter is broken.  We say to him that we would prefer to find a taxi with a meter.  He quickly turns around and says “Ok! Meter! Meter!”, and we tell him he’s lost our business because he lied to us in the first place.

Vietnam is worth the hassle of negotiation to see some amazing things and you just have to accept that as part of the package deal.  Bring on Laos and a more chilled traveling environment though. We’re ready for a change!

Tam biet for now,

Lauren and Chris

PS I can reply to comments on here now (I'm still learning...)! Feel free to give a shout out a la Facebook on this site :) :) I hear Vancouver has had some sunshine in May!! Hope everyone had a great long weekend xo

Good Morning Vietnam!

At times during our bus trip I wondered if we would make it, with the bus driver slamming on the brakes to avoid cows, cars, scooters and children on the streets. We flew out of our seats with every bump of the road (and in Cambodia there are a lot of bumps), and listened to the rhythmical sound of the horn hoping it was never for anything serious. We made it through the 'high security' border no problem and continued to bounce our way into Ha Tien, a small border town on the river.

This is the high security border, flash border.  Check out how much stuff is balanced on that motorbike!

 We checked the place out for a day- well actually we checked the food out- it seemed we did nothing but eat (and drink) there! We ate some delicious foods such as noodle soups, coconut slice, amazing Flintstone-sized BBQ chicken drumsticks and banh mi! Hellooo Vietnam! Mixed among those flavorful delights was some dried sting ray (we ate it with a group of locals who eat it as a beer snack, like we would peanuts) and sea snails... Not our favorite. We had to put on our poker faces! Anyway, the city was packed wih vietnamese tourists the night we were there! It was April 30th, Vietnam liberation day, when 37 years ago the Vietnam (or American) war ended. Apparently Ha Tien is the place to be to celebrate the country's biggest holiday! We were the only white people in town and we not only stood out but were welcomed and stared at as we walked the small city's streets. People would pat Chris and Jeff and stand beside them up to their armpits laughing at how much taller they were. One man was particularly enthralled by Jeff's nipples, and proceeded to tweak them in delight. A total stranger nipple-tweaking, yes. There is no such thing as personal space here! Hilarious!

Celebrating Reunification Day with new buddies we met on the street.  On this day Jeff was Bulgarian... mot, hai, ba, YO! (Yo is cheers in Vietnamese - awesome!) 

Eat me!

A highlight of this night for me personally was getting locked inside a hot and sweaty bathroom. After discreetly excusing myself from the table and heading across the street to use the facilities, post-flush I went to open the door and the rusted handle fell off into my hand. What?! After fiddling around uselessly I had to bang on the door for what seemed like ages before my circumstance was discovered! Then it took a good 10 minutes for the mystery man on the other side to free me!  Luckily Neda found me stranded before too long and called reassuringly to me from the other stall until I was released. Good times! That same night we met Hayden, a university student who also tour guides around Vietnam. Finally someone who spoke (really good) English, who wasn't trying to take our money! He introduced us to even more food and we peppered him with questions about Vietnam all night. It was a great night to kick off our Vietnamese adventures!

We then spent the next week checking out the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh city. Once again, it was questionable as to whether we would make it to our next stop. This was without a doubt the worst bus experience any of the four of us had ever had! First we were rushed in to this locals bus before we could find out that they planned on charging us triple what they should have. Then the sweaty hot bus kept stopping to pick up passengers. The seats slowly filled up and yet the bus stopped again to pick up more people... But where would they sit? No problem! Five teenagers climbed up behind us past the back row of seats to squat behind our heads. I felt like I was in a horror movie when I awoke from a gravol-induced slumber to see a hand dangling on my shoulder! The driver then proceeded to fill the aisles with people sitting on little stools until there was no room left everybody was so crammed together. But hey, these guys are crafty! They had the person in front of Jeff (both Chris and Jeff are almost twice the size of vietnamese men remember) tilt her seat forward so that a man could sit in between Jeff's legs. The picture says it all, except to add that the man was smoking! Jeff's expression was priceless, he had reached his limit- no, surpassed it- by this point.  Those meditation skills must come in handy at times like that!

Priceless!

Anyway, after transferring buses three times, experiencing the worst 'WC' facilities to date (a tiled floor with a drain in the corner, you just squat on the floor?!?) and having to duck down in the aisles each time a police car passed so our drivers weren't dinged for having 50 people on a 28-seat bus (no word of lie!), we finally made it to Can Tho in one piece!


Generally, traveling the Mekong was probably the least touristy place we have been so far, so thankfully we had Hayden who met up with us and hooked us up with a cheap tour of the floating markets.  That is the main pull for people to go to Can Tho: the floating markets! It was an awesome sight to see because it was an actual working mishmash of run-down boat wholesalers selling watermelons, jackfruit (bubble gum flavored fruit!), pumpkins, bananas, etc. to the smaller vendors on little rowboats.  It's quite the sight to see, all the hustle and bustle of a fruit and veg market like we would have back home but instead all of it takes place on the water. Each boat has a big stick on the end of it with a fruit or veggie attached to advertise what they are selling. There are also a couple of breakfast and coffee boats, to help wake you up since the market is its busiest at 6am!! In the last two weeks I think we've seen four sunrises- criminal! Anyway the fact that the farms and produce are so close to the river means that everything you buy in Can Tho is fresh and delicious! Oh how we miss the mangoes and watermelons! I'd recommend going there for that reason only.

With Hayden, our new friend, headed to the Floating Market!

Hot noodle soup breakfast on the water.

Can Tho = best watermelon EVER!

 Vinh Long was a quick stopover, just long enough for me to have a major bail on my bike. Luckily by bike I mean bicycle and not motorbike! A word of advice: when renting bikes for a leisurely stroll through the beautiful winding paths of farmland and rivers, don't assume that your bike will have brakes. I learned the hard way! The biggest problem with this bail was that my jandal (Chris' term- means japanese sandal aka flip flop) broke! This wouldn't have been such a big deal except try being 5'10" in an asian country and finding shoes to fit your long ass feet! Chris and Jeff had already been looking for weeks to no avail. Not to mention women here don't have any kind of need for comfortable footwear.  They could do the Grouse Grind in high heels without breaking a sweat! In any case we continued our bike journey which remained interesting. Chris and Jeff experienced a cockfight where roosters had metal barbs attached to their legs before entering the ring. Yeah, animal rights aren't high on the priority list here! Neda and I decided to skip that part of the experience.

Uh oh! The brakes don't work! I thought I could handle it...

How I made it home- crafty, eh?

That night we had a mission trying to find a 'restaurant' and Neda found the most delicious mini-cakes for only 75 cents- score! We celebrated the one-week anniversary of our friendship and said goodbye to the Mekong delta.

Wow only a few days but so many adventures and funny stories- Vietnam is hilarious! The fun in our foursome continues: next stop, Ho Chi Minh city!

If life's about the trip,.. we sure are living!

Cambodia is a place unlike any other we have ever travelled: fascinating, devastating, and beautiful in it's own way. It is probably also the poorest place I have ever been (so far, although Laos is coming up shortly!). The people smile more and are more welcoming than those Thai people who are tainted by tourists. Everywhere we have been in this country we have been welcomed with what we like to call "hello ambushes".  Drive-by greetings on scooters, passing kids on the street, everyone calling out the sometimes the only word of english they know: "Hello!".  However, the country is sadly also very corrupt- we saw a group of people surrounded by police in a situation that looked fairly intense, only to find out that they had all parked on the street illegally and were discussing a price that would be fair to pay off the policeman to not give them a proper ticket... Tough but fair? The country is full of contrasts in society, food, nature, you name it.  It strives to have some modern technologies even though in most other ways the country is still undeveloped. For example, there are kids everywhere with no shoes but wearing an angry birds t-shirt, stilted wooden  shacks barely standing that are cell phone shops, garbage lines the side streets and non-tourist beaches yet almost every single place to eat has free wifi. The shops all have energy-efficient light bulbs because electricity is so expensive here they need to save wherever possible. Seeing all of this very clearly shows how much the Cambodian people have been through relatively recently, and how they are still trying to put their country back together.

Beautiful pristine beach on the island of Koh Rong

The first sight we see on the mainland after returning from the island.

Some of the wealth in Phnom Penh

The reality of many homes outside of Cambodia's capital city,

We've been here for almost two weeks now and it has been a tumultuous ride! Just as Cambodia seems to have conflicting character, so are our opinions of Cambodia double-sided.  Mostly good, but you sometimes have to look past the bad to see it.  In the more touristy areas you are constantly reminded of the poverty. Begging on the streets is continuous with land mine victims, mothers with children and mostly young children who have been sent out by elders to beg or sell bracelets on the street.  We are so lucky to have had such positive experiences with both locals and foreigners as these relationships and encounters help us to move on from more negative ones. The big city of Phnom Penh looks pretty flash, but in traveling between major city destinations the bus passes rural areas which show the more harsh reality that many of the Cambodian (Khmer) people face. The food has also been hit and miss: we ate the most delicious fresh pepper crab literally grabbed out of the ocean (Kimly's Restaurant at the Crab Market in Kep = the best!), yet days before I had the worst BBQ experience ever, with the fishiest prawns I've ever had and something dry and chewy which I'm pretty sure wasn't the chicken I had ordered! Our accommodation was also an experience.  One night we stayed in a guesthouse in Kep that was newly built, probably less than a year old. The room was flash for our standards, AC and everything!  But then in the morning I tried to open the door to the bathroom and it was locked from the inside. Chris took apart the whole handle (my Mr. Fix-It!) but even after it was unlocked the latch wouldn't release. I went to get a guy to come look at it. He came in, tried the handle once and then without hesitation wound up and karate kicked the door in, breaking the door knob but leaving the door intact. Apparently this happens all the time and it was the cheaper model door handle..? Anyway he replaced the door knob which will probably last another week before the same thing happens again. Just crazy!

Our delicious green Kampot pepper crab meal in Kep!!

Anyway, here's how it all went down. We left Phnom Penh for Sihanoukville. It was touristy and apart from the French Boulangerie with fresh bread and delicious crepes, there wasn't much for us there. Instead, we stayed on the beautiful island of Koh Rong where we went scuba diving and floated in the clear waters of a 4km long white sand beach.  Paradise Bungalows was a beautiful spot to chill out and eat good food and we practiced doing as little as possible for a couple of days.  A nice break (I know, I shouldn't be saying that to the working world right now, but it's true..)

They don't call it "Paradise Bungalow" for nothing!

Our last stop in Cambodia fortunately ended up being in Kampot, a city on an estuary close to the Gulf of Thailand which is famous for the harvesting of both salt and pepper.  Here we checked into a guesthouse for $7 a night (!) and one night's stay quickly turned into three. So much of traveling experiences are shaped by the people you meet, and we met a sweet crew of travelers in Kampot. Five other peeps from all over the globe: Canada, NZ (obviously this helped spark initial conversation) US and Bulgaria!  The first night we met we ended up partying until after the last tuk tuks, so we stayed up playing charades, jumping off a makeshift diving board into the interestingly-smelly river, giving each other ninja names (I shall from here forward refer to myself as Night Gator) and dancing to a random mix of mostly awesome tunes! We hit sunrise up after deciding to walk home, a great way to end a solid night (and morning) out.  Two of our new buddies, Jeff and Neda, had been in Kampot for almost a week and the next day they took us on a culinary tour of the city. That was the beginning of a relationship where we continue to be taken care of (they call us the 'kids' and we often fit the bill pretty well).  Fried chicken, chocolate chip pancakes, mango smoothies without added sugar (very important!), peppered dishes (the local specialty) and cheap cocktails at sunset- all for prices within our budget! Needless to say, we took a liking to them straight away! They are both passionate about yoga and spirituality and we have learned a lot of travel tricks from them already (check out their spiritual blog, it's awesome!)... I sometimes wonder what our contribution to this travelling partnership is, but I don't think they're sick of us quite yet! Frank, Cat and Claudia completed the crew and we spent two days bonding with them in Kampot as well and they are awesome people too (and great countries of origin)!

Claudia, Jeff, Cat, Me, Neda, Chris and Frank 

Watching sunset on the Kampot estuary... we're so lucky to see sunsets all over the world and be able to take the time to sit and enjoy them.

Our culinary tour guide, Jeff, and some delish street-fresh fried chicken.

On our last day together we went on a fishing trip to get a feel for the local culture. It was awesome being out on the boat, but definitely had two ways of looking at the trip (again fitting for Cambodia)- on the one hand hanging out with a crew on a small boat, jumping off for a swim in the ocean, drinking beers and iced coffees on the boat and stumping the others with "this is the pointing game" was an awesome time!! We had a lot of laughs and it was a good day... However, the 'fishing' left something to be desired. Upon the original sizing up of the fish hooks we were pretty sure the fish would be puny. We were unfortunately all too right! There is apparently no size limit for the fish the people here will eat- we're talking 10-15cm people, TINY!  Not only were the fish so small that one could only wonder how you would get more than two bites per fish, but the traditional method that the Khmer people have of killing them leaves something to be desired. They don't actually kill them, but rather put them in freshwater so that they gradually suffocate. Then, dead or alive, they chuck 'em on the grill. Pretty ruthless compared to what we are used to. The look on Chris' face when he first saw this cannot be described  another priceless moment. Combine these odd fishing habits with a small boat 'sans keel' that left people clutching their wrist pressure points, throwing back cans of ginger beer and trying not to hurl (some were more successful than others ;) due to stormy weather and major rocking, and again we found ourselves shaking our heads thinking: "why"...?

This happened a lot in Cambodia. Our top three "why's" are:
3. Why don't the builders make a small effort to bury the drainage pipes instead of having crisscrossed blue plastic all over what would otherwise be quite beautiful places?
2. Why are there buildings that blast recordings of birds chirping all day long? Is it too add ambience to an already noise-polluted environment? How long is the loop for this recording? Where does it come from?
1. Why is it that so many Khmer people (of all ages) wear their pajamas all day long (although this is quite hilarious, it could also be followed with the question why not?!!)

The boys up front on the boat.. note the background weather, not exactly sunshine! 

The crew - chris.  The boat is already rocking and we haven't left shore.. :S

Part of Khmer culture is seeing how many people you can squeeze onto a scooter.

Gotta love the Khmers! Ah Cambodia, we will miss you!! So many times we have said to each other 'it's all part of the experience'- hell, I've probably already said it in this blog already, because that is the joy of travel! It's not always easy, sometimes downright unpleasant, but you accept those as memories you will look back on and laugh at and in return you have countless positive, unforgettable experiences in between. After all, "Life's about the trip, not the destination", right?

Our frisbee buddies.  My favorite part of Cambodia was the people we met. The kids are so innocent, loving and happy to play for as little or long as you're willing. 

And so we say goodbye to Cambodia and follow our savvy travel buddies to Vietnam for some more culinary adventures (we hope)!

Lauren and Chris xo