Dogs (VN Diary No. 39)

The taxi’s route to the airport passes through a number of suburban neighborhoods of varying degrees of prosperity and in each I noticed well cared for dogs on people’s stoops. I’d noticed this in Hanoi, too, and it was one of the differences from eight years ago, when the few pet dogs I saw looked [...]

Noi Bai Airport (VN Diary No. 38)

Someday I’ll have to put the check-in procedures at Noi Bai into a story — no one would believe it as non-fiction travel writing. I always start too early for the airport, but today my early start paid off. Traffic was bad on the drive out of Hanoi and there was chaos at the airport [...]

Bouncing off the Walls (VN Diary No. 37)

This is my last day in Hanoi and the truth is I’m ready to go. I haven’t done much this last week except walk around the Old Quarter and buy presents for friends at home. Playing the tourist. It is of course very difficult if not impossible to get inside another place, another culture; but [...]

Reading The Idiot in Hanoi (I)

Note: I began this post almost a month ago, thinking to post a multi-part essay over the course of my few weeks in Vietnam, but I never got beyond what’s here. I still intend to finish the essay, but thought I’d go ahead and post this opening bit to give myself some motivation. I find [...]

Finishing Up (VN Diary No. 36)

Well, it took me a bit longer to recover than I’d anticipated and now I’m taking electrolytes and acidophilus to recover from the antibiotics. Ah, the joys of foreign travel! This morning, though, I feel great and even though it is blazingly hot alread at ten in the morning, I’m going to head out and [...]

Realism (VN Diary No. 35)

I’m not much of a Roger Cohen fan — he strikes me as an ideological opportunist, a flag blowing first one way then the other — but the dateline of this column attracted my attention, of course. The Quiet American is the best single piece of fiction about Vietnam you are likely to read (Tim [...]

Ve Nha (VN Diary No. 34)

I’m back “home” in Hanoi. Arrived yesterday in a driving rainstorm that flooded some of the streets on the outskirts of town. On the recommendation of one of the guidebooks, I’d made a reservation at a hotel on Hai Ba Trung called The Artists, but when I arrived it was just a little too funky [...]

Cyclo Politics (VN Diary No. 33)

In Hanoi, you will often see a line of fifteen or twenty cyclos, each with a Japanese or German tourist in it, threading their way through the narrow streets of the Old Quarter. After an initial cyclo ride on my first trip to Vietnam twelve years ago, I have avoided this mode of transport. The [...]

Rest Day (VN Diary No. 32)

After going out this morning to cash some travelers’ checks, I’m spending most of the day in my hotel room. I spent the last couple of days in Hue walking around in the heat and yesterday (wearing a t-shirt) I got a bit of sunburn on my neck. Nothing serious, but all the sun and [...]

And it’s Not a Dry Heat (VN Diary No. 31)

I’m in Hue now. This morning Lan’s friend (now my friend) Tran Thu Mai took me to a beautiful pagoda in the mountains northeast of Hue, then on a tourn of the Nguyen court’s citadel, where many of the palaces and temples have been beautifully restored. After a brief rest and cool down at my [...]

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