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Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam: Morning Castle Hike
This is my Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam Series: 3/12. I walk the streets of Dong Van town, guessing on the path to take to reach the ruins of a French fortress I'd read about the day before.
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Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam: Bonds Made on Winding Roads
This is my Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam Series: 2/12. The countryside we ride through begins to blow my mind. First, as we zoom along the road out of the city of Ha Giang, I think the mountains look like shark teeth.
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Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam: Trapped in Ha Giang
This is my Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam Series: 1/12. I didn’t know anything about Ha Giang until I met my first crew of SE Asia backpackers in Bali. And then my next crew in Flores and the next crew in East Java. Everywhere I went, everywhere I ran into backpackers, there the words were again: “Ha Giang Loop.”
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A Sloppy, Sweaty Trek in Sapa, Vietnam
The drive into Sapa was a cavalcade of buses. And, despite the many switchbacks, they were vying to be first, passing in the shortest of lanes so that often the bus being passed and the vehicle coming from the other direction had to slam on the brakes so the impatient driver could shoot through the gap.
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High Heat and Home Visits in Hanoi, Vietnam
In Hanoi, I walked. And I sweated. Walking at all meant wiping my upper lip, wiping my forehead, feeling water prickle at my hairline, feeling sweat stick my shirt to my back, running down my neck and into the collar of my shirt.
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Singapore Kaleidoscope
May 20-22
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Trekking a Trio of Deadly Volcanoes in East Java
I'm cold. I'm in Indonesia and I'm cold. Shivering. Shivering, on an island that is about 8 degrees of latitude away from the equator. To be fair, I am about 6,000 feet above sea level and it is 2:30 am. Why, you might be wondering, am I awake at 2:30am?
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Dragons & Mermaids – An Adventure in Komodo National Park
Small boats bobbed around the pier, shoving to get forward, to get close enough to the pier that passengers could stumble aboard or that luggage could be tossed onto the deck. But there was no order, just who could squeeze into which sliver empty space.
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Peace, Love, and Turtles – Gili Air, Indonesia
Beneath my feet, beneath the planks of the dock, it is the brightest turquoise. A pale sandy beach runs in each direction and the most perfect shades of blue stretching away. To my right is the large island of Lombok with green hills and mountains. To the left is Gili Meno and Gili T.
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Beginning in Bali: The Start of My Asia Travels
When I arrived in Bali, the heat and humidity fell over me like a bag of bowling balls. Waiting for my driver in the Arrivals hall was like standing in the dryer room at my mom’s laundromat while also taking a hot shower—sweat rolled down my face but there was nothing to wipe it with because my arm was encased in a layer of dampness and my t-shirt was, already, in a moist and sticky state.
