Seungthew (taxi in an-open back pickup truck with bench seating) from Luang Prabang to the local waterfall. Laura will have a post about this day trip sometime soon. (photo by her, of course)

Hey guys,

Laura and I are finally in Vietnam. As many of you already know, she started showing some symptoms of dengue fever when we were in Luang Prabang, Laos. Our original plan was to take a bus from there to Hanoi, in the north of Vietnam, but Dengue is not something you want to mess around with, and since Luang Prabang (and most of Laos) has virtually zero modern healthcare, we decided to head to the capital Vientiane instead. Luckily, by the time we got there, Laura’s fever had passed and her other symptoms calmed down. Facing another epic (24-30 hour) bus ride to get from Vientiane to Vietnam, we caved and bought some plane tickets via the north of Thailand to Ho Chi Minh City instead (via Bangkok).

We are rapidly running out of time on this little journey of ours, and the consequence is that we will be blitzing through southern Vietnam and Cambodia, giving these countries far less time than they deserve (but at least seeing a thing or two along the way). Can you believe that two weeks from tomorrow we’ll be landing in Vancouver? We sure can’t.
We’ve been laying low for the past week or so, mostly chilling in hotels while monitoring Laura’s health (she really is all better), so we’re going to be compensating over the next couple of weeks, trying to get out and see as much as possible. Should be good for the bloggin’.

Cheers,
Chris

p.s. – “Pho” is Vietnamese soup, something we ate at least once a week when we lived in Calgary, and one of our favourite foods in the world. We had our first bowl last night, and wholly goddamn mine was spicy! Don’t underestimate the diced hot peppers that come on the side.