Kepfram & Ellie's Travel Journal

Facts:

Population: 18.05 million people

95% of the people are Khmer

Median age is 26.9

Gender ratio is almost 50/50, male/female

95% the country are Theravada Buddhists

Total area: 181,040 sq km 

Emergency numbers: Police-117, Fire-118, Ambulance-119

Language:Khmer (ខ្មែរ), an Austroasiatic, analytic language written using an abugida script. It has no verb tenses, plurals, or spaces between words (rather spaces between clauses and sentences). Arabic numerals are commonly used and understood along with Khmer numbers. It's not a tonal language, but it's different enough from English that we don't expect to learn much of it, but here are some useful phrases:

• hello (informal) = "Sousdey" (សួស្ដី) 
• thank you = "Arkoun" (អរគុណ) 

Currency: USD (only crisp/unblemished) + Cambodian Riel (~4000:1 USD)

Health risks: travelers’ diarrhea/gastroenteritis, typhoid, and hepatitis A from contaminated food & water (use bottles, only swim in pools or the ocean), mosquito-borne illnesses (dengue, malaria, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis, and zika), rabies (mammal bites & scratches), hantavirus (rodents), the Thai border...

Traffic/vehicles: more cars & trucks here but still majority motorbike (about 60/40) - and what looks like a lot of tuk-tuks on the road - but apparently they are concentrated in the big cities/tourist areas.

Weather: average temperature 23-35 degrees - cooler & dry Nov-Feb, hot & dry Mar-April, rainy May-Oct

Visa: US citizens get 30 days single entry (either VOA or eVisa), and can extend once for another 30 days

Itinerary: 

• Phnom Penh (history/museums x 4 days)
• Siem Reap (Angkor Wat & floating villages x 1 week)
• Kampot (pepper farm x 2 weeks)
• Koh Rong (islands x 2 days)
• Kratie (Mekong River Dophins x 2 days)

Things we want to taste here: 

• Amok trey,  steamed fish curry
• Lok lak, beef stir fry with Kampot pepper
• Kampot pepper, the champagne of peppercorns
• Num banh chok, lightly fermented noodles in fish broth
• Borbor, Khmer congee
• Sankhya lapov, coconut egg custard steamed inside a kabocha squash
• Kralan, coconut sticky rice cooked in bamboo
• Pleah Sach Ko, lime cured beef salad
• Samlar kari, Cambodian chicken curry
• Chruok svay, green mango salad
• Ngam ngov, pickled lime soup
• Ansom chek, sticky rice banana cake
• Chien chuon, crispy fried fish with ginger-garlic sauce
• Nom lote, pandan rice pudding

Labels: Cambodia, Status Update

Our last week in Vietnam, so we're getting things done & then it's time to go... 

We're familiar enough with our place in Saigon & Vietnam in general to be comfortable here. Not "this is it, I'm moving here forever," but people & places are familiar to us & with seeing us. The coffee & smoothie stand outside our apartment, the local shops in our neighborhood, & local transit are all things we're used to now. All of that makes me feel some kind of way about not having a better grasp of Vietnamese. I am starting to get a better sense for the sounds of the language and why so much of it has escaped me earlier. I knew Vietnamese was a tonal language, now I'm starting to get what that means.

We finished our rabies vaccination series & now have lifetime protection. So we can now play with animals with impunity. We started the vaccination series against dengue that's not available in the US & I didn't even know existed until this week. We'll finish that in a couple months & I can stop fearing "bone-break fever" stopping me from visiting tropical places... 

Our last museum visit was the Southern Women's History Museum. I really liked it. It was a small museum, but I appreciate that the government has set aside space to acknowledge, share, and celebrate women's stories. I found it really moving and encouraging, I took my time reading & kept Ellie waiting a long time (reversing our earlier experience at the War Remnants Museum).

Of course we went dancing again, Ellie's new shoes aren't going to break themselves in. I'm still mildly shocked that English seems to be the language of swing dance here. Beyond the music, the organizers and dance instructors address everyone in English. There are a number immigrants and travelers here, so I get it, but I really didn't expect it. Ellie was really social, chatting people up, asking questions, & learning their stories. She noticed more people say Saigon than Ho Chi Minh City & something about a North-South political divide, now I'm wondering how the post war reconciliation went... But not related to that at all, I DJ'd a blues set at the Saturday night dance! It was well attended and I got lots of positive feedback. It was a great way to end my time dancing here.

Sadly, we never got the hang of shopping here. We did a little shopping at wet markets for produce and tofu, but were never comfortable trying to bargain across the language barrier or do enough comparison shopping between stores with listed prices to get a sense of what things could/should cost. In the end we split the difference buying a bunch of discount items from the convenience mart, before going to the nearby wet market. We eventually discovered a local supermarket, Co.opmart, which was lovely, but we didn't really need it by the time we found it.

Saigon is HUGE. With a metro area 3 times the size of NYC. We took the Saigon Waterbus to do a cheap sunset river tour through the city. We saw enough to know that there's so much more of the city we haven't seen. I'd love to explore more...

After the waterbus we went out to Japantown for sushi, which was delicious, I have another dish I want to make myself someday. Shoutout to George for the tasty suggestion & SO many Vietnam recommendations! The restaurant is in a bit of a red light district with lots of young women in makeup & mini dresses sitting around doorways waiting for business. The staff at a lot of massage places in Vietnam have approached us to offer "footmassa-backmassa." These women barely even looked up from their phones at us which makes me think they had nothing to offer the 2 of us. I wondered what would happen if I was alone...

Saw a jazz dance performance. FIRE! I was not prepared for how awesome it was. It was truly unexpected, thoroughly impressive and we both really enjoyed it. The choreographer is going to be working with AO on a future production, which I can only hope will tour to somewhere I can see when it does. I expect that will be an amazing matchup. This show was a series of pieces about types of jazz movement through history. It spanned eras and musical genres, and was beautifully staged. They even integrated the costume changes into the show itself. I can't write enough good things about.

For our final outing we visited the Cu Chi tunnels to learn a bit more about the Vietnamese partisan resistance. It was informative, impressive, and sad. I learned that the partisans' rations were a lot of cassava and peanuts, which makes sense as those things grow great in the tropics, but I haven't seen any cassava on restaurant menus or in markets in Vietnam. Is it just struggle food? I may have to look into that...

That might be the most I've ever written here. More later, bye!

KC

Labels: Vietnam

 Here are some things we'll miss:

• Public restrooms everywhere!
• Generally free, often with toilet paper, and occasionally with attendants
• All the unique coffee varieties 
• Besides the Robusta beans, which we think we'll continue to find in this region of the world, we've become enamored with ca phe dua (coconut coffee) & ca phe kem muoi (salted cream coffee)
• Daily soaking rains
• Not that rains are particular to Vietnam, but the rainy season is coming to a close, at least for this region of Southeast Asia, and there's something about being out in warm rain...
• Cycling on narrow cement paths through rice fields and coconut groves
• So many roadworthy modes of adapted motor transport + so many disabled folks who appear to be gainfully employed (e.g. formally in craft workshops, informally selling lottery tickets)
• Unfortunately, there are still 2nd and 3rd generations with disabilities related to Agent Orange exposure, and though it reflects a tragic history, many seem well integrated into society
• Motivational messages texted regularly to our Viettel phone number
• All the pre & primary schools painted with a similar color palette to the set of Squid Game
• The Roman alphabet! 
• While Arabic numerals are commonly used on money and in daily life in Cambodia, Lao, & Thailand, their local scripts predominate (even though vowel accents/tones are beyond us here in Vietnam and we've learned very few words/phrases, we at least can identify consonant sounds!)
• Understanding the money...
• Not that exchange rates are truly hard to grasp intellectually, but getting the feel for ₫25,000 being about $1, and calculating therefore how an item fit into our budget, took a while....
• Inexplicably/surprisingly free public transit in HCMC (aka Saigon)
• (As we said in a previous post, it's just a promotion until the end of the year, but in exchange for tracking travel data with the pattern of use for tap cards, we have incurred no charges!) 
• Actually having public transit!
• Almost ubiquitous WiFi
• In restaurants, shops, medical facilities, almost everywhere we go has an open hotspot or will give you network access. Even the buses in HCMC have WiFi! (We only have 1 SIM card between us, and hotspotting kills the phone battery, so even though data is so cheap in Vietnam that we could use our own hotspot all day, we're happy not to need to!)
• Dancing!!
• In Saigon we finally found a swing dance community (with dancing twice a week 😀), and it's been really fun to dance again and to meet/hang out with local people - we won't find the dance community again until Bangkok....

• 
  
  

Labels: Musings, Vietnam

Getting healthcare during our trip has been a learning experience... But so much more affordable than in the US (surprise! surprise!) Makes it a very interesting proposition for the future if getting good coverage remains as problematic as it has been for us recently!

First, insurance: 

• Kepfram's employer-sponsored insurance ended in June. We were surprised to learn that we no longer qualified for the good insurance on the healthcare exchange because our income was "too high" (at 2.5x the federal poverty level)
• We'd hoped to avoid COBRA, though happy to have it available for emergencies, and then an emergency happened (my Melanoma in Situ diagnosis from the biopsy done in June)...
• So after surgery (and me paying for 2 months of COBRA to have coverage until we left the US), we managed to purchase 1 year of insurance for the both of us for the same price as those 2 months for just me.
• We used Insubuy.com to find the plan. Of course, the preexisting condition exclusions limited my choices (joy), but we eventually found a good one - while it will not cover routine care, it should cover us in case something serious happens (we've paid out of pocket for all of the health visits listed below...)

Dental emergency in Hanoi

• On our flight leaving the US I had a filling fall out in the middle of the night. Once I realized what had happened, I switched to careful eating and saltwater swishes (thanks to the helpful airline personnel for sorting that out), and our plan for Hanoi became "find a dentist"...
• Our hotel the next day was very helpful with choosing between the few spots I found online, and the facility was able to do the work. The dentist himself did not speak English, and it was very strange to have to make decisions with a translator while lying on my back in the dentist chair.
• The dentist talked me into a crown instead of a filling (as it was so large), gave me a range of choices on material (I have no idea if the midrange election was the correct one), and went to work. I left with a temporary cap, and the next day came back for the final crown. $400 poorer & time will tell if it's a good one!
• And of course, our travel medical insurance does not cover dental...

Allergic reaction in Sapa:

• First, I'm not 100% certain this was an allergy, as it cleared up and I elected not to seek out treatment/testing on the spot, but I don't know what else it would be...
• After devouring a (delicious!) chestnut cake (though I'd had one a few days prior as they're a Sapa specialty), I began feeling a pronounced tightness and tingling in my mouth, jaw, and face.
• Chestnuts are a tree nut, and not something I've knowingly ever eaten before, so it seemed like something to take seriously.
• In the end, I was able to just wait it out because it was gradually improving and never got severe, and I elected not to try to utilize my US telehealth or to hunt for a local allergist for the same reason (though that might actually be covered by travel insurance...)
• Now, I don't know where/when/if I'll follow up for testing, or when this might come up again....

Labels: Musings, Vietnam

We left HCMC for a long weekend, exchanging crowds, abundant street food, street art, public transit, & noise for peace, the rustle of palm fronds, quiet boat rides, and scenic bike rides. As Kepfram has noted, our time in Vietnam is coming to a close, so we wanted to make sure we got a taste of rural life in the south as well as urban.

Though the day we arrived there was torrential rain, but the monsoon season is ending in this region of SE Asia, and we actually had very little rain while visiting the Delta - still plenty of flooding, though, when the tide comes in! 

The bikes available seem to be typical for those at homestays on our budget - rusty and creaky, with questionable brakes and difficult to adjust seats - but we made them work and went exploring: lots of coconut plantations featuring canals between the rows of trees (to allow harvest by boat), winding narrow cement paved cycle/motorbike tracks between houses and farms and riverways in various states of repair, a coconut candy workshop, lots of roadside stalls selling fresh produce or prepared foods, many many territorial but relatively harmless dogs.... The most fun was biking though flooded streets at high tide!

While our homestay is happy to offer longer and more extensive tours, they seemed out of our budget, so we explored the region by bike instead and only took a short (1 hour) sampan ride from the dock on the property along the local tributary, and a couple of ferry rides between the mainland and the neighboring islands in the wider river.

Labels: Vietnam

[TB] Hưởng ứng Lễ phát động "Mỗi người dân lựa chọn ít nhất một môn thể thao phù hợp để tập luyện thường xuyên" ngày 10/10/2026, từng người dân hãy lựa chọn môn thể thao phù hợp với lứa tuổi, điều kiện và sở thích của mình để tập luyện thường xuyên, nâng cao sức khỏe, phòng chống bệnh tật, xây dựng lối sống lành mạnh, góp phần lan tỏa phong trào "Toàn dân rèn luyện thân thể theo gương Bác Hồ vĩ đại", hướng tới "Một quốc gia vận động, một Việt Nam khỏe mạnh".

Translation:

[Announcement] In support of the launch ceremony for the campaign "Every citizen chooses at least one suitable sport for regular practice" on October 10, 2026, let each citizen choose a sport suited to their age, circumstances, and preferences to practice regularly; this will improve health, prevent disease, and foster a healthy lifestyle, thereby helping to spread the movement "All people exercise their bodies following the example of the great Uncle Ho" and working towards "An active nation, a healthy Vietnam."

Labels: Vietnam

In addition to the wonderful Vietnamese tofu we've been having and the hot fresh soya milk & mung bean milk you can find at the night markets, we have been to multiple vegetarian &/or vegan restaurants which we would recommend (as well as a handful that we wouldn't - which are not listed below) 

Note that even spots that are not vegetarian tend to have at least one tofu dish on their menu, and they're generally quite good! (Also keep in mind that if you eat strictly vegetarian or vegan, you will need to be VERY specific - saying "I don't eat meat" will not be sufficient....). Look for the word "chay" which means "meatless"/"plant-based" (and for strictly vegan look for "thuan chay") - this diet is rooted in Buddhist dietary practices which are abundant in Vietnam.

Where you should go:

• Sapa - SU Vegetarian - high-end restaurant - beautiful location and wonderfully prepared food
• Hoi An  - Peanuts - nicely curated options at this small family-run spot
• Nha Trang - Senta Vegetarian - nice selection of Vietnamese veggie-forward dishes
• Da Lat - Vegan Heaven (the name doesn't lie!) - with its full menu of Vietnamese dishes prepared 100% vegan 😀 & Quan Chay Bo De - our local spot with just a few choices (tofu & veggies with soup, noodles, or rice) - note there are MANY small spots also with the "chay" label which we didn't visit...
• Ho Chi Min City - so many.... food everywhere... (happycow.net lists 845 spots in the city) from restaurants that cater to vegetarians to Bahn Mi Xanh's 24 hour vegan bahn mi shops, the choices are endless!

Labels: Musings, Vietnam

Almost done in Vietnam. I'm a little sad, I like here & would be happy to stay longer, but places to go, countries to see...

We tried the waterfall fried chicken, it wasn't bad, but not the best chicken rice I've had in Vietnam. The coffee continues to be good wherever we go, along with my coconut smoothies and a couple sweet treats we indulge in while out & about (btw, egg tarts are best when warm). Our AirBnB had a kitchen! I didn't cook much as I wasn't going to completely stock the kitchen just for a week long stay, but I did cook us a couple nice meals. I will continue to work on my tofu game...

We did a little swing dancing, so Ellie got to try out her new shoes. Everyone we met was really nice, we went out twice & even went for afterhours food & smoothies!  Dancers are always so welcoming.

A few museums: the War Remnants Museum was a major downer for me (some wars I get, but the idea of killing lots of people over an economic theory feels really horrible to me & hurts my conscience. I spent most of our time there sitting on benches while Ellie looked at the exhibits). The Independence Palace was more interesting for me. It's basically a time capsule of the South Vietnam government from the war era. The architecture and interior design really captured the era for me. And for a bit more history, we did a walking tour of Cho Lon, the Chinese district of HCMC. It was a great tour. It was just us & our guide, so impromptu private tour! We tasted food, explored the neighborhood, & learned a bit about Chinese immigration in Vietnam. I think history & culture are better subjects for me these days...  

We also saw the AO Show Bamboo Circus at the Opera House, it was stunning and the opera house was impressive, even if I have complicated feelings about colonial era architecture, the seats were amazingly comfy...

While in Ho Chi Minh we were able to use public transit. There's a new metro system (just 1 train now, with more planned) & LOTS of busses. And it seems that everything is free for tap card users until the end of the year as they try to increase ridership. Extra bonus. The buses, which are smaller/shorter than the city buses I'm familiar with in the US have a passenger attendant, who helps people board, & swipe/scan their cards to pay their fares. It was nice to see someone helping us clueless tourists and the local senior citizens make their way to where they're going.  

We'll be back in a little bit for another round. I want to see some happier museums (Pho Museum?), eat some more things & we've got a few other things to do before we go to Cambodia...

Labels: Vietnam

 

Here are some items to put on your Motorbike/scooter bingo cards:

• bike with 5 riders
• bike with 2 helmeted children
• bike with 3 adult riders
• a barefoot driver
• a high-heeled driver
• a side saddle passenger
• a canine passenger
• adult around town with a lower leg/foot injury...
• bike with a load more than 2 meters high
• bike with a load more than 2 meters wide
• bike with modifications for a mobility-impaired rider
• bike in motion sheltered by an umbrella

Labels: Musings, Vietnam

Da Lat is a sprawling agricultural mountain town/city of about 200,000 residents. Here we cooled down, ate some good food, got vaccinated, saw some beautiful landscapes, visited some avant-garde architects' creations, got soaked in the rain, enjoyed Mid-Autumn Festival's celebrations, and met some cool people (shout out to Zoe, Stevie, and everyone at Socialhouse Dalat!):

Rabies Vaccine - after Kepfram got denied at a clinic in Nha Trang (didn't like his resting HR <60 bmp) we were successful here and got our first 2 shots (1 more after 2 more weeks and we'll have some level of lifetime protection)!

More Vegetarian food (yum) - Quan Chay Bo De on the same block as our homestay is a hole-in-the-wall restaurant out the front of someone's home with a choice of either a soup or rice dish  with vegetables and a selection of tofu different ways (for ₫30,000 / $1.15 per plate)! And then there's Vegan Heaven near the center of town which has an incredible delicious menu of all sorts of Vietnamese dishes prepared vegan - so good ! I also enjoy a cup of hot soya milk at a night market & the Vietnamese style tofu on everyone's menu...

Crazy House - more my thing than Kepfram's (he didn't like the vertigo-inducing stairways to nowhere over the curving rooftops of the buildings) - the architect's house and working hotel is also one of the largest tourist attractions in the city - architect Dang Viet Nga (aka Hang Nga - referencing the Moon Goddess), who holds a PhD in architecture from Moscow State University, and notes her main inspiration is Antoni Gaudi, has been creating this outrageous network of buildings and gardens since 1990. Absolutely inspiring!

Maze Bar - starting underground & built up through a 5 story townhouse backing onto a hillside, the structure features tunnels, winding stairways, various ladders, art-filled walls, and at the top, beautiful gardens - Lu Truc Phuong, architect (1941-2016), born in Cambodia, but moved to Vietnam in his 20s, whose previous creation, the 100 Roof House, was ordered destroyed by Vietnamese authorities in 1993 before it was completed - a drink on entry is your price of admission to this one-of-a-kind creation.

Da Lat Cable Car - runs from Robin Hill on the south edge of the city to the Truc Lam Zen Monastery a few km further south near the scenic Tuyen Lam Lake - we managed to find a lovely sunny day to enjoy the ride over the pine forest and a leisurely morning exploring the grounds of the monastery.

Mid-Autumn Festival - mostly a children's festival in Vietnam, and here in Da Lat: "The 2026 Mid-Autumn Festival will provide children with a healthy and enriching recreational environment, while helping strengthen national unity and reinforce public confidence following the administrative restructuring. It also reflects the attention given by the Party, the State and society to the protection, care and education of children." The rain actually cleared enough to allow outdoor performances, including lighted floats, lion dancers on pillars, dance performances by children of various ages, as well as a parade the next night with lighted floats and more lion dancers performing around the city

Labels: Vietnam