Kepfram & Ellie's Travel Journal

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

Welcome to Southern Vietnam! 

We are moving south faster than expected. First stop: a few nights at the beach town of Nha Trang. So many Russians! (Cyrilic signage, Russian groceries, Menus in Russian, former Soviet Republic restaurants, Russian street performers...) I had no idea!

Apparently there are dozens of direct flights from Russia to the nearby airport each week, the Russian expat community is clustered here, and in a city of 400 thousand inhabitants, already more than 600 thousand Russians visitors this year alone!

We have a very cute loft room on a quiet street (making me think hard about how to loft our bed back in NYC, though the ceiling here is high enough we can almost stand in the loft, which would NOT happen at home...) 

We took another overnight train to get here 😊 - even got the 4 bed cabin to ourselves for the night (though when we arrived, passengers who disembarked had been sitting in our cabin eating, so not the cleanest). I've enjoyed traveling this way - even though it is much slower and slightly more expensive than flying within the country.

Nha Trang has a very scenic beach, and we were hoping for more evening swims, like we enjoyed in Da Nang, but the beach here is windy, the surf rough and the sand gritty - we haven't been drawn to take a dip...

Tomorrow we'll take a bus up to the mountain town of Da Lat - cooler weather, lots of sights. We're looking forward to spending some time there - our hotel is reserved until the end of Sept, and we might extend.

More to follow!

Labels: Vietnam

We came here to get custom dance shoes for Ellie. She ended up with a lovely pair of shoes from the same shop a friend had used a couple years ago. I'd hoped to get some repairs done on my tire sandals or maybe a new/better pair, but that's not the kind of work people do here. I did upgrade the straps with some rubber strapping from the market here though. So, win? I was also able to get some repairs for my backpack, some pants hemmed, & I replaced all of my travel utensils with shiny new ones made of buffalo horn! 

Our homestay was nice. Another large family home with A/C, a fridge, private bath, & breakfast included every morning (we almost always chose beef pho & coffee). The best part might have been the free bikes that we used almost daily to explore the area. We easily got into the tourist areas and further afield to see rice fields and neighboring communities, including some swiftlet farms where birds are raised for their nests that get used in some special local foods.

We also saw the Bamboo Circus show. It was great.

Memorable foods here: pandan in iced tea, smoked duck noodles, green mango salad with prawns, Vietnamese honeycomb cake

Things I liking:

• Vietnamese food is AMAZING
• Vegetarian meals that are deliciously flavorful 
• Pho for breakfast 
• Vietnamese tofu
• Iced jasmine green tea
• Coffee: white, regular with sweetened condensed milk, iced coconut, & salted
• Coconut smoothies made with young coconut flesh, coconut milk, & coconut water
• An entire country that seems to live in flip-flops
• Almost ubiquitous wi-fi
• The sky is beautiful, sweeping clouds and wide horizons
• Bidets toilets as standard
• Thrift shopping
• Riding bikes

Things I'm not loving:

• A weak stream on a bidet
• Secret pork in meals
• Not having my own kitchen
• Moving weekly

Labels: Vietnam

Wow - 4 weeks in Vietnam?! We've entered Central Vietnam (the Vietnameese/American War DMZ lies between Hue and Da Nang - though we didn't visit it...)

A lot of history here! Hue is the historic residence of Vietnam's last imperial family (the Nguyen Dynasty, built in the early 1800s. The compound, as well as being representative of Vietnamese architecture, has tons of French influence, but also Chinese and Japanese. As we were there for the National Day (Sept 2) holiday, all Vietnamese got free entry to the local historic sites, which may be the reason there were SO many people in traditional dress visiting for photo ops. Regardless of the reason, it was extra beautiful with all the costumes. 

As Hue is a larger city, that's not entirely focused on tourism, we were able to be around tons of locals - out for a walk at night, gathered with friends and family at local open air restaurants, passing time playing some board game we could not identify (apparently it's Cu tuong, aka Chinese chess), kids riding tiny light up go carts in the park...

We got up early on National Day and walked down to the river to join the local crowds watching the celebratory traditional boat races on the Perfume River. Similar to Dragon Boats, but shorter and with flatter (less stable) hulls paddled by some serious athletes! We watched both Men's and Women's races - the men were a little more aggressive, resulting in a capsized boat in 2 races (one seemed intentional, and the culprit boat seemed to get a time penalty) - it was HOT though, so we only lasted an hour...  

We also spent a lot of time in our hotel/B&B - a lovely family-run homestay in an older house - they included breakfast - and for 2 of our 3 nights we were also offered a delicious dinner - where we met some like-minded travelers of our generation - a couple from Bavaria and a solo traveler from Dresden - I hope we cross paths again!

We relatively quickly moved on to Central Vietnam's biggest city - Da Nang - a working port city with an extensive beachfront on the coast of the South China Sea. We are staying on the Son Tra Peninsula - a bit of Miami in the aesthetic, with palm trees along the endless (~9 km) My Khe Beach, party vibe at all the beachfront bars, and even some beach volleyball. One of the things I love is that all the highrise hotels (and there are MANY) seem to be along the city side (not the beach side) of the road, so the beach itself is less crowded. Here, there are a ton of restaurants and coffee shops (serving all the international tourists - more Russian & Indian visitors than we've seen elsewhere), including multiple Korean and Indian eateries, and a handful other ethnic spots, in addition to all the local food and Seafood! 

Da Nang nightlife seems to be centered on the Han River, which divides the city - especially lovely at night, with decorated bridges, one spanned by a giant dragon which spits fire and water at 9pm on weekend evenings, attracting a huge number of even more lit-up dinner cruises which come to watch along the equally lit riverfront. There's also a huge swing bridge which opens at 11pm on weekends.

Overall, the city hasn't invited us in (granted, we have been laying low during the day, staying out of the sun, hitting the beach at sunset, and exploring only after dark), we'll see if anything else grabs us before we head to our main stop in central Vietnam - Hoi An!!

Labels: Vietnam