Postcards from abroad
We spent the day exploring Cau Bang, a province up against the Chinese border. One highlight was visiting the Ban Gioc Waterfall (a UNESCO site) which lies half in China and half in Vietnam. Our first indication that we were close to China came when Google Maps stopped working. On our side of the border,… Continue reading An exciting day as promised – Part 1: Ban Gioc Waterfall
One of the essential parts of our planning our days with Josh and Bien circulates around what we want to eat and where we want to eat: breakfast is planned the night before, lunch at breakfast and so on. So here’s a record of what we ate today and where we ate and drank -… Continue reading A day of eating and drinking in Cao Bang Province
For a change, we wanted to give our readers a sense of the enormous range of the aesthetic here in Vietnam, ranging from the basic shed where we had lunch today through to the charming coffee shops we’ve visited, with their sweet retrospective inflection. But we open with a Covid poster which we found in… Continue reading Vietnamese style
We arrived at Ba Be Lake last night, a long-established national park, after a rather adventurous journey, to stay in our beautiful but disorganised homestay on the lake: We set off this morning in a boat to explore the lake and its sights which included a waterfall and a temple. The lake was alive with… Continue reading A walk through the butterflies
We stayed a couple of nights in a charming low-key eco-resort in Pan Hou and enjoyed a stroll to the tea factory a couple of kilometers down the road. The farmers were out harvesting the rice, as the opening picture shows, while others were tending to their land: This minority ethnic group (Josh will remind… Continue reading A village walk in Pan Hou