October 1 - Laos

“Love is... Two souls inhabiting the same body.”

This is one of the more interesting messages we’ve seen stenciled on T-shirts. I love what is sometimes gained in translation. Like multiple-personality disorders.

***

Willa’s just fallen asleep and Johnny calls me out to the deck of our bungalow. We’re in the small, quiet riverside town of Nong Khiaw in Northern Laos and, with the exception of a few lights from houses on the other side of the bridge, the only light outside comes from the millions of stars and galaxies above us. Looking across the river, the silhouette of the giant, craggy mountains delineates where the sky begins and the Milky Way - something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before - shines brightly, following, or perhaps directing the path of the river. It’s idyllic here.

Actually, it’s idyllic almost everywhere in Laos. It’s a beautiful country of mountains, jungles, fields of rice, fruit orchards, wetlands, waterfalls and sprawling rivers. Beautiful people who smile and greet you. Children in school uniforms of white blouses and dark blue sarongs or pants who wave as we pass by in buses. They race their bicycles down the road, steering with one hand while holding umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun in the other. Even in the cities, people are relaxed and friendly. Except for the literature and occasional posted warnings about UXOs (unexploded ordnances), there are no indications that Laos is famous for being “one of the most bombed nations on earth,” as Lonely Planet guidebook states.

We arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on September 28th, by bus, crossing the Mekong River on the Thai-Australian Friendship Bridge. It’s a short ride from Nong Khai, a border town on the Mekong River in Northeast Thailand, about an hour, even with two stops at immigration. The distance and time seem too short to be leaving one country and entering another, but almost instantly we feel and see differences in the two countries.

The French colonial influence is pervasive in Vientiane and throughout Laos. There are two-story buildings with balconies on each floor, wooden shutters and overgrown plants and trees neighboring manicured gardens, both rich and green. The paint on the outside walls has faded to pale and chipped yellow, green and white. Glowing golden wats (temples), ancient, crumbling stupas growing grass and flowers and an arc de triomphe with a giant fountain decorate the boulevards.

From Vientiane we head north by bus to Vang Vieng, a small, flat town just off of the highway. In the center of town is an enclave of tourist-geared outfits offering tubing and kayaking, backpacker cafes and guesthouses with TVs blaring episodes of “Friends” and “The Simpsons.”

Our guesthouse sits on the Song River with an incredible view of the rushing, rising water. It rains heavily every night and sometimes during the day, flooding the grass and gardens of the guesthouse where Willa plays with the owner’s four kids, wrestling, chasing and taking turns trying to pick each other up.

On the far side of the river, men and women cast fishing nets from boats and from the shore, laughing and shouting to one another as they fish and exclaiming over catches. Beyond them, bright green rice fields stretch out and beyond those, karsts reach up to the sky, their peaks concealed by clouds.

One morning we bicycle across the river and down the red dirt road in search of one of several caves housing Buddha statues Vang Vieng is known for. The air is clear and cool from the rains and herds of small, brown cows share the road with us, the wooden bells around their necks resonating.

We walk our bikes across several small, rushing rivers. When the water rises too high, we park our bikes and follow a woman who, like a guardian angel, spotted us on the road and motorbiked to meet us. We trek up river, against the strong current, making paths through tall grabbing weeds, over rocks and muddy paths. Stopping to catch our breaths at a lean-to, the woman walks behind it and comes back with a handmade sign, “10,000 kip for guide.” Ahhh.

While we usually prefer to make our on way and really prefer to know in advance if someone’s expecting a fee, there is no way we would have found our way to the hidden cave with the giant seated Buddha and, more importantly, back to our bikes without this woman.

We head north for Luang Prabang by bus, departing from the pot-holed tarmac airfield strip that serves as Vang Vieng’s bus station, a meeting ground for the town dogs and a driving course for would-be licensed motorcyclists.

The mountains our bus slowly climbs around are stunning, awesome, breathtaking. We compare them to Hawaii, New Zealand, Montana, and finally concede that they can be found only here, in Laos. Though we do see some evidence of deforestation - and Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax springs to mind - the beautiful, mostly undeveloped country seems to go on forever.

Small mountain villages sit right on the highway’s edge and children, ducks, pigs and dogs amble cheerfully in the road. One cow lies on the median line, traffic swerving around it. Drivers use their horns sparingly, if at all, and defer to animals and people.

Most of the houses and shacks have satellite dishes. Everyone seems to have access to transportation - bicycles and motorcycles, if not cars. We do not see people hitchhiking or walking long distances. There seems to be plenty of fresh food available - rice, fruits and vegetables, fish and healthy, if small cows.

There must be extreme poverty in this country, but we don’t see much evidence of it. There are few beggars and they look more in need of a shower and clean clothes (and, in some cases, psychiatric help) than they do food. I can count on two hands the number of children I’ve seen obviously suffering from malnutrition.

The smooth road now descends, and our bus gains speed as it winds down the mountains. The bus driver’s assistant hands out plastic bags to those who need. Willa gets sick once, but we’re prepared and the mess is contained and cleaned up in seconds (sticky rice goes down in clumps and comes back up in clumps.) Johnny and I are almost manic in our attempts to entertain Willa, joined in our unspoken and irrational belief that if we can keep her mind distracted by good cheer, her stomach will forget it’s doing somersaults. Somehow it works.

Six and a half hours later we arrive in Luang Prabang and it is even more charming than the guidebook photos convey. Luang Prabang is a growing tourist destination and while there’s development, it complements the surrounding temples, trees and rivers. Teak wood homes line brick paths behind short, tidy wooden fences and courtyards are filled with bouganvillea, various palms and potted plants. There are none of the cement-block high rises popping up all over the rest of South East Asia’s towns.

“I could summer in Laos.” I’m joking, knowing this comment will make Johnny roll his eyes. He’s already heard me remark countless times how this hall of trees and flowers over the sandy dirt path remind me of Martha’s Vineyard or those cottages remind me of Cape Cod, but it’s true. This country is absolutely beautiful. It’s taken the best of rural life and city life and magically, seemingly successfully, combined them.

All over Laos, even in the cities, it’s silent by 9PM. Save for the lights emanating from homes and restaurants, streets are dark, stars and moon clearly visible in the night sky. The few street lights are a dim yellow. There are no horns blowing, no fluorescent shop signs or karaoke blaring from bars. Delicious fancy restaurants with chic decor and flattering lighting share sidewalks with small noodle soup cafes and food stalls grilling whole fish stuffed with lemongrass. Wide, tree-lined avenues and dirt paths for biking and walking follow the river. The cities and large towns provide all amenities and comforts like great bakeries and internet, disposable diapers and French wines.

There is more wrong than right with colonialism, but I am completely beguiled by the charms of French colonial architecture in Asia. And baguettes.

Pakam Guesthouse has only six rooms, all immaculate with private bathrooms, dark hardwood floors and a balcony with a sitting area just outside our room. My mom takes the room next to ours and I think we’re the only guests here. We keep our doors open and Willa has her run of the upstairs. In the evenings, we have picnic dinners on the balcony of grilled fish, barbecued pork sausage, sticky rice, and spicy green papaya salad.

A week later, we take a songthaw, a pick-up truck with two long covered benches down the length of the bed, north to Nong Khiaw. The songthaw is packed with people, all Laotians save for us and a British guy, and bags, both inside and tied on the roof. We pick up other passengers along the way and they somehow squeeze in, or stand on the back bumper and hang on to the rail. If the driver brakes short of someone’s stop, the passengers rally and call out good-naturedly until he relents and drops each person right at their door.

Unlike the larger, air-conditioned buses used mostly by tourists, there are no signs of inward groans or rolled eyes from other passengers when they see us boarding with a baby. People hold Willa’s hand, offer her sweets and gesture for me to let her legs stretch out onto their laps when she’s sleeping. I don’t blame fellow tourists for not wanting their travels marred by a crying kid, but I welcome not feeling guilty when we board the bus.

It is hot, breezeless and the sun is relentless when we arrive in Nong Khiaw. Our legs are stiff and we move unsteadily in the heat under the weight of our bags which seem to grow heavier with each leg of our trip.

In the late afternoon, after reviving cold showers and colder Beer Lao, we walk across the bridge to the small town consisting of a tiny post office, some lackluster restaurants, guesthouses, and shops selling shampoo, toothpaste, candy, chips, etc. At the boat dock, cement stairs lead down to the river and young women and men bathe and wash dishes and clothes while little children play. Chickens run loose and Willa follows the chicks following their mother hen.

The next morning we walk to a cave where Laotians hid during the Indochina War. The paved road is shaded with overhanging trees, lush and green, and runs along a river. The air is loud with the buzz and whirring of insects. We could be on a country road in Virginia or North Carolina and I love that places and experiences can feel universal.

The boat back to Luang Prabang is five of the best hours we spend in Laos with the good company of three Australian women we befriend, children waving and yelling to us as they jump en masse into the river, bright yellow butterflies dancing above the water, limestone cliffs that reach straight up from the river and the breeze off of the river tempering the late afternoon sun.

Suddenly, time is passing too quickly. We have only two weeks left on our Laos visa and so much of the country that we still want to see.

We catch a flight south to Pakse, covering in one hour what would have taken about 30 hours by bus. In dusty, sprawling Pakse we go to the post office, bank, market, grocery store, health clinic, hospital and pharmacy (my mom’s had a terrible sinus infection which develops into the flu), and sporting goods store (to buy a badminton set which we play with while my mom recuperates) over the course of five days. I’ve spent years in cities and not been to all of these places.

When my mom’s sufficiently recovered, we continue south to Kingfisher Eco-Lodge, where elephants roam the mountain paths and giant, black water buffalo wade in the wetlands. They follow each other, a string of water buffalo, along a water path through the high reeds at dawn. White egrets alight upon their backs as they wallow in the marsh. In the early evening the young tenders glide out in shallow wooden boats and in singsong, call the herd home.

Further south still, we take a boat from the mainland to Si Phan Don, Four Thousand Islands. We play badminton on our guesthouse lawn, eat spring rolls, and look at trees. Take bike rides and look for dolphins in the river. Listen to monks chant in a temple lit by candle light. Read and sleep.

Willa has learned to wai, the prayer-like Buddhist greeting of placing palms together in front of your face. It’s delightful to behold, but even more wonderful is what she chooses to wai to. Temples and photographs of temples, the moon, early morning coming in through the curtains, water buffalo calves nursing and, as she lays in bed in the dark, to herself and the day’s end, waiting to fall asleep. All wai-worthy.

August 8 - Hanoi and Sa Pa, Vietnam

The bus has pulled up to the station in Hanoi and I’m the last one off, struggling down the narrow aisle with Willa and two bags, rushing to claim my backpack from the bus’ undercarriage before someone else does. I stumble on the last step and as I right myself, women surrounding the bus shove cheap jewelry and trinkets in my face, “You buy from me!”, “You buy something!” Moto drivers grab for my bags, trying to convince me to go with them, that they have a good, cheap guesthouse for me. I’m too tired to put Willa, myself and the bags onto the back of a motor bike in the middle of Hanoi traffic, so I pick a driver who has a car - there’s only one - and ask him to please take me to Camellia 3 guesthouse. He recommends a better, cheaper guesthouse, but I insist, telling him that my husband is going to meet me at Camellia 3. I hope this will be so.

We had just visited Cat Ba Island in Ha Long Bay, renowned for its mythically beautiful limestone outcroppings in aqua waters. We arrived around noon on Monday and by Tuesday morning we were ready to leave.

Our bus from Ninh Binh dropped us off at the Haiphong ferry dock where we paid an exorbitant amount of money for an air-conditioned fast boat to Cat Ba Island leaving right then. (The alternative was waiting on the sweltering dock for three hours to take a slow, non-air-conditioned boat.) The boat was already packed with Vietnamese tourists and tons of luggage and we grabbed the last two seats in the back. We were the only Westerners and, undoubtedly, the only people to pay as much as we did for our tickets.

We twice offered to switch seats with the woman next to us, so that she could sit with her family, but she declined. We later figured she must be viewing the ride as a mini-vacation from her husband and four children, who talked loudly, ate messily and got seasick for the duration of the trip. Just about everyone on board was sick - save us, fortunately - and we were appalled when exiting to see bags and bags of vomit amidst the crumbs, spilled sodas and trash that people had left behind on their seats and the floor.

On Cat Ba Island, we checked into our guesthouse and the bed crashed beneath us when we sat on it. At lunch we were overcharged for warm water, shrimp that had gone bad and old steamed rice. The two small beaches were so crowded with people we only got glimpses of sand and the ocean’s surf so strong we never considered taking Willa in. We walked around the somewhat depressed town, had two more underwhelming, overpriced meals and were given the directive “You buy something!” every 3 feet. We finally did: our return ferry tickets.

Gazing out the window of the boat, watching the brown water that surrounds Cat Ba Island, a thought occurred to me. “Johnny, did you get our passports back from the front desk?”* Shit. We quickly made the plan that Willa and I would continue on, taking the bus to Haiphong and from there, another bus to Hanoi. Johnny would go back to Cat Ba on the next ferry, take the bus back to the guesthouse, get our passports, take the journey again and meet us in Hanoi tonight at Camellia 3, a guesthouse hurriedly selected from our guidebook.

Now, in Hanoi, the taxi drops Willa and me off at the hotel and it’s lovely. Friendly staff, buffet breakfast included with the room, WiFi and a large exchange library in the lobby. Unfortunately, the cheapest room is $22, beyond our budget. I figure we’ll indulge ourselves for one night after a hectic day of travel. Unfortunately, it’s not available. The hotel’s completely booked, as is just about every other hotel in Hanoi. It seems ‘high season’ has officially begun.

The hotel manager kindly lets us hang out and store our bags in the lobby, as I try to figure out what to do. A new manager comes on shift and tells me that he owns a hotel nearby and has a room available for $18. It’s still above our budget, but we need a room and I rightly figure that the manager’s connection will help guarantee that Johnny gets the note I leave for him at the front desk and that he’ll be able to find us.

Many hours later, after Willa and I have checked in and unpacked our bags, walked around our neighborhood, eaten dinner, after Willa’s had her bath and we’ve read and played 52-card pick-up, after she’s gone to sleep, Johnny walks in the door. Over the past five months, we have not been apart for more than a few hours at a time. It feels as though we haven’t seen each other in days and our words rush out, detailing what we’ve been doing since we last saw each other. I am so relieved to have him back with us. With our passports.

We take long walks every day. Around the lake in the center of town, along the wide, tree-lined streets of the wealthy French Quarter, to museums and galleries. The work on the first floor of the Fine Arts Museum is especially impressive and we play ‘picks,’ amassing quite a collection to decorate our future home with. We go to see Ho Chi Minh’s embalmed body at the Mausoleum, but the line wraps around the block and we don’t feel like waiting. On our way back to our guesthouse, we come across Mondo Gelato and have the most delicious, creamy gelato, which becomes a diet staple.

Another day we take a cyclo to the massive Reunification Park where children ride go-carts, men and women play badminton, and a miniature train runs in loops. At one of the several playgrounds in the park, Willa climbs the steps and slides down the slide so many times I lose count. She shrieks with glee each time, as though it is her first.

A woman with a bundle of mylar balloons in the shapes of rabbits, fish and circles follows me, “You buy from me!” I decline several times and she then squats down to Willa’s height, holding the balloons out to her. “You buy for baby!” I pull a Linda Walker, calmly telling her, “Lady, if my daughter takes a balloon I won’t make her give it back and I won’t pay you for it, so unless you are prepared to give it to her for free, I recommend you move on.” Somehow this message is understood and she leaves us. Linda Walker is my mother-in-law and she similarly reproached a grocery store manager when Johnny, as a young boy, took candy from the shelves strategically placed at small child hand and eye-level.

We ride the merry-go-round again and again at Willa’s insistence until, beyond tired, she breaks down, staggering in tears from horse to sleigh, a character in her own melodrama. We go home.

We are staying in the Old Quarter, the ancient, merchant’s quarter. It’s packed with markets, cheap guesthouses, all manner of tourist-related shops - travel agencies, souvenir and guidebook shops, trekking outfits, etc. - food stalls and beer stands. In the afternoons, we sit at one of these popular beer stands, Bia Hoi, sipping cheap, pale beer and watching traffic.

Late one morning we stop around the corner from our guesthouse at one of the sidewalk cafes and feel like we’ve joined a kindergarden group for lunch. The brightly colored plastic chairs and stools are so small and the tables so short, we have to sit parallel to the table. I offend a woman by having my back to her, but we are squeezed for space and can’t figure out how else to sit at the table. We are amazons here.

A young woman in pajamas sets down a bowl of freshly washed greens - lettuce, bean sprouts, mint and basil - for the table and, for each of us, a plate of rice noodles, a small bowl of pork-broth based soup with grilled meatballs of ground pork and chopped scallions, slices of barbecued pork and slices of cucumber. As is the custom, we wipe our chopsticks down with small napkin squares. On the table are jars of chopped chilis, a garlic and chili-flavored vinegar and fish sauce to add to the soup to taste.

We take a bite of noodle with our chopsticks, dip it into the soup and then into our mouths. In between bites of noodles, we eat the meat and tear off more pieces of greens, adding them to the soup. A plate of cut up spring rolls is set down in front of us and we dip those in the soup before eating, as well. The soup gets drunk from the bowl last.

Garlic and Chili Vinegar: In a jar put sliced red chilis, sliced garlic and top with white vinegar. Let it sit for a few hours, days. This condiment is on every Vietnamese table and is fantastic on top of fried egg on rice, fried noodles, bowls of noodle soup.

Hanoi is infinitely more enjoyable and sophisticated (despite there seeming to be almost as many women with hickies on their necks as without) than Ho Chi Minh City, but we tire of the ceaseless traffic, heat and “You buy something from me!” cries that begin the moment we step outside our guesthouse.

We take the overnight train up north, to the town and mountains of Sa Pa where we will spend our remaining two weeks in Vietnam here. We know this from the moment we step off the train into the crisp, chilly air. From the dizzying, twisting drive up into the breathtakingly beautiful mountains. The decision is cemented the moment we see our room at Cat Cat guesthouse with a balcony that looks out to the mist-covered mountains above and valleys terraced with crops below. Our room with its fireplace and comfortable beds, plush with white cotton duvets.

It rains almost every morning and we huddle and cuddle together in our warm bed until the thought of the guesthouse restaurant’s rich coffee and crepes with lemon and sugar persuade me to get up. We walk through the market and around the small town, to the oval cement park where Willa runs from puddle to puddle, splashing with her new purple rubber boots. Around the park’s perimeter, women tend charcoal fires, roasting and selling ears of corn, sweet potatoes and whole eggs. Mobile carts selling baguettes circle the park blaring techno-ice-cream-truck versions of “Jingle Bells,” “Auld Lang Syne,” and “Happy Birthday.”

Women and girls from the ethnic minority hill tribes, mostly Black Hmong and Red Dao here, hover outside the guesthouse front door with baskets and hands full of souvenirs to sell: blankets and pillow cases made from embroidered and woven cloth, hats, woven and silver bracelets, necklaces. They comb the streets and the park for potential buyers, ambulance-chasing the buses and mini-vans bearing tourists from the train station. “You buy me!” and “You buy something!”

Some of the young girls walk and talk with you, often adept at both English and French, asking about your homeland, your baby and your travels, finally wrapping up conversation with, “So, maybe before you leave Sa Pa, you buy a small something from me?” They’ve grown up in a free market economy, as opposed to their mothers and grandmothers for whom it is still new. For whom “You buy from me!” is not just the only sales pitch they know, but often the only English they know.

The faces of the Black Hmong and Red Dao are brown from the sun and free of make-up, unlike the pale, covered faces of most Vietnamese women. Long, thick, black hair hangs loose or in a ponytail down the backs of young girls and swept up in ornate twists and buns held with silver combs on the women. Silver bracelets run up their arms and large, silver, hoop earrings hang from their ears. Their hand-embroidered and woven tunics, pants and jackets are dyed from indigo and their fingers and hands seem to be permanently stained. The women wrap black velvet cloth around their legs secured with ribbon and somehow pull off leg-warmers with panache. Probably because they are really worn to warm the legs.

We take walks, down winding roads, to waterfalls and up mountain paths. Passed Red Dao women with their bright red headdresses selling souvenirs laid out on blankets by the side of the road. An old man in a traditional indigo tunic and a young boy wearing a jacket with Dolce & Gabbana splashed across the back, both with pants rolled up to their thighs, herding their water buffalo up the mountain. An albino water buffalo and its baby grazing on the roadside. Motorcycles climbing the mountain, beeping their horns and revving their engines. Motorcycles descending the mountain, rolling silently with engines turned off. One man shouts out “Beep! Beep!,” as he rounds the bend. We laugh and call out that his is the best horn we’ve heard. He and his passenger laugh and “Beep!” in response.

Late at night, the teenage Black Hmong girls in their traditional clothes use the computers in the guesthouse lobby, chatting on-line with friends, watching videos and looking at photos of celebrities. Their fingers fly over the keys, simultaneously working and chatting in numerous windows. Their passwords are staggeringly long with hyphens in between letters and numbers. And yet, there’s no compunction about reading e-mails over someone’s shoulders. When checking e-mails, I’m not infrequently startled to hear, “What does _____ mean?” When Johnny asks around about the availability of WiFi in Sa Pa, he’s told there’s none in town, only in the mountain villages.

Our visa expires on August 10th, when we will fly back to Bangkok. We’ve frequently been perplexed and frustrated by the Vietnamese we've encountered. People’s social graces elude us with seemingly common courtesies coming few and far between. And yet I feel melancholy about leaving.

The people who have been kind have been exceptionally so. We’ve made fast and good friends with fellow travelers. And, of course, the country itself is stunning in its natural beauty and diversity - chilly mountain regions, beaches, sand dunes, lush rice paddies. For all of our complaints, it hasn’t escaped our notice that on this journey we have spent more time in this country than in any other.

* All guesthouses and hotels require that you leave your passports at the front desk as insurance against guests running out on their bill.

Tam Coc, Vietnam

July 15 - Hue and Ninh Binh, Vietnam

Early in the morning, when it’s just starting to get light, I hear Willa wake up on the other side of the room. She scoots to the end of her bed, climbs down and pads over to my bed where I’m half-sleeping, half-feigning sleep. I can feel her eyes and hot baby breath on my face. She gently pokes at my eyelids and cheeks, “Ma?” I really dislike this name and don’t know how she came upon it for me. “Ma?” I open my eyes and she’s smiling, beaming at me. I lift her and roll over, laying her between myself and the wall.

Willa plays quietly, singing softly, making up signs with her hands and fingers. Sometimes she turns her head and watches me. Sometimes she leans over and kisses me. I’m tired, but I can’t pretend to sleep through such tenderness and love.

Our room in the Binh Duong III guesthouse has the luxuries of a bathtub, room service and hardwood floors. Most guesthouses, actually most buildings in Southeast Asia have shiny tiled floors that become lethally slick when wet and we’ve had more than our fair share of accidents stepping out of showers or on puddles formed under dripping rain jackets and condensation from water bottles.

We order french toast and when it arrives, Willa jumps from one foot to the other in excited anticipation, barely able to wait for me to cut it into squares. She holds her little plate with both hands and carefully walks it over to the table between the beds. She wiggles her butt and hums as she chews, loving her food. We realize that Willa thinks we’re saying “french toes” after the third or so time she squats down and touches our toes when asked if she’d like more.

We are in Hue, the former capital and third largest city in Vietnam. Despite its size, Hue is charming and reminds us of Austin. It is home to five universities and long parks with sculptures, trees and gardens. Several bridges cross the wide river that separates the citadel containing the old Imperial Palace from the rest of the city. Many women wear the traditional dress of ao dai, a long, silk, slit tunic over pants. Far more elegant and beautiful than the nylon pajamas so popular in the South.

Though we have decided to eschew tourist ‘sites’ - usually disappointing and entrance fees cost too much; even Johnny is templed out, tired of seeing where rich people used to live and where their dead bodies are kept - the citadel intrigues us with its high stone wall and the amount of space it takes up on the city map. Vines and shrubs grow out of the stone wall and the surrounding moat is filled with lily pads and flowers. Behind the walls, the Imperial Palace’s dark wood floors and walls are soothing and wonderfully uncluttered. (Other royal residences we’ve visited fill rooms with furniture and ornaments.) We walk from royal building to royal building until the heat and crowds of Vietnamese tourists with sun-protecting umbrellas at eye-gouging level force us back to our air-conditioned guesthouse.

We rent bicycles and ride the flat road along the city-side of the river. Out of town, beneath the highway underpass and around the large bend, to the rice paddies and villages that lie in the city’s outskirts. The road turns from pavement to dirt. We follow it, passing houses and waving hello to children who run out to the side of the road to watch us. “Hello! Hello! Hello!,” they shriek, trying to out-yell each other, not bothering to wait for a response from us.

We stop at a large watering hole where several water buffalo are cooling off, some almost completely submerged. They sputter as they come up for air and we’re enthralled by their beauty. Far apart eyes, dark charcoal grey hides, rippled horns arching back. They look like they belong in another time. Willa loves to watch them, especially the calves nursing and bonking their mothers’ teats with their heads. Though immense in size, with giant hoofed feet, they are gentle and graceful.

We ride on the elevated concrete paths through the rice fields, stopping to photograph the family cemetery plots. They rise out of the paddies, giant stone gardens surrounded by planted flowers.

On our ride back to town we pass baguette carts and stands selling steamed dumpling buns filled with minced pork, steamed and roasted ears of corn. Near our guesthouse is Minh & Coco, a cafe run by two sisters. Minh is bawdy and Coco all about business. They are rather irreverent toward their customers and we love their familiar, hands-on treatment that makes us not feel like foreigners. We also love their french fries with mayonnaise.

The sleeper bus to Hanoi (we’re only riding it as far as Ninh Binh) is a mobile dormitory, outfitted with about 25 bunk beds. It’s surprisingly comfortable. I should sleep, and I’ll pay for this later, but the night sky and the rice fields lit by moonlight are so quiet and beautiful that I stay awake, watching the country rush by. Having Johnny and Willa so close to me and this peaceful, starry night outside my window makes my eyes tear up. As though sensing my emotion, Johnny, lying down in the bed in front of mine, reaches his hand back and clasps my foot, “I love you, My-My.”

Hours later, the bus jerks to a stop and the bus driver yells out. It’s not quite pitch black outside, but close, and everyone around us is asleep. We’re disoriented, not sure what’s going on. “Is this our stop?” It can’t be. We’re not supposed to arrive in Ninh Binh, just south of Hanoi, until 7AM. Johnny gets up and goes to ask the bus driver. He races back, “This is our stop!” The bus driver rushes us and we scramble to put our shoes on and get our things together, grab Willa and run off the bus before it takes off, praying we haven’t forgotten anything crucial.

It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and we’re standing on the side of a highway, watching the tail lights and breathing in the exhaust of our receding bus. We’re a bit stunned, not sure what to do or where to go. This is, of course, the one time in all of our travels that there isn’t a throng of moto drivers shouting for our business. In fact, the road is deserted and the only light provided by the moon and a dim yellow lamp post.

“Hallo! Hallo!” A flashlight’s spotlight bounces, approaching us. “You come to my hotel!” We don’t bother consulting our guidebook marked with the names of guesthouses to consider. We follow the man and he leads us down a side street, into a building and up the stairs. Outside of a room, he knocks on the door. Receiving no response, he calls out something in Vietnamese and bangs on the door. A girl with sleep-filled eyes opens the door, mutters something and turns back to quickly straighten the room and bed. Minutes later, she pads out, followed by three other young women. Our room is ready. We stagger in, drop our bags, climb into bed and are asleep in seconds.

Ninh Binh doesn’t make much of a first impression with it’s dusty brown highway that runs through town’s center, paltry market with wilted fruits and vegetables, and a surprising amount of traffic and pollution given its small size. When we awaken for the second time that morning, we borrow bicycles to ride around town and are back within the half hour. We eat lunch and go back to sleep.

We came to Ninh Binh to see Tam Coc, “three caves”, the limestone outcroppings made popular by the film Indochine and described in our guidebook as “a miniature landlocked version of Halong Bay.” Determined to accomplish this and not linger in Ninh Binh, we rent a motorbike that afternoon and head out to the caves. Just a couple hundred meters down the road and a turn to the right and we are in the most beautiful land of Vietnam we’ve seen yet.

Brilliant green rice fields stretch out for miles, interrupted by giant limestone rocks jutting up and the mountains beyond them. Young boys languidly herd their cows and water buffalo with sticks and wave to us as we pass. The motorcycle creates a fantastic breeze, cooling us.

We park our bike at the river and take out a sampan, slowly drifting along the river. Gliding through the caves (where Johnny gives me a refresher course on stalagtites and stalagmites), the only sound is that of the oars paddling through the water. The ceilings are low and the caves are long and so dark that our eyes squint against the sunlight as we come out. In between the caves, weeds, rice shoots and water lilies surround the bases of tall cliffs bordering the river. Up on the ridges we spot mountain goats watching us. One of the two sampan rowers speaks French and we converse about our children. The late afternoon sun glimmers off of the water and mellows us.

Back at the guesthouse for dinner we are asked if we are 30,000 dong hungry, 40,000 dong hungry or 50,000 dong hungry. We haven’t ordered this way before, but we’re pretty hungry, so we go for the 50. What follows is a culinary feast. Large bowl of steaming white rice. Platter of shredded sauteed vegetables, plate stacked with crispy spring rolls, and two bowls of chicken curry. It’s fantastic and we can barely finish it. Willa eats everything on her plate and grabs food off of our plates when we’re too slow at refilling hers.

Later, as we’re hanging out on the front steps talking with other guests, Willa runs back into the kitchen. She reappears minutes later in the arms of the owner’s wife who’s feeding her rice and chopped chicken from a bowl. The woman looks at me disapprovingly, “She hungry! Baby very hungry!” I try to tell her that we fed her two platefuls of food, but I can see that she doesn’t believe me. Willa hums and wiggles in her seat, wolfing down each bite that’s offered to her. I foresee future family roadtrips with Willa’s handwritten sign, “Help! I’ve been kidnapped!” held up against the rear window.

The next morning we head out on our motorbike and ride along dirt roads through rice paddies, mountain ranges, passed cemetery gardens and water tanks. A zig-zagging stairway has been built into a mountain, leading up to a dragon-guarded pagoda at the top. We make the long climb, stopping to catch our breath on the landings. At each one, the view spread out below is even more incredible than the last. It seems we can see across the entire country.

On our way back we crash our motorbike, swerving to miss a man coming around the corner. Fortunately, Willa’s wearing her brand new shiny red helmet. Even more fortunately, she and I are completely untouched and she doesn’t even cry. Johnny and the bike have a few minor scrapes, but we’re all well and hope that we’ve gotten our bike accident out of the way.

The guesthouse owner couldn’t be kinder, telling us to never mind about the bike, just wanting to be sure that we are okay. Willa is taken into the kitchen and fed a warm baguette with honey. We go upstairs to our room to clean up and come back down for another delicious dinner. One of the guests we’ve befriended has bought a large carton of chocolate ice cream to share and we join him with our spoons on the front stoop, talking and watching Willa and the kids from next door play as the sun sets.

Ninh Binh and our guesthouse have turned out to be one of the brightest spots on this trip.

July 6 - Nha Trang and Hoi An, Vietnam

The road from from Da Lat to Nha Trang twists and winds down, through pine covered mountains. The road is narrow with sharp curves and vehicles overtake each other, seemingly regardless of blind spots. Several people on our bus throw up and the bus driver’s back-up blithely hands out plastic bags and collects the full ones, chucking them out the door and onto the side of the road.

We arrive in Nha Trang, a fishing town on the South-East coast of Vietnam in the afternoon. Nha Trang is in many ways like most of the cities we’ve visited. It has the ubiquitous book exchanges carrying the ubiquitous books: The Life of Pi, Mr. Nice, The Beach, A Chef’s Tour, countless Dan Brown novels, Bill Bryson books, The Killing Fields, First They Killed My Father and worn and marked up Rough Guides and Lonely Planets in English and French and, on occasion, German.

There are the shops peddling pirated DVDs, including the ever-present Tomb Raider, The Killing Fields and Without Borders. Souvenir shops hawking postcards, Tin Tin books, fatigues-like hats and pants, T-shirts and tank tops with the slogan “Same, Same But Different”, the large gold star that is Vietnam’s insignia, and an outline of Vietnam with the name of the city we’re in emblazoned across the chest.

Street stands tout packets of Oreos and Ritz crackers, Snickers bars and Mars bars, M&Ms and cigarettes. Drink stands sell Mirinda, Coke, Sprite and local sodas that seem to have no flavor beyond sugary sugar. Baguette stands and carts offer baguette with pate or baguette with Laughing Cow cheese. Sidewalk cafes serve pho, noodle soup for breakfast and grilled pork chops and fried eggs over rice for lunch. This last one is our new favorite meal.

Children and women holding babies beg and sell cheap jewelry and postcards. Tuk-tuk and moto (motorcycle) drivers try to pick up fares. Restaurants called El Coyote, Why Not? and Good Morning Vietnam advertise Vietnamese and Western cuisine, catering to tourists homesick for a burger and fries or cottage pie, fish and chips or a banana split.

Nha Trang has all of these components, but it is slower and more relaxed. There’s less traffic and people are friendlier. When we decline their offers, tuk-tuk drivers slowly putter alongside us, giving directions and making conversation.

Our guesthouse is a block from the beach. The rooms are more expensive than we’ve budgeted for, but Willa is so happy playing on the beach and the adjacent park with its climbable stone sculptures, that we commit to staying for a few days.

The first morning, Willa wakes up at 5:30AM and we head out so Johnny can sleep in. Expecting a deserted town, we instead behold people taking their morning constitutionals, walking briskly up and down the streets in pajamas and sneakers and some in fancy slip-on shoes. The park is filled with people performing calisthenics and stretches. The beach and ocean crowded. Breakfast picnics are taking place, bikes are laid on their sides and stacked haphazardly, teenagers play and flirt, chasing each other into the ocean. Women and children swim fully clothed, men in trunks and babies and young children swim naked. Even more striking than all of this activity at 5:30 in the morning, is that it’s so quiet. To have this amount of people and so little noise is surreal. It’s beautiful.

We go to the beach every morning and afternoon. The ocean is placid and dark, like lake water. The sun is silvery and the air foggy; discombobulating and we have no sense of the time.

Wave runners and wakeboarders zip back and forth on the water in the afternoon, but it’s the para-sailers down the beach who pique our interest and we each take a spin out over the ocean. Similar to a pony ride, with every person taken the same route for the same short amount of time, para-sailing is nevertheless exhilarating. To be ‘free’ in the air with the ocean, beach, town and mountains spread out beneath you is incredible. We can’t wait to do it again.

We rent bicycles and ride along the beach and out of the city to the base of the cable cars that travel over the ocean to Vinpearl, an island that’s been transformed into a resort theme park. The cable car ride looks beautiful, but the entertainment portion of our budget went to para-sailing, so we head back to the beach. Willa is fearless in the water and has almost learned to dog-paddle.

Every morning the tide brings in piles of trash that get raked up by the beach cleaners. At breakfast we overhear someone say that the city loads all of the trash onto barges, takes it out to sea and dumps it in the ocean. We don’t know for sure if this is how Nha Trang manages waste but we’re happy to be leaving the next day.

The twelve-hour overnight bus ride to Hoi An is physically excruciating and renders us useless for the next day.

Hoi An is quaint, a historic port town with most of its downtown center mercifully blocked off to cars and trucks. The architecture is a mix of French colonial, Chinese and what Johnny calls ‘emerging nation,’ concrete block architecture. Vegetable garden plots take up several blocks within the city. Potted plants and flowers crowd entry-ways and balconies. Covered wells serve as roundabouts for bicycles and motorcycles. Hoi An is quite charming. It also seems to be almost entirely dedicated to tourists and shoppers.

There are literally entire city streets dedicated to tailors and dress shops and shoe shops. Clusters of stores selling lanterns and boutiques with ethnic fans, conical hats, dishware, artwork and clothing. The market takes up several city blocks, but is the least impressive one we’ve been to, geared as it is toward tourists.

We happen upon a fantastic pho cafe. We sit down at one of the many round communal tables and within minutes each have a steaming bowl of noodle soup with grilled beef in front of us. No menus and no ordering. This is the only item served. We return several times, afterward stopping at a sundries stand to buy the wrapped frozen ice cream sundae-in-a-cones we’ve become addicted to.

We bicycle out to the beach and play hide-and-seek with Willa between the coconut trees. It starts to rain, then pours and we get drenched on our ride back. It’s a great relief from the heat, the cool air and rain pelting us.

We bicycle across the river to the residential section of Hoi An, down the sandy lanes between rows of cottages. We park our bikes and walk across a bamboo footbridge. In the late afternoon sun, giant fishing nets in the river, like trapeze safety nets, are slowly lowered and raised by a manual wooden wheel. Old women pass by on the bridge. Their bodies disappear into the high grass on the other side until only their conical hats bobbing above are still visible. The sun is starting to set and we collect our bikes and head home.

Willa in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

June 28 - Chau Doc, Can Tho, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Lat, Vietnam

It’s nine o’clock in the morning and Willa has just passed out. She’s sprawled across the foot of the bed, wearing my underwear around her neck as a scarf. She’s been doing this lately with my swimsuits, undergarments and the chitenges we use for slings. We sleep family-style, cramped in beds that are twin or full-size and Willa wakes up several times a night, each time wanting to nurse for what seems like hours.

It’s hot outside. The trees are sparse and scraggly, and though we’re by the river, there is no breeze. The parks are almost exclusively concrete, the few ‘grass’ sections mostly dirt with cigarette butts and rubbish. Willa’s getting over a cold that I now have full-blown and we spend most of the days in our air-conditioned hotel room. We are irritable and tired, bored and boring.

I feel guilty for taking Willa away from her grandmothers and neighborhood playmates. I miss my friends. I miss my mom. I miss having a good park, playground and front yard for Willa to play in and a swimming pool in walking distance. A kitchen in which to prepare healthy meals for her. A bath. A bedtime routine and the same bed to sleep in every night.

Johnny and I take turns being alone - going for bike rides, reading books, checking e-mail - but it’s not always enough. And we miss being together and having conversations that aren’t about travel logistics or Willa.

This is the difficult part about traveling with your family. Making a home, a comfortable space for yourself and your family and finding time to be alone, all while moving through foreign places.

***

We traveled down the wide, brown Mekong River from Cambodia to Vietnam. Our boat dropped us off in Chau Doc, a small southern city on the river’s edge where wooden box houses on stilts squeeze each other, taking up every breath of space, their television antennas crowding the sky above.

A port town with business starting before dawn, Chau Doc’s streets are dirty, loud and congested. The ever-present street carts crowd the dock selling rice noodles in banana leaves topped with shaved coconut; noodles, watercress and pork wrapped in rice paper; baguettes filled with sliced roasted pork, cucumber and chili sauce; peanut bars made from cooked condensed milk and chopped peanuts. Women wear conical woven hats and form-fitting synthetic pajamas with psychedelic and floral prints (the Cambodian version of this casual wear is the checked kroma cloths wrapped around their heads to protect from the sun and loose cotton and flannel pajamas with anime-like characters.)

According to our guide book, Chau Doc’s two main sites of interest are the market, supposedly the largest in the Mekong Delta, and Sam Mountain.

As with most of the sites we visit, the best part is the journey there and Willa and I relax in our cyclo, passing fields and fields of rice paddies, tamarind trees, and giant water buffalo. Sam Mountain, actually just a hill outsde of town, turns out to be so tacky, crowded and geared toward tourists that we turn around before finding out what it’s famous for. I think for making offerings based on all of the stands selling joss-sticks, spirit money, candy, plastic toys and flowers, but don’t know why this location.

Early in the mornings, we walk through the giant, crowded market by the dock, wondering at the ingredients of the sweets and pastries and hurrying passed the dried fish and wet market sections. When we reach the produce hall we still for a moment to breathe in the heady, earthy scent of freshly picked lettuce, limes, cilantro, spring onions, carrots. We sit on tiny plastic stools at a food stall and a woman presents us with a bowl filled with chopped crispy spring rolls and barbecued pork, ground roasted peanuts, fresh cilantro and chili sauce on a bed of vermicelli noodles. At another stall we have a bowl of noodles, grilled beef and prawns in a rich, spicy beef and lemon broth. Vietnamese coffee, served short, sweet and all day long, is so strong it’s medicinal. This is the best Vietnamese food we’ve ever had.

Walking around town, women scold us for having Willa outside without a hat while giving sweets to their children whose teeth are brown and absent from rot. We are asked how we can afford to travel by men who sit in coffee shops smoking and drinking pale Chinese tea with their friends all day long. People seem unfriendly and my fever and the heat makes them appear even more so.

We’re slowly working our way north to Hanoi and our bus to Can Tho is uneventful save for the breakneck speed at which we travel. For four hours the driver tears around slower vehicles, so narrowly missing oncoming traffic that the bus shudders.
Can Tho is another port town, a large one with traffic-filled, multi-laned streets, tall concrete buildings and more guesthouses than we can imagine guests for. Hotel touts comb the streets and camp themselves in the doorways of other guesthouses trying to lure potential customers with cheaper prices. This is how our guesthouse manager hooks us. His hotel, like most others, is one bedroom-wide and several floors tall and the ground floor restaurant doubles as a staff bedroom and motorcycle storage room at night.

On our second morning, we hire a longboat and drift through the floating market that Can Tho boasts. Large boats are piled high with produce - pineapples, potatoes, squash, watermelon, cabbage - so weighted down their decks just skim above the surface of the water. Small, longboats cruise by serving noodle soup and coffee and tea. On top of each boat, the fruit or vegetable being sold dangles from a tall pole as advertisement. We spot the glow of a television inside a boat cab and realize that the other poles sitting on top most of the boats are antennas.

We continue on our river tour, under foot and traffic bridges and along narrows leading to areas free of development and overgrown with vegetation. The driver cuts the motor to clear the propellor of weeds and plastic bags and we glide in silence, surrounded by bamboo forest.

In this brown, sprawling river children play and people bathe, boats and barges pass through, animals and people defecate, trash is thrown, commerce is done, clothes are laundered and dishes are washed. The communal river is both repulsive and wholesomely attractive. Generations of families have been served by this river.

We walk along the river front to the statue of Ho Chi Minh. The giant silver Uncle Ho looks jolly and welcoming, smiling as he waves. Conversely, we find many of the people of Can Tho indifferent to the point of seeming rude. We’re ignored by market vendors, people scowl at Willa when she crosses their path in the park and our smiles and attempts at Vietnamese are met with blank looks.

We search for a bakery I’ve read about and when we finally find it, they don’t have donuts, the raisin rolls are disappointing and the pigs-in-blankets have hair on them. There is nowhere for Willa to play other than our hotel room. We are tired of carrying her and she is tired of being carried.

In the morning we crowd into a bus to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. The bus drivers are either the best stock car racers in the world or psychopaths. I’m so tense from fear my body is sore. I ask Johnny how he can bear it, but the only thing bothering him are the polyester pants of his neighbor that rub against his bare knee.

In Ho Chi Minh City, the streets are overflowing with motorcycles, almost exclusively Hondas. They drive through the parks’ and markets’ walkways and park in tight rows on the sidewalks, forcing pedestrians to walk in the street. While riding, men slouch and women sit rigidly erect, their lower faces covered with surgical masks or bandit-style, with pastel-colored cloths to keep out pollution and sun. (Dark skin is considered unattractive to many Vietnamese and women wear long gloves, long sleeves and wide-brimmed hats to keep from tanning. Pharmacies dedicate whole shelves to whitening creams and powders.) Mind-boggling loads are carried on the backs of bikes: whole hogs, propane tanks, giant plates of glass, entire families.

For the first time on this trip we see black people. French and African men hanging out in the park. I don’t know if they are tourists or living in their guesthouse. They eat their meals together in their guesthouse’s downstairs restaurant and spend the days leaning against the pond rails in the park across the street. We see only two black women, both American tourists.

We take walks whenever the daily rains let up. To war museums, in search of bakeries, to Diamond Plaza department store where I try on make-up at the fancy counters. We walk down alleys that lead to small cities within the city, tucked away and complete with markets, cafes, benches and guesthouses.

We search for trash-free grass for Willa to play on. There are several parks in the city, but they don’t permit walking on the grass. Concrete paths outline square plots of thick, green grass; more park showrooms than parks themselves. We get lucky on the lawn of the Reunification Palace and Willa is ecstatic. She runs and explores until the rain chases us home.

We catch up on sleep, watch movies and recover from colds. Our guesthouse is run by a friendly woman and the room rate includes a simple, delicious breakfast of rich coffee, warm crusty baguette with butter and strawberry preserves and a banana. The hospitality helps mightily in changing our opinion about Vietnam. It also helps that we realize the brusqueness with which we’ve been treated seems to be the manner here and is not directed toward us personally, as Westerners.

We see people nudged and hit with bags, brooms, by other people and even by motorcycles and there’s no acknowledgment by either party. It starts to border on comical until we see a couple of bad accidents, people hit by cars and barely given a glance by passerby (Willa attracts more of a crowd in her carrier on Johnny’s back.) In one case, a couple of men run out to the man on the ground, but it is only to clear the street for traffic. Some time later, a pickup truck drives up, the man is tossed into the bed, and the truck drives off.

After a week in Ho Chi Minh City, we are ready to move on, exhausted from the pollution, heat and the Matrix-like awareness and focus needed to cross streets swarming with vehicles. We skip the six-hour bus ride and fly to Da Lat, in the Highlands. Thirty minutes later, we land in a Vietnam we never expected.

The temperature is cool and Da Lat is surrounded by pine tree forests and mountains. The air is clean and crisp with traces of pine scent and wood smoke. Men and women wear zip-up jackets and sweaters and we wear long-sleeves at night. It’s wonderful and invigorating.

Da Lat is especially chilly in the morning and we’re enticed by the steam rising from the bowls of pho, spicy noodle soup, at the crowded cafes that spread out along the sidewalks and almost into the street. People huddle on stools around the long aluminum tables, doctoring their soup with the communal condiments of various chili sauces, white vinegar, fish sauce and plates of fresh mint, basil, greens and bean sprouts.

The town is reminiscent of a small European village, so quaint it’s kitschy. (Johnny says it’s just like Switzerland except here people eat noodles for breakfast.) French colonial-influenced homes and buildings line the steep hills and narrow, curving streets. Small bakeries sell fresh baguettes, fried donuts and ornate pastries; cable cars disappear over the mountains, horse-drawn carriages circle the town’s pristine lake. People are friendly and indulgent of our butchered attempts at Vietnamese. The shopkeeper I buy ice cream and water from treats me like a regular after one visit.

The city market spreads out from one of the towns many roundabouts. Stalls of freshly cut flowers, orchids and succulent plants. Baskets filled with regional passion fruit and strawberries. (I love that we're eating foods grown and raised locally. If it's not in season, it’s not available.) Sweet, ripe bananas and oranges with deceptively green skin. Giant avocados, dark purple cabbages, bundles of watercress. Barrels of rice and noodles looped and folded like ropes. We wander through the aisles taking photographs, tasting samples of dried fruit and roasted nuts, and prying items from Willa’s hands and returning them to their owners.

There’s a park just off of the lake, near a dock with swan-shaped paddle boats. We walk there in the early mornings, before breakfast, and Willa runs and plays, sucking in her prodigious belly to squeeze between the giant rocks on the lawn. She tries to help the workers laying a stone path around the park and is learning not to eat trash.

Families and couples having portraits taken in front of the lake ask if Willa can join them and she obliges with posed smiles we’ve not seen before. I’m curious about these family portraits that later generations will look at. Won’t they wonder why this little Western girl is in their family photograph?

We are staying at the aptly named Dreams Hotel and the woman who runs it, Madame Youn, greets Willa with a hug every morning. Together they play the piano and make cell phone calls and she shoos Johnny and I away to enjoy our breakfast. We enjoy conversations with each other and fellow travelers at the large, wooden communal table in the kitchen over platters of fruit, yogurt, sliced avocados and tomatoes, eggs made to order, baguettes, soft cheese, butter and strawberry preserves, freshly-squeezed passionfruit juice and endless cups of dark Vietnamese coffee.

Madame Youn has set up in our room a small mattress, stuffed animals and bedding which her niece has outgrown. Willa sleeps through the night. In her own bed.

Every day we decide to stay another day.