Tumbleweed

We've been in Vietnam for about ten days and it's been quite a different experience to the last time we were in the country seven years ago. This time, we're mostly eating our way through the country rather than riding our bikes through the sweltering heat. The food really is amazing in Vietnam and is well worth the trip in our opinion. It's fairly easy eating vegetarian in Vietnam with plenty of variety at most restaurants. More discussion on this below.  Vietnam's transportation system is not nearly as modern or advanced as compared to China. Some may say I provided too much detail on China's transportation system so I'll keep the discussion fairly brief this time. There is no high speed rail in Vietnam currently however there is a plan to build a line that connects Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh City. The 1,541 km journey is forecast to take 6 hours once complete (the current slow train takes more than 30 hours to complete this journey!). There are way fewer elec...

Ginny and I recently took advantage of China's visa-free transit policy and spent 10 days in China. We were mostly visiting Ginny's folks in Guilin but we also did a couple of side trips to play tourist for a day or two. It had been 11 years since we last visited China and some things had changed quite a bit while other things seemed pretty much the same. China's transportation system, for instance, has been completely transformed over the past couple of decades (more on that below) but many Chinese men still smoke like chimneys.  We took three different trips on China's high speed rail network and each trip was a breeze. The trains are well utilized but also very comfortable and far superior to flying in my opinion. The national network includes approximately 48,000 km of high speed rail lines connecting all major cities across 31 provinces. China has plans to expand the network to 70,000 km of high speed rail lines by 2035 so they have truly been bitten by the high s...