New Beginnings: My Glorious Return to Blogdom

The Blog is Back

I have various excuses for why my blog, briefly revitalized in the Autumn of 2011, was so abrubtly and cold-heartedly abandoned. But you know what they say about excuses: Excuses are like (insert vaguely obscene body part here): everybody's got one, but nobody wants to read about yours.

So instead of talking about the past, I'm going to talk about the present. I am currently sitting at a shop that sells beer for 50 cents a bottle in Hanoi. I have just completed 2 months of working, playing, and living in this fast-paced city, sitting on the precipice of another 2 months of travel, and perhaps more.
Hanoi has been... different. At times fantastic and mind-opening, at times frustrating and bewildering, but not once has it been boring, and that certainly counts for something. I'm grateful for my time here (and the money that it made me) but totally ready to get out and see what the rest of Vietnam's got.

Takin the Long Bien Bridge out of town. So long Hanoi, hello open road.

The “plan” is as follows: 1 week in Vietnam's mountainous North, then back through Hanoi en route (yeah, I write in French. So??) to the Laos border. This of course will be followed by a couple weeks in Southern Laos, where the Mekong River is arguably at its most fascinating and scenic. From there, we head back in to Central Vietnam, then hug the coast for the next few weeks, making the well traveled journey south to Saigon. I say “we” as I will be traveling with my good friend Dan, another teacher I met my first day here in Vietnam. We both own motorbikes, small though they may be, and apart from a couple train rides, our entire trip will be made on our trusty Honda stallions.

This is my cordial invitation and urgent notice to you: Join me! I'm going to attempt to make up for my months and months of blog neglect (Bloglect if you will?) by delivering on as regular a basis as my predictably spotty internet access will allow. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your whatever-you-call-your-friends-on-Twitter people:

It's goin down.

Be there

Love,

ian

P.S. There will be pictures