Da Lat - Vietnam's honeymoon capital and answer to Disneyland! An amazing place 5000' up in the mountains with four lakes and a very pleasant climate as well as numerous theme parks such as the "Vally of Love" and "Mong Mo Hill" which left us having difficulty believing that we were in Vietnam! These slightly tacky but also somewhat quaint parks are set on lovely lakes where the Vietnamese come to have their photos taken riding in a paddle boat swans, sitting und...

Some beach time at a gorgeous resort on a 5 km golden sand beach has been a welcome rest. It's just us and the hundreds of kite surfers who hang out here because of the daily winds as well as thousands of Russians who come here for a couple of weeks to bake in the sun and avoid the Russian winters. The signs in local businesses are all in Russian and we guess that 90% of the tourists here are Russian. Yesterday was quite windy and we counted over 100 kites in t...

For the past three days we have been down in the Mekong delta. The Mekong river has 9 branches here and there are hundreds of additional channels making water the dominant mode of transport with large barges and freighters to small dugout canoes with ingenious rowing systems. We visited wholesale fruit and vegetable markets on the river and were paddled through small channels giving us the chance to watch the everyday life. The very fertile soil of the delta grow...

After a rather brutally long flight from Vancouver via Beijing, we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City just after midnight last night. After a brief sleep, we set out to the Cu Chi tunnels this morning. The tunnels are a historical site about 70 km from Saigon and vividly demonstrate the resourcefulness of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war - or as the Vietnamese call it, the American war. There are over 200 km of these underground tunnels which were carved out under ...

Last day in Shanghai. Our day started out with a delicious breakfast on the street of various kinds of dumplings as we explored the streets, lanes, and parks of the French Concession area around where we are staying. This is an old area and has lots of parks and green space and is a very desireable part of the city to live in. The parks are well used and we saw tai chi, ballroom dancing, opera singing, and a variety of games all going on in one of the larger one...