While planning for our year, both in advance and on-the-go, TripAdvisor became our sixth family member. We poured over reviews and suggestions of restaurants, apartments, hikes, hotels, trains, and self-guided tours. As a school writing assignment, we even studied what makes a good review and published some of our own.

Because it was so useful to hear from those who have gone before, we want to share some of our recommendations for YOUR trips abroad. This is by no means an exhaustive list, just many of the great things that come to mind when we look back on our year.

Sorry there are no helpful comments here, but we wholeheartedly recommend all of these places and activities linked below (we DID have some disasters and some less-than-ideals, we just left them off the list). If you want the full story, feel free to email us and we will talk your ear off!

GENERAL TRAVEL

AirTreks Round-the-World Airfare

Renault Eurodrive Lease/Buyback Program

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor CityGuides App

HomeAway Rentals

Holiday Lettings Rentals

AirBnB Apartment Rentals

Rick Steves Audio Europe

ICELAND

Iceland Camping Card

Hotel Keilir, Keflavik

Northsailing Whale Watching, Husavik

FRANCE

Hotel Esmeralda, Paris

Le Manoir Quinquis, Bannalec

Cro Bique, rental in Beynac-et-Cazenac

Font-de-Gaume Cave Paintings, Les Eyzies

Beynac Castle, Beynac-et-Cazenac

Transmanche Ferries

ENGLAND

Broadhembury Campground, Kent

Dover Castle, Kent

Farriers Arms Pub, Kent

London Eye

Tower of London

Blenheim Palace, Oxford

Helm Lune Cottage Rental, Bowness

Holiday Inn Maidstone, Seven Oaks

Car train through the Chunnel

BELGIUM

Maison Antoine Frites, Brussels

European Union Visitors Centre

SWITZERLAND

Chalet Im Batzenboden, Wengen

Trummelbach Falls, Lauterbrunnen

CROATIA

Montona Gallery Pizza, Motovun

Perfectly Charming House, Viganj

Antony Boy Camping and Windsurfing, Viganj

Jadrolinja Ferries

ITALY

L’Arcobaleno Apartment, Rome

Il Sorpasso Ristorante, Rome

MOROCCO

Riad Safir, Meknes

Rough Tours Company, Sahara

TUNISIA

Novotel, Tunis

GREECE

Hotel Phaedra

TURKEY

Villa Blanca Rental, Davutlar

Ephesus Archaeological Site, Izmir

Perge Archaeological Site, Antalya

Flintstones Cave Hotel, Cappadocia

Red and Rose Valley Trails, Goreme

Sedef Restaurant, Goreme

Hitchhiker ATV Rental, Goreme

Sahkulu Place Apartment, Istanbul

TANZANIA

Nomad Tanzania Safaris

RWANDA

Solace Guesthouse, Kigali

Kigali Memorial Centre, Kigali

Meze Fresh Burritos, Kigali

MALAYSIA

Petrosains Science Museum, Kuala Lumpur

Novotel City Centre, Kuala Lumpur

THAILAND

Thailand Elephant Conservation Center

Sojos Cafe, Chiang Mai

Khaomao Khaofang Restaurant, Chiang Mai

Free Burma Rangers

Medici Restaurant, Bangkok

Navalai River Resort, Bangkok

Bumrungrad Hospital, Bangkok

VIETNAM

V’Spirit Cruise, Ha Long Bay

Hanoi Charming 2 Hotel, Hanoi

CHINA

New Day Foster Home Guesthouse, near Beijing

Huanghua Great Wall of China

Olympic Water Cube Water Park, Beijing

Xian HQ Apartments, Xian

Mt Huashan Hike, Xian

Terra Cotta Warriors, Xian

JAPAN

Japan Railpass

Sakara Kyoto Guesthouse, Kyoto

Sakara Gion Machiya Rental, Kyoto

Musashi Sushi, Kyoto

Hiroshima Memorial Park, Hiroshima

Andersen Kitchen, Hiroshima

Toyota Plant Tour, Toyota City

Pepper Lunch, Tokyo

KOREA

Cozy Residence Apartment, Seoul

… AND SOME ORGANIZATIONS WE HAVE GROWN TO LOVE

St. James Muswell Hill, London

Friends of the Lakes District, Kendal, UK

Lakes Christian Centre, Bowness, UK

St. Paul’s Cultural Center, Antalya, Turkey

World Relief Rwanda

Sonrise School, Musanze, Rwanda

Akiba School, Nairobi, Kenya

Light and Power Centre, Nairobi, Kenya

The Ocean Church, Tanzania

Kenya Connection, Kenya

Dave and Lucy Chaves, Nairobi, Kenya

Christ Church Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya

International Justice Mission Thailand, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Grace International School, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Free Burma Rangers, Chiang Mai, Thailand

New Day Foster Home, China

HAPPY ADVENTURES TO YOU ALL!

I had the most beautiful ice cream cone the other day. The rain was just stopping, and the Kyoto street colors were accentuated by the wet. Red lanterns, dark wood, carefully arranged potted plants, flocks of bright umbrellas.

As I savored both the green tea color AND flavor, I remembered other brilliant and meaningful colors from our year. Each of these colors is packed with memories and emotion — of growth, joy, loss, wonder, hope, friendship — that Benjamin Moore would covet to create.

Here are just a few of my ColorFull encounters (clicking on any thumbnail will launch a larger gallery):

So thankful to have these ColorFull memories added to my palette for my NEXT year.

Socialist Republic of Vietnam Forever!

President Ho Chi Minh’s greatness lives on in our career!

These are the phrases printed on giant banners that flank Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum in Hanoi, translated to English with Google Translate. Similar phrases — about the people, the land, responsibility, about the American War, and so on — fly on banners that cross many of the streets around our hotel. All of these words are printed in yellow letters … on a red background.

Patriotism is thick here … at least the *appearance* of patriotism is thick.

This is the set of rules that are said to have governed the treatment and conduct of captured American soldiers and sailors held in Hanoi’s Hoa Lo prison during the Vietnam War. Senator John McCain and others were taken there … and it became known as the “Hanoi Hilton” to Americans.

Like a busy Hanoi street, these documents and city-wide banners — thick with patriotic one-sidedness — are difficult to navigate. As a result, we start to doubt people. Doubt colors our interactions with store owners, hotel clerks, taxi drivers, that man on the street. Truth is fuzzy. Clarity is muddled. Trust is tricky.

We travel soon to a new country, thick with an entirely new level of sidedness and apparent patriotism. Part of me is fascinated with what is to come. Part of me is wary.

One lesson from today to take with me in the days ahead:

The photos below were taken during our visit today to Hoa Lo prison. It’s worth noting that light … is what makes the darkness in the photos so beautiful.

We’ve just returned from two-plus Glorious days in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay. The area’s name in English is “Descending Dragons,” referring to the near-infinite limestone islands that fill the bay. Various myths explain how the panorama views of those giant humps look like dragons at rest.

The entire experience was/is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. Unforgettable.

Clicking on any image below launches a gallery.

This will come as no surprise to serious students of the Vietnamese language … but there is a vast subtlety to various words that convey entirely different meanings.

Take ba, ba, and ba. Depending on how you pronounce the words, they could mean: three, father, or grandmother.

That’s the lesson we learned from Jack and Mark during a recent train trip along Vietnam’s coast. They’d been vacationing at the same beach and we sat across from each other on the way back to Ho Chi Minh City.

Mark was a patient teacher, or giáo viên — though his scribbles in my notebook do reveal some professorial frustration with how I was accenting my words:

One of the best things about our time with Jack and Mark? Their father, Dung (pronounced “young”), befriended us … and wrote a super generous and super kind note in an email the next day.

We’re so thankful for meeting people like Dung on this journey. Here’s what he wrote:

Hello Jim,

It was very nice to meet you on the train.

Hope you and your family enjoy the trip in Vietnam and Asia.
If you need any information and support, please feel free to let me know.
Keep in touch

Regards
Dung

A week from Tuesday, Vietnam marks the anniversary of the day North Vietnamese troops took over Saigon in 1975, a moment that “re-unified” the country.

In America’s history classes, the conflict that ended in 1975 is called the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, we’ve learned that it’s called the American War … as it is in this recent news article from the English-language paper “National”:

DAK NONG — Two children have died and six others injured in a grenade explosion on Tuesday …. The children reportedly found and picked up the grenade on their way home from school. … The grenade has been identified as a M79 left from the American war, according to provincial Military Command.

The claims in this story may or may not be true or accurate. Still, it’s a reminder that some of the places we’ve visited in the last few days once withered under the angry firepower and gruesome death of war.

How to understand a war with two very different names? Who regarded America as the enemy? Is today’s government in Vietnam the same one that took over in 1975? How is it ok for us to be here? These are the questions we’re trying to discuss … in between visits to bucolic lakes, busy beaches, and Baskin Robbins.

A Mekong Delta tour guide’s father fought for the South Vietnamese, and was “re-educated” after 1975 with a few days of government classes in Saigon. Another man we met on a coastal train was an electrical engineer for the North Vietnamese. (My own father nearly navigated the same waters as E does in the photo above.)

I was a child when these men were at war. How do my own children regard that war … at peacetime in a foreign land … as an anniversary approaches that bends the understanding of their own?

It is Grace to be clear-headed during a rainstorm.

I woke up this morning thinking about a mistake I’d made weeks ago – something trivial, regarding an email … and to whom it was and was not sent. Why do I wake up that way?

I lingered on that question. I shared it with S during breakfast (her face brightened by how it faced the sharp light of an incoming storm, her profile sharpened by a wall painted golden orange behind her).

I continue to linger over the question, over questions. There is much anxiety within. About what, I’m not sure.

Also this morning: a son explodes with joy at the loss of another tooth. I share time at breakfast with another son, as the rainstorm – once distant – now approaches our shore. We watch the outline of the incoming rain overtake boats, then our swimming area, then the beach. Then we feel the mist of rain splatters in our faces.

I am clear-headed, and thankful to be so.

Yes, unanswered questions remain. But the journey is good. Good.

April 17, 3:07pm

A minty, antiseptic smell has just overtaken the sour cigarette odor in our Vietnamese train car (we splurged for the Soft Seat Air-Con tickets).  The mounted TV serenades us with Vietnamese soft-rock favorites sung by 20-something darlings in sparkly evening gowns in front of a live audience.  Their vocals compete with the clacking of wheels on track through the open rear door and the constant, low chatter of our full roster of multigenerational travelling companions.  Every few seconds, someone coughs.

And it seems there are different cultural rules about feet here than in Thailand.

S has a rule in our family: no making fun of moms.

So I will not draw your attention to the hand sanitizer strapped to the front of my mom’s fanny pack during a tour of Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Instead, I will mention that I was astonished to learn over dinner recently that my Mom uses — loves — the Shazam iPhone app.

It’s an app that she and millions of others use to identify names of songs on the radio or, in our case, through a PA system in a restaurant bar in Bangkok.

Picture us a few nights ago, enjoying music around a table for six … having a sort of Shazam-Off, whipping out our iPhones when there was a nice piece of music in the mix.

Mom’s use of Shazam is not super surprising. I remember countless car trips to and from school events and sports practices and weekend activities when she and I would enjoy pop radio together. It’s from her that I learned to sing harmony. (Hall and Oates is currently playing in the hotel atrium. “Sara Smile” was one of our favorites.)

Singing harmony is one of Mom’s gifts.

Her harmony, though, is not just the singing kind. More broadly, she takes life as it comes … and makes something beautiful along with it.

Consider this: Mom barely missed a step when S and I explained how we’d forgotten to secure a Vietnam visa … on the eve of our flight to Ho Chi Minh City.

S and I commenced a furious effort to retain “a guy in Vietnam” who could secure the relevant documents. On a Sunday morning during  a holiday weekend. (We sent this guy many hundreds of dollars via Paypal. He received the money and, before an expected wait while he did whatever he needed to do to, he wrote “There are so many man in your family :).”)

Along the way, E lost a tooth … and someone in our group would eventually dry heave in an airplane barf bag.

We eventually received the documents and the Vietnam visa. My mom carried on alongside us … not a worry in her eyes … singing harmony … making something beautiful of our time together … and offering all the hand sanitizer anyone could ever need.

]]> https://hearingtheechoes.com/shazam-and-other-realizations/feed/ 5