The Golden Loop Motorbike Ride, Central Vietnam

Haha, funny hair on Adam. lol At the Da Nang beach before we set out on our motorbikes.

This past February brought one of my all-time favorite adventures in Vietnam! One of my absolute best friends from High School, Adam, joined me on a motorbike tour nicknamed The Golden Loop, courtesy of super-indie-traveler Tom over at Vietnam Coracle, an indispensable source for Vietnam travel.

It was a vacation for the ages, truly! Let me take you on our trip, step by step, ending with New Year's celebrations in the historic UNESCO village of Hoi An!

Life Update: 2018 in Pics and So Much Text

Saigon at night, with Landmark 81, the newest, tallest building in Vietnam.

Hello folks!

It's been a crazy 2018 over here!

(To be fair, it's been an even crazier year for the rest of the globe - man, am I glad to be outside of America right now. What a dumpster fire my country is right now! As I tell my students, half-jokingly "We're just going through some things right now... we'll get better... I hope...!")

So I guess I'm typing again, and communicating with the rest of the world from Vietnam. Like I said, it's been a year of big changes on the Vietnamese homefront. Let me get down to business with what's happening in my world!

Lots and lots of text today, so please enjoy some photos from the last year as well!

Click through for all the news!

Ba Be Lake, North Vietnam

The best trip I've ever had in Vietnam?

Definitely the Ha Giang Loop in the North. Spectacular views, uninterrupted beauty, crisp air... and only a few dozen kilometers through 6 inches of mud (can't believe I didn't wipe out in that junk, what a miserable stretch of construction). 

My cuzbro Chris and I went in the off season, so we had a day of miserable rainy driving and a few scattered downpours over the rest of it. Still... it was the ride of a lifetime... so far.

My cousin and I took a rather unorthodox trip around the Ha Giang Loop, in that we were riding clockwise from Hanoi to Dong Van to Ha Giang to Sa Pa, without a guide (my favored way to go on motorbike trips, now that I can speak a little Vietnamese).

Check it out after the jump!