“Hey you, you YOU!” one shouted, pushing and maneuvering through the knotted mass of people to stand in my way, preventing me from stepping off the bus steps. “I take YOU.”

Another gentleman knocked my first suitor out of the way and stood flush with the door. “You need moto taxi? I take YOU to hotel.”

Laughing, I twisted sideways and sprung out of the bus to the right, temporarily out of reach. With only an overnight bag and a purse, I was more nimble than usual. To the dismay of the moto taxi drivers, I hopped into the bus company’s waiting room and office.

This practice has become my usual strategy when coming off a long bus or train ride in Southeast Asia or South America. One of the more overwhelming aspects of arriving in a new city is the fact that you are greeted by a stunningly chaotic scene of transportation options, all wanting your attention. When that ride is a night bus or train it is even more intense, exhaustion eclipsing any patience, blotting it away. Making a beeline for an office or a store, even to ask a ridiculous question, tends to scatter many of the drivers and leave you with the more determined and calmer lot upon your return.

In this case, I went to the desk to ask for a schedule of the buses from Can Tho. Visibly confused — I did just get off the bus from Can Tho after all — the woman at the desk slowly handed over a schedule card and I thanked her, stared at it studiously for a few minutes, and then turned back to my motorcycle taxi options. Stepping out of the office, the “I take YOU” guy leapt front and center and announced “I like you. I am handsome. I TAKE YOU!”

Uh, no thanks. Looks definitely weren’t a primary factor in picking a ride to get me home safely. Scanning the crowd, I instead pointed at an older man standing to the right who was gazing at me with a mocking half-smile. “Hi, can you take me to Nguyen Thi Minh Khai and Mac Dinh Chi?” I asked, giving him the name of my street and cross street. He took at peek at me and gave me a price that was double what I wanted to pay. Shaking my head, I cut his number to more than half, prompting chuckles from the other motorcycle drivers surrounding us.

Without a word, he turned on his heel and started crossing the street. Shrugging at the other drivers who were now watching me intently, I followed.

Now, I’ve talked about Vietnam’s traffic and even posted a stop-motion video in my Introduction to Vietnam post. But it bears reiterating here that the only way to cross the street unscathed is to (1) just go; (2) not make any prolonged eye contact; and (3) proceed at a very slow and very even pace, with no jagged moves. I found myself crossing the street on this post-Can Tho adventure during rush hour, in the middle of a huge street filled with bus offices. The usual “thousands of motorbikes and a few cars” were actually “thousands of motorbikes, a few cars and, uh, there are also 20 buses whizzing by in both directions.” But my xe om guy was already halfway across the street, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him think I couldn’t make it across myself.

Not actually rush hour – this is from earlier in the week near my house.

Inching across slowly, the sea of motorbikes magically parting around me and the buses honking — probably half mocking, half warning — I kept a consistent rhythm and made it to the other side of the road in one piece. My xe om driver was waiting for me, standing on the sidewalk next to a soup vendor,  head cocked to the side contemplatively and a motorbike helmet in hand. When I stepped onto the sidewalk, he thrust the helmet at me and said “ok, you pass test. I give you your price.”

Only in Vietnam would negotiating a taxi fare include a road test.

* * *

“To ride in a car would be madness — limiting your mobility to a crawl, preventing you from even venturing down half the narrow streets and alleys where the good stuff is to be found. To be separated from what’s around you by a pane of glass would be to miss — everything. Here, the joy of riding on the back of a scooter or motorbike is to be part of the throng, just one more tiny element in an organic thing, a constantly moving, ever-changing process rushing, mixing, swirling and diverting through the city’s veins, arteries and capillaries.”
- Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

I loved taking motorbike taxis around town. Weaving in between cars, whirring around crazed intersections, taking me to far-flung Districts with plenty to see along the way, I found myself looking forward to any opportunity to grab a xe om.  For those visiting town, it’s a “city tour” in and of itself. Just pick a restaurant or market in another District and watch the city change as you make your way there. And yes, driving a motorbike is itself a fun challenge, but you’re so busy trying not to get yourself killed that you can’t focus on the scenery.  Rather, you can focus on the scenery but it would be patently unwise to do so. On the back of a bike, however, you can take everything in – the noise, the quirky outfits depending on the season, the regular-sized motorbikes that somehow fit six instead of two.

Much like Bangkok’s version of the taxi motorbike, the motosai, Saigon’s xe om drivers seemed profoundly untouchable and full of a subtle badassery that I couldn’t help but admire.* In between clients, they would swing their bikes back on the two-pronged stands and lie back against the handlebars, hands behind their heads, gazing at their kingdom.

I aspire to these levels of nonchalance.

When I first arrived in Vietnam, I made a point of asking the price immediately upon walking up to the xe om driver, anticipating a sudden price spike if I waited until the end. This practice remained important in touristy areas like Pham Ngu Lao or around the main sights in the city, since the “tourist price” is prevalent there.  My tactics were always the same: ask for the price, laugh at it like it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard, then, smiling, offer less than half. Cue faux anger, general angst and a lot of head-shaking from the xe om driver. But  I’d just stand there smiling and waiting, and finally I’d say “ok, I’ll ask someone else.” Eventually, I’d get a gentle helmet foisted at my stomach, apparently my local equivalent of an agreement handshake for the ride. Inevitably, by the time I got off, the xe om driver was smiling; almost always I would be rewarded with a high-five after paying, to the confusion of the security guards outside wherever I ended up.

Around my apartment, a small walk from the center of District 1, I took to forgoing the price first, and just getting on the bikes and seeing what happened at the end. The first time I took a xe om near my house was a few days after I had moved in, and I was late to meet a friend near the market. When we set off I was confused — we were headed in the wrong direction, despite his acknowledgement that I needed to head up to Tan Dinh market. Instead, he drove South to drive by a group of other xe om drivers who were eating lunch at the side of the road. He came to a slow roll, honked twice and thrust his thumb back in my direction, in a “look what I found” kind of way. The drivers eating all cracked up, my own driver twisted toward me and giggled like a schoolgirl and then we wheeled around back to where we came and he drove me where I wanted to go.

Another time, I took a different driver and got off near the river, giving more than usual since it was nearing Tet (the lunar new year). Since much of pre-Tet madness involves paying off debts and making home improvements, I wanted to kick in a little extra. The driver didn’t see my second 10,000 Dong note and gave me a higher price, but still lower than what I had actually handed him. Laughing, I snatched one of the 10,000 Dong notes back and he cracked up, this beautiful belly laugh that echoed in the tiny alleyway where we were finalising the transaction.  Realizing his mistake, he just shook his head. Of course I gave the additional amount back, and from then on whenever I saw him wandering the streets near my house, I got a high-five or a big wave, or a question about what I ate that day.

Many of the xe om near my apartment had quirks of their own. One driver I took often would keep his helmets in separate plastic bags, unwrapping them with a smile when you approached and throwing on his blue “taxi driver” vest for the ride. Another had thick reading glasses and would perch on his bike with one foot crossed over the other, reading the paper and waiting for a client.  On the diagonal corner from my favourite street bar, a sweet older driver would wave hello whenever I walked by. He always wore an FBI hat, but I never took him up on his offers of driving; he only had one eye.

I tell these stories because they made up so much of my days, tiny interactions building on more tiny interactions until my routine involved high-fiving or waving at the gentlemen on all four corners of the streets near my house who watched over everyone as they went about their days. As with many of the posts here, it’s the small things that lead to the bigger things.

Public transportation remains a fixture in most traveler’s stories. I have a category called “Misadventures in Transportation” specifically for these quirky happenings that set a place apart from elsewhere, from chicken buses to ferries filled with water buffalo and more. In Vietnam, the bus rides deserve a separate entry in this category (peaceful they are not) but for a different take on a busy city, I’d also encourage travelers to take at least one xe om during their days in town.

* * *

On the way back from that District 10 bus stop, my “cross the street and we’ll see” xe om driver ended up being a very fun ride. He pointed out some of the places he liked to frequent for meals, he laughed at other people when we were waiting at traffic lights and he purposely drove up next to 18-wheelers and buses to point back at me — “I have a tourist!” — waiting for their reaction, which was usually a belly laugh and a thumbs up. He even let me stop the motorbike to hop off and take a look at a pork and rice streetside joint I had never seen before. As with any of the other xe om drivers, he was laid-back and smiling, loved watching the world as he drove and managed to maneuver through traffic — rush hour traffic at that — without getting us killed, maimed or even clipped by one of the thousands of bikes in the nearby chaos.

As I hopped off the bike I asked him for a portrait. I love how it turned out. Confident and happy, calm but with a sly smile, he exemplifies the many other xe om I met, laughed with and learned from during my months in Vietnam.

Thanks for the food recommendations, random xe om man!

-Jodi

* For more about Bangkok’s motosai, please see Claudio Sopranzetti’s interview with New Mandala about the politics of motorcycle taxis in Thailand.

The post Saigon’s Xe Om: Motorcyle Taxi Drivers that Made Me Smile appeared first on Legal Nomads.

Colin saw Nathan Sawaya’s The Art of the Brick exhibit in Singapore, noted that it was from a former lawyer and then emailed me when he got back to his laptop in case I wanted to feature Nathan for this series. Definitely! Nathan is a New York-based artist who creates  3D works and large-scale sculptures using only toy building blocks. LEGO bricks to be exact.

Hope you enjoy!

* * *

What made you decide to leave the practice of law? Was there a particular moment that catalyzed the decision for you?

I’m not sure I ever wanted to be a lawyer. When I think back I can’t remember feeling passionate about practicing law. It’s all kinda foggy. But I do have crystal clear memories of wanting to be an artist. Of wanting to create, and to transform nothings into somethings. So at the end of a long day lawyering, I would be craving creativity. Sometimes I would paint, sometime draw and sometimes sculpt. And I sculpted out of various things. One day I challenged myself to sculpt out of a toy from my childhood. I did a large scale piece out of LEGO and my friends and family encouraged me to try a few more. Soon I put a website together to showcase my large sculptures. It was the day that my website crashed from too many hits that I realized it was time to make a change and leave the law to go play with toys.

Yellow by Nathan Sawaya. Photo courtesy of www.brickartist.com.

What do you find most fulfilling about your current job as an artist? Why did you choose LEGO sculptures for your most recent exhibitions?

Well first of all, being an artist is way more fun than being a lawyer. Sorry, but it just is. I wear jeans everyday and have an endless supply of materials in which to play. I am also my own boss. And if I want a day off, or a vacation, my boss always says “Yes.” But the best part is that it is also very rewarding to inspire others. For a lot of my artwork I use LEGO bricks. I love seeing people’s reactions to the work when they see it for the first time. They can connect to the work on a different level because of the familiarity with the toy. And many times, after seeing my exhibitions, folks tell me that they go home and start creating with their own LEGO bricks.

In addition, my touring exhibition, The Art of the Brick, has brought more than a million people into the contemporary art world who might not have otherwise ever stepped foot in an art museum or gallery. There are countless children who have now been exposed to art. Not something that would have happened if I’d stayed a lawyer.

Xray by Nathan Sawaya. Photo courtesy of www.brickartist.com.

Do you have any advice for professionals who are interested in branching out from traditional private practice but concerned about what is out there?

Making that transition can be hard. When you’re ready to take that leap, all I can say is that you really find out who your friends are. It’s amazing how people I thought were my friends became so negative about me leaving the law. Of course I was leaving to go play with toys everyday, and while they had every right to think I was crazy, they still could have supported me. My advice to anyone wanting to branch out is to cut the negative people out of your life. Find the people that have your back and believe in you, your talents and your happiness.

Gray by Nathan Sawaya. Photo courtesy of www.brickartist.com

Do you still identify as a lawyer or use the skills you developed in your legal training?

My legal training has been an important step in making me who I am today. It has trained me to think critically about situations. I have friends who are artists who say that I do have a bit of an advantage because I can negotiate with clients without having to engage a lawyer to do so.

What do you have to say to those who tell me lawyers can’t have fun?

They are right.

The worst day as an artist is still better than the best day as a lawyer.

* * *

Nathan Sawaya is a New York-based artist. Sawaya currently has four exhibitions touring North America, Asia and Australia, with each exhibition focusing on LEGO as an art medium. The creations, constructed from nearly one million pieces, were built from standard bricks beginning as early as 2000. In 2011, CNN named The Art of the Brick on of the top 12 must see exhibitions in the world. Born in Colville, Washington and raised in Veneta, Oregon, Sawaya’s childhood dreams were always fun and creative. He drew cartoons, wrote stories, perfected magic tricks and of course also played with LEGO. His days were filled with imagination. When it came time for college, Sawaya moved to New York City and attended NYU. He attended NYU School of Law and became an attorney. But soon he realized he would rather be sitting on the floor expressing himself with LEGO bricks, than sitting in a boardroom negotiating contracts. It was then that Sawaya rediscovered his beloved LEGO bricks and indulged in his inner child to create what many believe is a new art revolution using LEGO as an art medium. For more information about Nathan Sawaya and his artwork, visit his site Brick Artist. 

The post Thrillable Hours: Nathan Sawaya, LEGO Artist appeared first on Legal Nomads.

“Không. Khôngkhôngkhôngkhông. Khôooooooong!”

(“No. Nonononononoono. Nooooooo”)

Not only was I given a derisive, decisive shake of the head, but as soon as the soup stall owner dumped his dirty dishes into a bucket, he lifted his hand to give me a vague version of the royal wave, a very Vietnamese signal that means anything and everything. It could mean “I don’t know what you are asking”.  It could mean “we don’t have what you want”.  It could mean “I do not know how to give you directions so I’m just going to shake my hand at you”.

And in this case, it meant “listen crazy lady, I am not going to feed you breakfast.”

I did not expect to find myself in the middle of a soup stand-off at dawn. Bleary-eyed, without coffee and wholeheartedly confused about why I was being denied a meal, I stood in the middle of the market and blinked in the morning sun. Up early to see the floating markets of Cai Rang, I was now wandering the wet market on land, caught in a vortex of sensory overload, of fruit and vegetables and thrashing fish in shallow bowls of water. The best way to navigate the dawn markets is to arrive already hungry, letting your nose lead you to your first snack of the day. In my case, a steaming pot of bun rieu soup.

Fresh fish at Cai Rang’s morning market.

Vegetables lining the narrow streets at Cai Rang’s morning market.

Originally from the North of Vietnam, bun rieu is a crab-based soup unknown to me prior to arriving in the country. I tried my first bowl two days into my trip and it quickly catapulted its way to the top of my personal soup hierarchy. There are different versions of it – bun rieu cua is with crab, and bun rieu oc with snails – but the base of the broth is quite similar and both make my stomach very happy. My last meal in the country was a bowl of bun rieu cua from my favourite vendor in Ho Chi Minh City, two sisters who ran a clean and tidy soup stall across from my apartment with their other family members, a huge vat of broth steaming into the alleyway. “We are sad you are leaving” they said, shaking their heads at me as I rushed off to finish packing. “But you will be back – you love soup.”

*

The original Northern styles of bun rieu are more simple, focusing on the broth and the contrast in consistency between the soft crab and the more textured tofu. For the snail-based version, tomatoes and large snails compete with noodles for real-estate. The colour of the broth is golden with hints of red, a subtle, sweet and tangy taste all at once. Freshwater paddy crabs are pounded into a fine paste, strained and the liquid is used as a base for the soup. Annatto seeds and tomatoes contribute to the beautiful colour. A blood cube is often included, great for extra protein and iron. What’s left of the crab meat is used for making a crab and egg sausage that is usually served with the soup. Accompanying the dish are a bright purple fermented shrimp paste and a wet chili paste that can be used to add additional flavours at will. As with many soups in Vietnam, the broth is served with a plate of steamed split morning glory or water spinach stems as well as shredded banana flower, both for adding to the soup before eating.

I’ll be writing a post called “A Tale of Two Phos” to talk about the differences in pho broth and soups from North to South, and as with the classic pho, bun rieu varies quite a bit between the geographic regions. In the South, as with many of the dishes that have been transplanted and changed, the soup became more complicated. Small freshwater crabmeat was mixed with pork and herbs and rolled into mini meatballs, with the meat put back in the crab shell and steamed, added to the soup when it is served. Smaller snails pop up from the depths of the bowl, peeking through between the pieces of tofu and the crab shells. A thin strip of pork sausage is added to the mix. In HCMC, thin bun noodles are used in the broth, and sometimes additional meat, thin slices of pork.

Bun rieu station in Cai Rang.

*

Wandering that Cai Rang market at dawn, I stumbled upon a woman selling pig meat, delicately scraping the hair off a pig’s head to have it presentable for selling that day. Many of us that grew up in the west do so unused to seeing dead animals. Understandably people come to these wet markets often find the butchering sections jarring. I know many readers might be vegetarian (I was too for several years) but for those who do eat meat, I’d rather know where my meat comes from and appreciate every step in the process in doing so. Buying pre-packaged, sterile meat from a supermarket provides no insight into the animal it once was; we should appreciate the origins of what we eat, no? It’s part of why these markets are so compelling to me. Start to finish, a wet market shows you your food – whether you want to see it or not.  The woman in Cai Rang was so incredibly concentrated on getting that pig head to look as clean and sellable as possible, meticulously grooming it for the morning rush.

Meat market in Cai Rang

Just across from this grooming process was an older woman sitting on the ground and selling freshly skinned frogs, and on her lap was a delicious-looking, steaming pot of soup. I immediately decided that I needed that soup. Pointing, I asked her where it was from and she cackled loudly, directing me to a bun rieu stand diagonally across the street. Apparently in my fascination with her tray of frogs, I neglected to look across the way. Eyes creasing in mirth, she smiled widely and grabbed my forearm, physically pushing me in the direction of the stall. Excited, I hopped over for what I hoped would be my first of several breakfasts.

Except the man running the stand would have none of it, meeting my pleading for soup with a stream of nos, and shaking his hand at me vociferously.

“Không”

I tried the name of the soup, asking for bun rieu cua so that he realized I knew exactly what I was getting. Another shake of the hand, and with that he turned away. Stumped, I stood mouth agape trying to strategize.

While thinking of ways to convince him otherwise, the frog woman across the street marched over to me and grabbed my forearm again, launching into a blistering monologue to the soup man that was punctuated by gestures at me, gestures at the soup and a very clear gesture to the soup guy himself. Another older woman wandered over from across the way and joined in, both of them now holding onto me. Flanked by two toothless ladies, each holding onto my arm, and with neighbouring cafes and shops watching attentively, I wondered what the soup stall owner would do.

My soup angel.

Shaking his head and throwing up his arms in defeat, he instructed his wife to make me a bowl of bun rieu. Satisfied, one of the women meandered back across the street. I sat down at the stall. The soup arrived in a few minutes time, and of course it was fabulous. But what made this experience so funny was not just the refusal of soup, but what happened next. My soup saviour who wandered off came back with 4 of her friends in tow, all older women, all beaming. They sat around me in a semi-circle, laughing at how I used chopsticks with my left hand, asking me where I was from and how old I was, nodding in approval as I added shrimp paste and chili to the bowl.

It was a community meal in the truest sense. Throughout my soup consumption I had at least two of these women holding on to my hand or touching my face. “Instant grandmothers – just add soup.”

Everyone waved furiously as I rushed back to the boat to return to my guesthouse.

Soup angel number 2.

The next day I returned around the same time, craving another bowl of the soup. The cafe next store was full of men sipping their iced morning coffee, and the soup stall was full of women. The same women that sat with me the day before. As I walked up I was rewarded with a big cheer and the stall owner shot me a side-eye to rival the best of them, turning to make me a bowl of bun rieu without my even asking. The men next door craned their heads my way to figure out what was going on; the women all rearranged their chairs so that I could sit in the middle of their table.

When I returned to Ho Chi Minh City I told my friends about my experiences in the Mekong, including the refusal to serve me soup. Everyone was confused – “why would they say no?” I’m still unsure myself but I suspect it is because he thought I would not like the soup. My landlady often seemed appalled at the foods I was eating. Coming home from a day of food crawling or trolling through District 5 in search of new eats, she would warily ask me what I tried that day. I would expound upon them enthusiastically – “I tried venison hu tieu in saté style!” or “I tried pig’s ear spring rolls and crab soup!” – and she would shake her head at me, saying that foreigners were not supposed to like these foods. “Why do you like these foods??” as though something was wrong with me for doing so.

I mentioned in a prior post that a Vietnamese woman bought me lunch because she was so shocked I was eating fermented shrimp paste and pig’s ear spring rolls, her initial disbelief replaced by delight. She thought I couldn’t possibly know what it was I was eating, else I’d have run screaming the other way. I suspect that was this soup vendor’s problem. He genuinely thought I would hate his soup, the deep purple, pungent fermented shrimp paste and the crabby broth, and he did not want to take that risk.

Happily these wonderful women came to my rescue because  – for serious — it was quite honestly one of the best bun rieus I’ve had. But even if it was terrible, the interactions that came with it and the many smiles that started my day off right were well worth the effort.

Worth it: bun rieu from Cai Rang’s wet market

I continuously advocate food as the ideal tool to connect with local people and this is a perfect example of that fact. The universality of eating juxtaposed on very different eating cultures and habits makes any interaction with a country that loves food extremely rewarding. And Vietnam definitely loves its food.

More from the Mekong soon – markets, a classic Vietnam/Canada love story and other features – in coming weeks.

-Jodi

The post Pleading for Bun Rieu Soup in Cai Rang appeared first on Legal Nomads.

My father and I were on the phone a few days after I arrived in Vietnam, chatting about what I liked here and how it differed from elsewhere.

“Jodi, I’m just trying to understand what you do every day? Is there a routine?”

“I eat soup.”

“What?”

“I eat a lot of soup, Dad. This country has a lot of soups to try, and I’m trying them all.”

“Wait, what? You’re eating soup all day?”

“Here,” I said, sending him a photo of my favourite bun rieu near my apartment, “how delicious does this soup look? It looks delicious, right? It’s possibly the best soup in the universe.”

I could hear my dad laughing and could almost visualize him shaking his head at me.

“Jodi, I love you very much but sometimes your life confuses me.”

Join the club.

Mmmm. Soup.

At the beginning of my travels, I didn’t obsess over food. Soup was just a meal, but I wasn’t traveling for it. (Ha! Silly past-tense Jodi…if only I knew.) Now, soup — or food generally — has become the focus, so much so that it’s off-putting to many people I meet.  The extreme fascination I have with what people eat and why has totally changed the way I see the world, has changed the direction of this site, and has changed the way I plan to live my life going forward.

In a strange circular fashion, I left to travel the world but now I want to stay longer and longer in each place. I want to scratch under the surface and hug the things I find tightly, so I can keep an imprint of them with me somehow. Food, the universality that it is, has become my tool to connect with people and learn everything I can. It could be a different tool, but principally it is the curiosity to learn through food  – and all the wonderful people I’ve met through it — that makes this life choice so rewarding.

* * *

Today, April 1, marks five years of having quit my job and taken off for a “one year” (whoops) RTW adventure. Five years! How did this happen?! In the strange time-space compression of soup-filled days I’m flabbergasted by this unfolding of years. I can still remember my first weeks on the road like they were yesterday. I’m thankful for this site for many reasons, but in part because it is a digital record of what I have trouble digesting: that somehow I took a love of living the world and I made it my day-to-day work.

I try to keep the blog about the travel and food stories, but for my yearly “State of the Union”- style anniversary piece, I get more Jodi-centric. The About page talks about the site and my livelihood, but the psychology behind it has been ignored. What I’m saying is: my dad’s question was a valid one, and I think a question many of you have as well if your emails are any indication.

(My days do involve soup, by the way, but generally I have a routine of mostly work and then time with friends in the evening.)

Given the many email questions from readers about what’s next, both professionally and personally, I thought I’d go into a bit more detail about the goals I have for both in this year’s anniversary post.

Mmmmm… more soup.

Work Goals

My goals are, understandably, different from when I set out in 2008. I thought I would take a year to see the world, and thereafter return to lawyering. Given that I was still traveling after two years, I then focused on supporting myself with freelance work – I did not want to eat into my savings, nor did I want to advertise or accept sponsorship on this site. Now, things are shifting once again. I want to take what I have learned and do more with it. It’s not that I’m bored with travel, it’s that I’m more excited by the idea of creating a business around the things I’ve learned, instead of just moving from A to B. Whereas I left New York because of a deep (some might say destructive) restlessness, I now want to refocus my energy into building something more stable. But I want to do it from places I love.

Last year’s goals included getting better at public speaking and writing my book. A big and exhausting year! But the book is done (yay!) and somehow I spoke at over 10 events (ahh!) without throwing up on myself with nervousness.

For the next few years, my work goals are:

• Start a community and resources site for other celiacs who want to travel, since there is a need for it in the marketplace. There are some sites for travels without gluten but they are primarily domestic or European, and I would like to have a forum for people to ask and answer questions as well. This will not be my primary focus but it is something I want to get off the ground. 
  
• Get more serious about social media consulting work. I’ve really enjoyed building out this aspect of what I do, and truly believe in the power of social when coupled with authenticity in branding. As I’ve said time and time again, no one should be putting anything out that they haven’t read and are willing to endorse. Brands – be they small brands or big brands – can use social media to create a real personality around a corporate entity, but also to engage their customers in an authentic way. Helping strategize and run their feeds has been an unexpected but rewarding line of work for me. I went from advertising lawyer to digital advertising consultant. Who knew?  (For more about my thoughts on social media, see my podcast with Dan from Tropical MBA.)
• Start food tours. I’ve been testing this ad hoc in HCMC during the last few months, taking roving bands of readers and friends to places around town and asking for feedback. I want to do tours that are not structured around restaurants or general eats, but hyper-specific to a theme to learn from. Example: to take people on a chili tour of a city, from markets to restaurants to cooking techniques, culminating in a chili-based meal, talking about how chili even came to Asia and when it is used. Themes seem like a great way to teach people about the origins of the food, a big part of what I love to research. These will not be a thing to see / do in a particular city, but will instead be based around what cities I am living in at the time.
• Continue with speaking. I’m getting less and less nervous about the speaking, but still want to throw up on myself when I take the stage – I’ve just gotten used to feeling like I want to throw up on myself. Hopefully more speaking will beget less nervousness. Career transitions, social media and food history are topics near and dear to my heart.
• Continue to share stories on Legal Nomads. This site is not a basic chronology of my travels – it is more about stories, so I do not follow a linear timeline at all times.  I’ve loved sharing narrative here and meeting with readers as I’ve travelled. (For readers in Chicago, Toronto and Montreal, I’ll be posting reader meetups on my Facebook page during the summer months.) This site remains a joy and not an obligation. Regardless of other work, I have no plans to shut down Legal Nomads.

Me on the floor of a kitchen in a local temple, in the middle of Cai Rang district.

That’s a lot to work with in a year or more, and I cannot get started right away as much of 2013 is mapped out. I’ll be heading to England first for my brother’s birthday, then Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Portland and more this summer.  I’ve also been working with G Adventures for several years as a Wanderer in Residence, writing for their site and occasionally hopping on a G tour. This fall I will be taking my mum to India with me on a G tour for her birthday. She has always wanted to go. I’m beyond excited about this trip as I have not travelled with my mum since I was 20. To say the least, It’s going to be quite the adventure.

My aim is to return to Vietnam again when I can, but stay here for 8 months or so to work on the above ideas. I’ll be working on them in part before, of course, but specifically for the food tours I’ll need to be in one place. The day after I got to Vietnam I was bowled over by my love for the quirks and daily surprises in this country. It seems like a great place to base myself for a while – more than the 4.5 months I will end up spending this year.

Happiness

A long time ago, I told a friend that I would never be happy in life. That my brain was too whirry and too busy thinking of all the things I could/should/will be doing and never able to focus on the present. How can someone be happy if they’re thinking of something else all the time? In the last few years, however, I came to accept the fact that this overarching, fuzzy idea of happiness couldn’t be my goal. It was unrealistic, and I felt that I was failing  - people were writing to say “oh, you’re living the dream!” — but internally I was struggling with what I was doing and why I was doing it.

What I was feeling made sense given that I got here by accident (as in, I didn’t quit my job to be a travel writer or seek happiness), but I still needed to parse through my thoughts and also take stock of who I had become after many years of travel.

* * *

I use the term “building a life” a lot lately. It’s become my preferred expression to discuss my choices because there is such weighted agency in it – I, Jodi Ettenberg, chose this path. It has been a fallback to say I got here by accident — factually accurate, no less — but relying on kismet or coincidence also lets me off the hook for the hard and very damaging decisions I made in leaving New York. I left a place and people I loved, and a career that was going well for me.  It’s true that I didn’t do this to “be” happy or because I was burned out. But regardless, I did it because I wanted to see the world, and the pull of that otherness – not just to see it on a short vacation, but to live it and get my hands dirty – it drew me in. It became bigger than me, a restlessness that corroded. It grew and it grew until I had to act on it; ignoring it was just hurting people around me and myself.

When I left for what I thought would be a year, I found that the restlessness dissipated. I wasn’t looking to travel around the world indefinitely. That’s never been an aim. However, the restlessness was replaced by an extraordinary curiosity for just about everything I saw. I wanted to build a life around that curiosity. All of the work I do – the consulting, the food writing, the blog – is to facilitate that, and to enable me to see and experience more of the little things in life. In acknowledging this shift away from restlessness and toward learning, I came a long way to accepting more of where I am today. I’m making choices only for me, which is not something everyone has available to them.

Life Goals

I’ve gotten angry emails from parents telling me that I’m contributing to their children’s irresponsible behaviour, and from people asking me why I am doing what I’m doing – what am I trying to avoid? The reality is that I’m not trying to avoid anything. Driven by curiosity, I’ve followed it to where it leads. Doing so has definitely damaged important relationships, but it has also created new and important ones. Unmoored from the normal anchors that stabilize, I’ve turned instead to think about exactly what I want my life to look like at this point in time. I can understand why outwardly it would seem like running, since it is certainly a strange life path. But if anything, I am moving toward the things that hold more and more value.

It has been calming to re-think happiness and dig around it to see what it means for me. Essentially, I stopped focusing on “happy” as a term of art and started thinking of practical, tangible things that I could institute and wanted to be a part of my daily life, in the hopes of being more mindful.

I’m sure you’re shocked…. but I made a list.  :) In no particular order:

• Street food, and people who also loved street food and wanted to eat it with me.
• Friends with whom I can have great, existential discussions about life and everything in it.
• Working on projects that provide value to society and were not self-serving.
• Learning something new every day.
• Practicing gratitude daily and taking pleasure in the small things in life.
• Time in Southeast Asia at least some part of the year.
• Working on an acceptance of me, and being more comfortable in my own skin. (As the kid who won “most easily embarrassed” in high school, talking to people isn’t always easy, even if I pretend it is.)

Enjoying the sunset over HCMC yesterday evening.

YMMV

We can only do what drives each of us to live our lives to the fullest.

For many that means a round-the-world trip then a return to what everyone else deems normal. For others, it means drifting and drifting and seeing and seeing, without a plan to stay put. For most people, it means finding a partner and a home and a family that fulfills life goals. For me, well, I’ve had a huge amount of time to think about this in the last years, and have some answers for myself for the first time in a long time.

My answers are not your answers, of course, nor are they a path for anyone else’s life choices. “Your mileage may vary” is what I always say. The aggregate of my years of lawyering, travel and more have made me into who I am , and led me to value the things I value. There’s a reason I never write posts saying “Stick it to the man and quit your job like me” and that’s because I don’t think it’s the “right” way to be. I just know what worked for me, and in the hopes of helping people parse through their own choices, I’m sharing that process. But I do not begrudge or think less of people who don’t want the things I want in life; those differences are what makes the world interesting.

Back to the Soup

Back to regularly-scheduled photographic programming – soup.

I was on the phone with my mother last month, breathless about my short trip to Vung Tau with friends. I regaled her with tales about banh khot and lessons I learned in the three days on the beach. (For example, do not, ever, get your grilled squid from a different lady from the lady you are renting chairs from unless you want to start a long protracted screaming match between them, resulting in a significant crowd of locals gathering at the edge of the fight, watching attentively.)

“It sounds like you really love Vietnam” she said slowly.

“Yes yes! I love it. I’m going to cry big tears of pho when I leave. I have to come back.”

Laughing gently she replied “Jodi, you say this about everywhere you live, without fail. Every place moulds to you, and you to it.”

She’s right, of course. Over the last five years of travel, you could make a supercut of phone calls like these.

“Ma, Ma MA…. I LOVE Beijing! I want to stay there forever!” and then, a year later “Mum, I know I got tear-gassed and caught up in the riots in Bangkok, but I LOVE it here!”

I suppose it’s just a testament to doing what I love that I’ve been so affectionate toward almost every place I’ve seen.

* * *

After five years of travel, what can I say? I think I like myself much more as a person now. Bit by bit, I am figuring out more about what brings me joy and what makes me sad, and I’m learning so much from the wonderful people I meet. I have worked at improving specific skills, and have others I want to improve on that scare me. But if they scare me, all the more reason to make sure I face them head-on.

Much of the things I am grateful for are not the travel per se. And really I am not truly a traveler any more, at least not in the way I was in 2008. Instead, I’ve focused on taking the time to fall for a new place by experiencing it firsthand, while at the same time doing work I find fulfilling.

How good does this soup look?

If you’re still here after this sprawling post: thank you.  It’s been an incredible 5 years of ups and downs, of learning and sharing and eating. I keep talking about gratitude but I cannot emphasize that expanding-heart-feeling of being thankful for great friends, wonderful readers and a family who supports me, even if they think I’m nuts.

And of course, many many bowls of soup.

-Jodi

The post After 5 years of travel, what’s next? appeared first on Legal Nomads.

My next Thrillable Hours interviewee is Katie Rock, who worked in BigLaw for a few years and left to pursue a passion in gender-based advocacy and sports in developing countries. Her new endeavour, Activyst, is explained below – along with her trajectory and lessons learned. Also, I love that her Q&A has footnotes. Yay footnotes! Always thrilled to see the science and studies behind new endeavours, as well as the inspiration.

Hope you enjoy,

-Jodi

* * *

What made you decide to leave the practice of law and focus on advocacy, sports and health? Was there a particular moment that catalyzed the decision for you?

I’ve always been interested in international development and Latin America; I majored in international relations and Spanish in college, focused on human rights in law school, and did my best to find work related to Latin America at the firm.  There were a few years during which I knew where my general interests lay, but was sort of circling around the target, not sure what exactly to do with those interests.

Then I had two experiences that stuck with me and made me want to focus on empowering women in developing countries.  The first one was during a trip to Nicaragua right after taking the bar exam.  I was spending lots of time running on the beach, hiking, and learning to surf.  After coming in from the water one afternoon, three local girls approached me and asked (very inquisitively) what I was doing.  They told me that they’d never played sports (or even learned to swim!), that sports were for boys, and that there were no opportunities for girls to do those sorts of activities.  My childhood was an awesome whirlwind of sports, activity and being outdoors, so this blew me away.

I began noticing in other travels how rarely I saw girls being active in developing countries.  From my studies, I also knew how poor conditions are for girls in Nicaragua and other developing countries.  This experience put a bug in my ear – “what if sports could change all that?”  I later found studies demonstrating that sports have huge benefits for girls, and benefits which are critical to international development.  For example, a girl who plays sports is: less likely to get pregnant[1]; less likely to develop certain cancers[2] and other chronic disease[3]; better educated[4]; and happier[5].  Thinking about the ripple effect these benefits could have for communities got me really excited.

Soccer without Borders pink team

The next experience was doing pro bono representation through my firm of a Guatemalan girl in her immigration proceedings.  In representing her, I had to investigate her life in Guatemala before she came to the U.S.  Hearing her experience took me back to the girls in Nicaragua, and drove home just how different my childhood was from that of most girls in the world.  I saw sports as a simple yet powerful vehicle to help girls have healthier and happier childhoods.

What do you find most fulfilling about your current job as founder of Activyst, your current project?

I love the variety in what I do every day.  Today, my to do list is to reach out to a new non-profit partner in Kenya, check out our latest bag prototype, give feedback on our Indiegogo crowdfunding video (ed: they have reached their 25k goal for Nicaragua and the next 25k goes toward a sports team in Uganda), draft a contract with our bagmakers, write a guest post for a blog (thanks!), and brainstorm a PR plan for our crowdfunding campaign.  With a small team, there’s no choice but to be completely action-oriented and find creative ways to get things done.  I regularly tackle projects that I previously thought I had no business doing.  It’s pretty awesome figuring out how to do things way outside your comfort zone, and even better when you realize you pulled it off.

Activyst bag

I also, of course, love creating tangible results through our work.  We visited Soccer Without Borders (our first non-profit partner) in Nicaragua last fall, and the girls were so fun and their needs so real.  Through our crowdfunding campaign, we’ll also be funding a soccer field and supporting a community center for them.  I’m really excited to see the results and know we helped make it happen.

Do you have any advice for professionals who are interested in branching out from traditional private practice but concerned about what is out there?

Ah, so much. Where to begin? I think the biggest issue people face after practicing law is that they can’t remember what else they like to do.  A lot of friends say, “I don’t want to do this forever.  But what else would I do?  At least this pays well…”  Legal practice is so demanding of your time and energy that years can pass without thinking about other paths.  You also forget that you have or can develop other skills.

I’d say there are two ways to help shake the “but this is the only option” sort of thinking.

First, get serious about discovering what interests you.  Think: where does my mind go when it has the time to wander?  What jobs do I hear about and think “that’s the dream job?”  We often take for granted that other people would answer those questions similarly to us, or that our interests aren’t “real interests.”  My mind wandered towards travel, using Spanish, empowering girls.  I saw women like Maria Eitel (CEO of the Nike Foundation) and founders of socially-conscious businesses and thought “that’s the dream.”  I could have told myself those interests were just immature or said “Yeah, well, I bet everyone would love to move to Nicaragua or start a socially-conscious company, but this is real life.”  Turns out that’s not the case.  These interests were real, unique to me, and I’m very happy now that I’m pursuing them.  When I dig in with my friends who say they have no interests, I find they do have that unique place their mind wanders – one thinks interior design would be the most blissful existence, another thinks teaching, etc.  Few of us actually lack interests; the trouble is that we convince ourselves we could never actually do those things.

Which gets to my second piece of advice for breaking through the fear to explore other possibilities.  Understand that you have many skills that are valuable outside of the law, the greatest of which is the ability to learn new things.  Contrary to what many (even lawyers themselves) believe, legal practice actually leads to many valuable skills – writing, logical thinking, organization, attention to detail, ability to work under pressure, etc.  But the most valuable thing we do as lawyers is that we are learners.  We may not know a single thing about a new case or deal we’ve taken on, but we are incredibly efficient at learning everything we need to know about it, processing it, and applying that knowledge.  That ability transfers.  Being a quick study can go a long way.

Discovering your interests and realizing you can learn most anything you need to know to pursue them is incredibly freeing.  And the concern about the pay, well that’s a different post altogether, but my general thoughts are – you can get by with far less than you’ve become accustomed to.

Do you still identify as a lawyer or use the skills you developed in your legal training?

I do and I don’t.  I spent a decent part of my life in law school and practicing law, and I think there’s an element of “once a lawyer, always a lawyer”.  The way I think and work is influenced by those years of training.  And when I work with other lawyers or former lawyers now, I feel I know them in a way. We usually share the Type A “let’s get things done” attitude, and I appreciate it.  On the other hand though, starting a company with few resources is a very new (and incredibly challenging) world.  So I have slowly started to identify with being an entrepreneur as well.  I think overall, being a lawyer is an important piece of my professional identity, but not the whole picture.

I do use skills I developed in legal training every day.  The most important is the (perhaps obsessive) focus on researching, learning, and covering all my bases.  The writing obviously comes in handy for web content, press releases, etc.  I draft basic contracts from time to time, and can write an effective letter if someone is in breach (which also happens from time to time).  And the organization and attention to detail help keep things in order, which is tough to do as a start-up.

Soccers without Borders team

What do you have to say to those who tell me lawyers can’t have fun?

Lies!  Ha, actually, I do think there are lawyers who forget how to have fun because they begin to define themselves by their work.  And legal work is often not fun.  But I’ve never liked the bad rap that lawyers get in general.  I’ve traveled South and Central America, hiked Machu Picchu, had many a crazy night out, and laughed very, very hard with some of the best attorneys out there.

Katie Rock, volcano climber and former lawyer.

A well-balanced attorney can strike just the right balance of smart, witty and fun, and is one of my favorite types to be around.  The challenge, though, is finding a way to maintain that balance and the law doesn’t always make that easy to do.

Katie worked for a big firm in D.C. for a few years before leaving to work with the World Health Organization in Nicaragua promoting girls’ sports as a tool to improve the health and well-being of girls.  During her research, she found that a primary barrier to girls’ sports in developing countries is the lack of funding and awareness about the importance of girls’ sports.  As a result she has launched Activyst, a socially-conscious company that makes athletic bags for women and supports girls’ sports programs worldwide.  You can contribute and connect via Activyst’s Facebook page or their IndieGoGo campaign.

The post Thrillable Hours: Katie Rock, Founder of Activyst appeared first on Legal Nomads.

While the city is fast-paced and extraordinarily fluid, just under that layer it often feels the opposite, with people taking time to eat with friends or stroll around the many parks that dot the grid of the city. But as the Year of the Snake approached, a pre-Tet madness shifted the aura of frenzy to a peak, a harder edge to everyone’s movements and glances. In my months in Vietnam I also hadn’t witnessed one motorbike accident, but in the weeks leading up to the new year, I saw four separate collisions, each followed by a screaming match and, in one case, an angry swing of a motorcycle helmet at the other man’s head.

Tet decorations in an alley near my apartment.

As the streets got more busy, the maze of traffic multiplying in speed and frenzy, the energy shifted once more. Small roadside stands selling red envelopes embossed with gold snakes popped up at almost every street corner, and the family-owned shops around town stocked red bags, red envelopes and boxes of Danish cookies and other delicacies.[1]  Wooden baskets with wine, cookies and other treats were wrapped in cellophane and displayed with their prices at shops big and small, and banners popped up around town boasting pre-Tet sales. I started seeing motorbikes with those big baskets strapped on the back or clutched between the driver’s arms, shuttling new year gifts around town.

Banh Tet for sale on the streets of HCMC.

New year cards in shops around town.

Firecrackers for sale for Tet

Next up was the renewals and home improvements on shopfronts, houses and restaurants. My Vietnamese friends insisted that everyone needed to try and fully clean their places before new year’s eve, including any repairs that needed to be made. In addition, all debts should be paid off to the extent possible. [2]  The aim being, of course, to welcome in the new year with as clean a slate as you can, to fully embrace the newness of the animal that guides it. Almost every storefront near my alleyway began to rip down its signage or paint its walls. The pho shop down the street had a giant banner delivered to replace their faded yellow sign, installed a week before Tet began.

As the cleaning and improvements went on, about three days before Tet kumquat trees appeared on the backs of motorbikes everywhere, a dutiful delivery of good fortune to families around town. I will never tire of the memory, smiling at the image of motorbike after motorbike, each with a huge, unwieldy tree perched precariously on the seat and tied in with bungee cords and twine. It’s customary to carry everything from fridges to animals to giant boxes of produce by motorbike but seeing the trees on the back (and so frequently too) raised the spectacle to the absurd for me, in the best possible way. [3]

Tet tree at Lado Cafe, Binh Tanh District

To feed the demand for blooms and trees,  pop-up flower markets started to appear around town. Extremely popular picks were those of red or yellow, colours of the new year. Cockscomb celosia, my favourite flower, featured prominently. I had no idea that it was a popular choice for the new year, but I was thrilled to stop around town and squee; carpets of the flowers were installed near Notre-Dame cathedral, and the cafes near my house all had a smaller version of the flower outside for Tet. Downtown, Nguyen Du shut out traffic and the city began to weave together a huge flower display, a snake moulded out of branches; happy new year spelled out in yellow blooms.

In my house, my landlady came home with a huge kumquat tree, an orchid tree and more, flowers taking over the small living room area downstairs. Chairs were moved out of the way, the home’s entrance rearranged for the new plants. Red lanterns were hung in the gated motorbike parking area and a large Vietnamese flag was installed just outside my room. Every day I’d come home to a newfound something – a gift basket, a box of cookies, flowers – on the living room table.

Vietnam flag outside my apartment.

I already felt that I was accepted into this family despite merely being a tenant in their building. Every time I would return home during the day, the grandfather of the house would ask me in Vietnamese about my meals. I showed him photos from this site, of the food from around the world and the things I had tried in Hanoi and the fabulous tamarind crab in Mui Ne. He began to try and feed me in the evenings, gesturing that I should join at the table with the rest of my landlady’s husband’s family. (In keeping with Vietnamese tradition, the woman usually moves in with the husband’s family, and since my landlord is the eldest in his family, that means living with his parents too.) My landlady herself was a pleasure, the only one of the group to speak English (and she speaks quite well!), answering my food questions patiently and smiling indulgently as I waxed poetic about a crab soup or streetside snack. Thus, I wanted to do something for the family for Tet – but it begged the question: what was appropriate? And would they think I was slightly insane for participating?

Luckily for me, I started to think about this while visiting my friend Cameron and his family in Hanoi, and they provided me with some guidance for gifts: small red envelopes with money for the kids, a small red envelope with money for my cleaning lady and a gift of sweets and wine for my landlady and her husband. I recruited James from Nomadic Notes (who also rents an apartment in the same building) to join my Tet-funsies and we set off one morning to procure our gifts for the family, stopping in the lobby of the grocery store to take an on-the-ground shot of our purchases, happy as we were to have added flowers and found envelopes perfect for welcoming the year of the Snake. The security guard outside the building thought we were absolutely nuts, two foreigners sprawled facedown on the marble floor, taking photos of Tet gifts.

Tet presents from the weird foreigners in Apartments 3 and 4 ;)

We presented the flowers to our landlady first, her jaw dropping as the grandma of the house cackled uncontrollably. “The crazies upstairs got us Tet gifts – imagine that!” was the most literal of translations. We handed over the basket and the envelopes for her kids. She was a bit flabbergasted; apparently no tenants had given her Tet gifts before. It made sense, we told her, as she had accepted us and adopted us into the house more as family than paying guests, so the least we could do was contribute as a family member would. Plus, it was fun to participate in the Tet rush.

As Tet loomed, I wandered downstairs to my landlady to ask if she’d be comfortable with my learning about the food from her and her family. Beaming, she invited me to help make banh chung and banh Tet, a steamed sticky rice cake wrapped in banana leaves. The difference between the two is shape: banh chung is a square shape, and banh Tet a long, heavy log of sticky rice. She also asked James and I to join for the big festivities, as the family was celebrating not only the new year, but also the one-month anniversary of the newest member of their family. In Vietnamese tradition, the one month event was a huge one, the baby paraded around for the whole extended family to see, and a pig was to be killed in his honour. Given the proximity to Tet, the family held the festivities together and a few days before the actual new year I was ordered to come downstairs for the killing of the pig (right in the middle of my alleyway in central Saigon, no less!) and then to return later for a feast of epic proportions.

Grandpa with the newest member of the family.

For the big dinner, the remaining furniture was dragged out of the living room and tables set up in the small courtyard that normally served as a motorcycle parking lot. The lobby of the building was packed with rented tables and pink tableclothes; the pig was roasted in the alleyway right outside. At least 50 people were stuffed into this tiny space, drinking copious amounts of beer and whiskey, yelling over each other’s drunken revelry. [4] 

The dinner began with salads – pig’s ears, shrimp and bamboo – and progressed to the cooked pig meat (made in the “fake dogmeat” style, as though it were dog but instead made from pig), to cooked shrimp, to hotpot and bun noodles. Fresh fruit was served for dessert, as is the Vietnamese way. The kids’ table in the corner was different from the one where I grew up; instead of playing games to entertain themselves, they were too busy fixing up the hotpot to boil up their eats. Food is taken quite seriously, regardless of age.

Roasted pig with herbs and mushrooms

Shrimp as the next course.

Shrimp, bamboo and pig’s ear salad

My landlady sat James and I at the family table, with grandpa and grandma and the few people we knew since they actually lived in the house. The courtyard held the many extended cousins, yelling louder and louder as they drank, echoes of mot, hai, ba, yoooooo! bouncing off the building’s walls. (Translation: One, two, three, DOWN THE GLASS!, the typical cheers for drinking in Vietnam.)

Eventually, one of the cousins came and sat at our table and in broken English started asking James and I where we were from, how old we were and why we were not dating. (Vietnamese people all think we are dating since we hang out often, but male-female friendship is understandably less common in Southeast Asia. I find myself introducing him as my brother instead, despite his Aussie accent, to explain things…to which the Vietnamese person’s response is usually “oooooooh!” and then, turning to James “so, are you married?!” Of course, the fact that I have quite a few guy friends in HCMC has given everyone pause. Walking down the street I can almost hear them thinking “but which one is she with?). The conversation led to singing and eventually James and I both took our turns at singing our respective national anthems, quieting down the rowdy rooms as the partygoers turned to look at us incredulously, shocked that we were participating so thoroughly in the fun. We were rewarded for our efforts; what followed was a rousing Vietnamese anthem, glasses raised, heartfelt singing for all.

Some of the tables in my building for the Tet meal.

Other friends in the building, John and Brooke, came back into the house to find a big feast waiting for them.  They had just arrived in Vietnam but to do so during Tet meant that they were dumped ceremoniously into the cultural fire-pit during new year. They sat down at the table and found their plates piled up in seconds, plenty of leftover food and beer to go around.

We all finally excused ourself around 11pm, creeping upstairs to let the family finish their party, smiling so hard our cheeks hurt. All of us stopped at the top of the stairs to marvel at the evening. When I think about travel and experiencing local culture in a natural way, this is what I think of – dinners and celebrations and weddings and funerals, a small snapshot into a life I’ll never truly be a part of, but am honoured to join in when invited.

Perfect snapshot of Tet detritus: flipflops, straws and beer.

* * *

Given that the big dinner occurred days before Tet proper (February 10th was new year’s eve this year), I had a chance to also join the family for the big banh Tet-making assembly line. The kitchen floor was washed and all of the supplies were laid out – cooked mung beans, banana leaves, pork, sticky rice and bamboo twine.

The grandmother of the house showing me how it’s done.

I sat on a tiny stool watching to partake in the Tet preparations, watching as the family methodically built their new year’s food. Once cooked for at least 12 hours, the dense sticky rice and pork cakes were eaten with the main new year’s meal. Inevitably there were leftovers, so they were fried up with eggs in the days that followed, changing the taste somewhat. No short supply of banh Tet around town after February 10th!

Grandpa showing off his banh tet-making skills. He was in charge of wrapping them up before putting them in the pot to cook.

Many families do not make their own but rather buy them pre-made at markets (thus, the photo above from a market in Binh Thanh district). Luckily, my family was not one of them – it was a huge treat to be a part of these preparations, the afternoon spent laughing with the grandparents and their grandkids, translations lacking but humour intact.

Break in banh tet making festivities, to hang with my 2-year old housemate.

Finished product!

After the cooking lesson, I left the house to watch the fireworks exploding over the city at midnight with a group of fellow revelers. We took a wrong turn and ended up 30 minutes out of the way from our destination, meaning that we needed to walk the length of the river, over one of the bridges and down the riverbank until we made it to my friend’s apartment around 10pm. The walk over was itself a perfect end to the overwhelming newness of the holiday in Vietnam. Thousands of locals lined the bridges and edges of the water, waiting for the pyrotechnics to begin. Traffic was at a standstill and for the streets blocked off from cars, food vendors all congregated instead, selling everything you would find around town but in a few kilometers of space, snacks and drinks at the edge of the Saigon river.

Climbing up to the roof at close to midnight, we joined dozens of locals who were also there to see the show. I tripped on a piece of rusty metal and sliced open my toe (requiring a tetanus shot and some serious bandaging for the next week), but instead of checking on the damage, I stared at the lights and explosions flashing over a sprawling city I now loved.

Ringing in the new year with friends from a rooftop in HCMC

It has taken me a few weeks to put together my thoughts on Tet, in part because I wanted to get the photos edited, but also because I was trying to figure out a way to synthesize the breadth of experiences here. I’ve left out some of the more interesting quirks too – the fact that many families require the first person to enter the house after midnight to be of an astrological sign compatible with the incoming animal year (so, goats and monkeys for 2013), how people burn small offerings for their ancestors, including paper pyjamas (we all need to wear pyjamas in the afterlife), paper money, and more. But I wanted to focus on the food and the family, since for me the memories I’ve got will be tied to those two things, lucky as I am to live in a house that decided to adopt me as one of their own.

Many tourists do leave town during the weeklong Tet holiday, but I would recommend staying. Yes, 95% of the restaurants are closed for the first few days – many for a full week. But the contrast in the city is well worth seeing firsthand: the streets are almost devoid of any life, the Tet flowers and trees paper the sidewalks and the city folds in on itself as it focuses on its own families and relatives, blooming anew once the holidays are over.

-Jodi

[1] The whole Danish cookies thing was a big surprise, but no joke the entire city was carpeted in blue and white boxes, a customary gift for the new year. The Danisa brand has cornered the market of cookie funsies in HCMC and I’d love to know how that came to be. They even have special bags that match the boxes, piles and piles of blue and white lining the edge of shops in town.

[2] Unfortunately, the city also enters into what is locally known as “stealing season” – a proliferation of petty crimes like phone and purse theft, with the money used toward paying for these Tet gifts. In the weeks leading up to Tet and shortly thereafter, locals would come up to me on the street mimicking someone making off with my bag, a warning to keep an eye on belongings. Several friends found their phones snatched out of their hands in mid-conversation during this time, though no one had any more significant issues (e.g. there were no violence or armed muggings) to report.

[3] For a great read about motorcycles and their utility in carrying things around Vietnam, see the fabulous Bikes of Burden photo book.

[4] As a lawyer, all I could think of with a room of drinking Vietnamese people and a fire burning right outside in the centre of town was – LIABILITY! Once a lawyer, always a lawyer….

The post Tet: The Craziness of Lunar New Year in Vietnam appeared first on Legal Nomads.

The technique is simple: you take a piece of banh khot and put it on a bed of lettuce or mustard leaves and herbs, add some pickled carrot and radish slices, and then roll it all up and dip into some sweetened fish sauce. Kids love it as there is a method to their meal, and it is enjoyable for everyone to build the roll that makes them happy. For me, this means a liberal inclusion of the perilla herb.

It’s not the neatest of meals, but what it lacks in cleanliness it makes up for in fun.

Vung Tau, Vietnam from my room at the edge of the beach.

The history of banh khot is unclear. Several Vietnamese friends in Ho Chi Minh City told me that it derives from the coastal region of Vung Tau, and others have said that no, it does not. No one was able to trace the dish back to its roots, other than informing me that it was a smaller, sizzling version of banh xeo. Online research was equally fruitless – “Possibly no one knows when banh khot … appeared in Vietnam’s cuisine and people are sure if the popular and cheap dish is the specialty of the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau” said one site.  Right.

What is clear is that Vung Tau, even if it is not the birthplace of the dish, has certainly become the place to try it. While there are a few places in HCMC that make the mini rice pancakes, they pale in comparison to what we ate at the side of the road in Vung Tau for a fraction of the price. Popular at breakfast, banh khot is also available at several restaurants in town at all hours of the day.

What follows is a simplified version of the banh khot found in Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City. Often, the shrimp topping is complimented by a shrimp powder (you can see it in the second to last photo below), made with ground shrimp, Annatto oil  and fish sauce. The optional powder recipe is found at the end, but the dish is also delicious without it.

Banh khot.

As a celiac, it’s important for me to note that this is also a gluten-free recipe. However, if you take the short cut of buying banh khot mix from a store, do take a look closely at the ingredients, since they often include wheat flour as well as the usual rice flour mixtures.

Recipe for Banh Khot

Hardware

• Banh Khot pan (if you cannot find a banh khot pan at a local Asian grocer, then Amazon sells a Takoyaki pan or an Aebleskiver pan, each of which will do just fine!)

Banh Khot Ingredients

• 1 package of banh khot flour mix, or 1.10 pounds (500 grams) of rice flour and 0.10 pounds (100 grams) of glutinous rice flour
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 1  1/2 cups of water
• 1/2 cup of hulled mung bean (they can be bought pre-hulled)
• 10 shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 clove of minced fresh chopped garlic
• 2 teaspoons of ground turmeric
• 3 spring onions, chopped (discard the white part)
• springs of coriander, chopped, for garnish
• fresh Vietnamese mint, chopped, for garnish
• mustard leaves, for wrappping
• romaine lettuce leaves, for wrapping
• fresh perilla and basil herb, for wrapping
• vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon of salt

Herbs for banh khot and banh xeo

Preparation:

• In a bowl mix the two flours (or take the bag of banh khot flour) and add the coconut milk  until it is a smooth paste.
• Add smaller amounts of the water at a time until fully mixed, then the turmeric, and half of the chopped green onion and salt.
• Wash and chop shrimp into smaller pieces and sauté quickly in a small amount of vegetable oil with with the chopped garlic and the rest of the spring onion and a dash of salt. Set aside.
• Pour a small amount of vegetable oil into each indentation of the banh khot pan and heat until beginning to sizzle.
• Add batter into each indentation until approximately 2/3 full, cover and cook for about 3- 5 minutes.
• Remove the cover and add one or two pieces of shrimp and a tablespoon of mung bean to each of the indentations, then re-cover.
• Cooking complete when the sides of the pancakes are crispy and batter has fully set. (Usually an additional 3-5 minutes, depending on heat of the stove.)
• Top each of the pancakes with some chopped coriander and mint and, if you have decided to make it, the dried shrimp topping.

Serve with mustard leaves, romaine lettuce leaves and fresh perilla and basil for to create your own spring roll with each pancake, wrapping a banh khot in leaves and herbs, then dipping it into the fish sauce.

Banh khot with shrimp.

Powdered shrimp topping: (optional)

• 1/2 cup dried shrimp (soaked in warm water for at least 10 minutes)
• 1/2 teaspoon annato oil
• 1/2 teaspoon fish sauce

Dipping sauce:

• 1/2 cup water
• 2-3 tablespoons of sugar (depending on how sweet you’d like your sauce)
• 1/2 lime, juiced.
• 3 tablespoons of fish sauce
• Optional: 1 clove of garlic (finely chopped) and 2 red chillies (chopped)

Mix water, sugar and lime until sugar dissolves. Slowly add desired amount of fish sauce (more is better!) . If you’d like a bigger punch to the sauce, add in garlic cloves and chillies, though these can be served on the table and added to each person’s dipping dish depending on their preference.

Banh khot shrimp powder

Banh khot in Vung Tau

Bon appetit!

-Jodi

The post Recipe of the month: Banh Khot (Mini Fried Rice Pancakes) appeared first on Legal Nomads.

Simon Shields first contacted me through my site to talk about his practice and I promptly asked him if he’d be interested in a Thrillable Hours interview. He not only maintains a practice, but his clients are regular people from Ontario, Canada who are prepared to self-litigate with his assistance. He doesn’t subcontract to other firms, but rather works in the same domains as his  prior private practice in Ontario – administrative and civil litigation. He just happens to do so from somewhere really fun – at present, Greece. Thus far, he’s also been to parts of Central and South America, across the South Pacific (Tonga, Samoa, Rarotonga), New Zealand, Tasmania and Malaysia.

Simon has also built a site called Is That Legal, with legal guides and statutory links to several of the areas of law from his practice. He also notes that there are additional factors that have led to his ability to fund his life with assistance-based legal services, namely (1) the proliferation of self-representing clients. often experienced in business or government in their own careers, (2) clients who want an alternative to hourly billing models (i.e. a flat-rate model), (3) modern payment services like Interac (Canada) or Paypal, and (4) significantly-improved internet access in many far-flung places.

With that intro, here are the regular Thrillable Hours questions!

-Jodi

What made you decide to leave private law firm practice and work in a location independent setting? Was there a particular moment that catalyzed the decision for you?

I have always have practiced privately as a sole practitioner – I haven’t worked for a firm since articling 17 years ago. Having achieved success in my chosen field I just got bored with the office practice. For the five years before I started travelling (i.e. 2002-2007) I schemed endlessly about I how I could work portably. For a long time the financial numbers never seemed to work until one day I just said “screw it, I’m going” and over a few months did all the necessary wrapping up to do so. Of course overhead dropped to next to nothing, and Canadian income tax became a thing of the past with my non-residency. Also, no need to charge my clients HST (the Ontario value-added tax) – life became a lot simpler and cheaper.

I do remember one day when a friend of mine, another lawyer dropped in my office to chat and I quite spontaneously just popped out with “I don’t want to do this anymore”. If there was a particular moment that was it – probably in about 2002.

Simon, practicing from paradise.

What do you find most fulfilling about your current job?

The legal work is just as interesting, and less stressful as I don’t do the face-to-face or hearing work anymore. You may have heard the adage that “law is great, except for the clients” – well this life of mine is as close as possible, I think, to do litigation without clients.

Of course the option of doing this anywhere in the world (given widespread broadband coverage) is an unparallelled lifestyle bonus. I mean, it’s just what others dream about but most never try (or can’t with family obligations).

When people ask me about it I always say that permanent travel isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, but luckily it is most of it – and I’ll settle for that.

Do you have any advice for professionals who are interested in branching out from traditional private practice but concerned about what is out there?

Do exactly what I did. There are several major areas of Ontario law that I don’t practice where a person could do this, particularly family and criminal (and I am unaware of anything like this model from other jurisdictions). I often say that any lawyer who puts the work into writing and posting (for free) a thorough family law guide, thus placing themselves high in the search rankings, can write their own ticket for world travel. We all know how many family law litigants are self-repping today.

As well, what with legal aid cut-backs (in Ontario, eligibility only where there is a prospect of incarceration) there are heaps of criminal defendants crying for affordable quality advice and litigation support. There are of course numerous other fields out there where it can be done as well – lots of ’boutique’ practice room on the internet.

Don’t worry that your guides might be “giving it away for free” – people still want the experienced guidance and will hire you for that. As well, I have never had any liability concerns arise for what I have posted online – zero/zip/nada. (Ed: I asked Simon about insurance issues and he said as part of his requirements for admission to the Ontario bar, he does have a policy for E&O insurance.)

What are the downsides to working abroad, if any?

Time zones are fine, just apprise your client of the situation at the beginning. You’d also be surprised by the number of night-owls (or insomniacs) that I end up e-chatting with in the middle of their night. I promise 48 hour turnaround on all emails (and usually provide much shorter).

I can use Skype but do not out of choice. Email is so superior as it automatically creates a word-searchable, verbatim record of what my client and I have said. It also allows communications to be so much more considered and verified. Verbal communications with lawyers are peppered with qualifiers all stemming from the fact that competent advice needs to be verified – even in fields that you work in regularly. Memory fades since the last case, law changes, the context of the case needs time to gel, etc. Imagine a practice where all your communications with your client are by letter – and all advice, promises and expectations are crystal-clear. Both my clients and I love it.

What do you have to say to those who tell me lawyers can’t have fun?

Once I explain to people or colleagues how I practice they never ask that – it would be a silly question, and besides – their minds are too busy churning away on how they can do it to ask.

The post Thrillable Hours: Simon Shields, Location Independent Lawyer appeared first on Legal Nomads.

Photojournalism features in Foreign Policy, NYT Lens Blog , Time Magazine and others have moved these photo tools into a different sphere of public consciousness, away from the selfie. Of course there are detractors as well as new angles on ethical quagmires. But coupled with the Internet, mobile photography is hard to ignore, and I know I’ve enjoyed my recent experimentation with it as I’ve traveled.

[1] More on my camera and lenses used via the world travel resources page.

 Vietnam in photos: Instagramming Saigon

All of the above background to say: I have taken many, many pictures during my months here, a good amount of them with my clunky iPhone. While much more foresight goes into the photographs I use in my general photoessay posts, there is something to be said for the off-the-cuff captures here. They show not only my daily life in Saigon but also the small snippets of others’ lives too. Taken together, by no means a full story but each a moment in time worth stopping all the same.

In the spirit of my prior Instagram roundups of Iceland and Portugal, I will be posting Instagram roundups of both Saigon and Hanoieach. In terms of process, I take the photo with my iPhone camera and then use Camera+ to edit before uploading to Instagram. Collages are made using Diptic. Whenever possible, I stabilise the camera against a wall or post as it really does poorly to do so on its own.

I know, I know – I could break up this giant photoessay into separate posts but you know me: I’m all for longer, less frequent posts in lieu of part 1, 2 and 3 versions.

Hope you enjoy these 40+ photos! For realtime versions, I’m also legalnomads on Instagram.

-Jodi

Notre Dame Cathedral in a sea of cottonball clouds.

Post office ceiling in the heart of District 1.

A splash of colour outside the Vincom Center.

One of many work days at L’Usine in Saigon.

Minimalist bird funsies.

Mangosteens are one of my favourite fruits, but I’ve never seen them sold this way elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Back of the bike fruit delivery!

Bun mam, a sour fermented fish soup with all sorts of goodies (shrimp, roast pork, eggplant and more).

Tanh Dinh market ceiling. It pays to look up.

The pinkest church that ever was.

Banh xeo dinner, always satisfying.

Christmas plants in December at L’Usine Le Loi cafe.

One of my favourite trees in the city, one of many that loom over Saigon’s streets.

I will do a separate post, I suspect, about my many urban chicken spotting occasions in town. But here’s one to tide you over.

Meeting up with old friends in Saigon: What’s Dave Doing‘s Dave Dean, Nomadic Notes‘ James Clark and Travelfish‘s Stuart McDonald

This is what we ate: pork and rice, fried egg and pickled vegetables.

A crazy sunset over Saigon.

Oricafe, a new little cafe with great, strong coffee and a fun decorative touch.

Bun rieu soup from the side of the street. Fabulous.

Breakfast nem at a market near Pham Ngu Lao

One of my favourites from the cat cafe in Saigon. So expressive!

Goi cuon, fresh salad rolls with herbs, lettuce, shrimp and more. Light and delicious.

Chicken meme courtesy of Simon from Never Ending Voyage, who took it upon himself to add some text to my chicken photo.

Fish out of water.

Xoi, sticky rice, served with pork sausage, curled fried garlic and more for breakfast on the street.

A fiery sunset over Saigon.

A valentine’s day goodbye dinner for my friend Hung.

Alley way clothesline.

The Dong jokes continue! This was a dong flower I made for my landlady before paying my rent.

Train tracks and power lines, District 3.

Falling for a small kitten at the Saigon cat cafe.

Fruit-filled breakfast at a friend’s apartment. We were 10 people and we pretty much polished off this full spread.

Learning how to make Banh Chung and Banh Tet during the holidays, with my landlady’s family.

Urban decay from the roof of my place. Unfortunately it turned out quite blurry, but this is essentially my backyard in Saigon!

I crawled down to pavement level to take this, a shot of flowers against pavement. Passerbys were very confused but I like the result!

Lotus flower at Tanh Dinh market, District 3.

Tree branch camouflage.

Breakfast: bun thit nuong, cha gio and a big smile.

Buildings off of Hoang Sa, in District 1.

Alleyway off of Hoang Sa, in District 1.

The old Hotel de Ville lit up at night.

Just before Tet, the city started putting up Vietnam flags on buildings, trees and signposts, a sea of red and yellow.

Tet decorations in my neighbourhood.

Spending my non-working hours in the rabbit hole of alleyways that spiderweb across the city.

Early morning market exploration.

Pho sign replacement just before Tet. I’ve eaten here so many times that it seemed fitting to end my post with it.

The post Vietnam in Photos: Instagramming Saigon appeared first on Legal Nomads.

Crash Course Mui Ne

How to get there

There are many buses that ply the dusty, choked roads between Mui Ne and HCMC, but I’d recommend taking Futa Buslines’ Phuong Trang (link to Vietnamese-only site) bright orange buses, one of the more reliable bus operators. Yes, it will take you a bit longer than the 5-6 hours for the open bus tours, but it’s safe and they stop for food half way in. For your 130,000 dong ticket ($6.25) you’ll receive a bottle of water, a fresh towel and no smiles. The bus trip takes 7 hours and will stop once for a bathroom and fruit break, and once for lunch. Tickets can be booked at the office on De Tham near Pham Ngu Lao (272 De Tham; link is to Google map. Phone is +84 838 309 309), and in Mui Ne there is a separate office at the end of the beach strip (the directions away from the big resorts. Phone for Mui Ne is +84 623 743 113).

Buses leave HCMC at 7am, 7:30am, 8am, 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3pm, 6pm and 7pm.

Buses leave Mui Ne at 1am, 7:30am, 8:30am, 9:30am, 11:00am, 2:30pm, 3pm and 3:30pm.

In both cases, the bus will ask where you are staying and drop you off right at your door, a nice add-on that I was not expecting.

What to do

Mui Ne’s many fishing boats.

• Rent a motorbike and explore Mui Ne proper and the fishing catches that come in and out of the sea. At dawn until about 10am there is also a morning market in Mui Ne village.
• Take the bike out to the sand dunes, a dozen kilometers out of town.
• Try your hand at kitesurfing. (A list of schools here.)
• Hike and visit the nearby Fairy Spring.
• Visit Phan Thiet harbour and its many larger fishing vessels, with fresh catch of the day for sale on the bridge linking Phan Thiet and Ham Tien, and fish pho at the nearby market. You can also find fresh fish on the bridge near Mui Ne’s smaller harbour.
• Hike up Takou Mountain and its nature reserve (about an hour away).
• Enjoy the view from your room and wander along the water’s edge at dusk.

Cow crossings abound just outside the resorts.

Practicing kitesurfing without the surfing part.

Where to stay

I stayed at the beautiful Bien Dua Resort (136 Nguyễn Đình Chiểu St) filled with plants and hammocks, but I would caution those who plan to head there. Like many other guesthouses in Vietnam, you either pay upfront if you like the place, or you make sure you have a Plan B since I was kicked out a few days into my stay when she said new customers had reserved and were coming in. What really happened, I suspect, was that the newer customers did not negotiate down the rates as I did, and thus she could make more money off the room with me not occupying it. Despite the fact that she said the room was available, she changed her mind.

Either way, despite the beautiful environment and upkeep of the rooms I wasn’t terribly impressed, but given the Trip Advisor reviews (at the link above) I got off easy.

Visitor.

From there I moved to Thanh Duy (243 Nguyễn Đình Chiểu street, +84 123 452 685), which was run by a lovely family and the grandmother made what remains one of the best hot Vietnamese coffees I’ve had yet in the country. The rooms were clean and staff very sweet, though it was not overlooking the beach like Bien Dua. I, uh, may or may not have snuck into the resort across the way and used their pool instead.

*cough*

For those looking for dorms or a hostel environment, the very clean Mui Ne Backpackers came highly recommended from a reader I met up with during my time in Mui Ne.

Where to eat

For lunches, Lâm Tòng (92 Nguyễn Đinh Chiêu street +84 62-3847598) is right on the beach, with a dizzying amount of tables set out facing the water. A small balcony area juts out into the beach itself, great for low tide but ill-advised when the water is higher; you will get wet. Some good noodle dishes and fresh fruit options, as well as grilled fish with lemon and the typical Vietnamese staples. Not the best daytime soups – for those, head into Mui Ne itself at 8am or around 4pm for fish pho and other great market eats, or eat the bun bo noodle soup I described in my prior post. However, a solid bet for midday snacking with a view, even if it’s not the best food you’ll eat in Vietnam.

An unusual Christmas lunch of seafood soup and fresh coconut from Lâm Tòng.

If you’re sick of Vietnamese food or beach eats: Sindbad Kebab (233 Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) offers something vaguely resembling Mediterranean plates, with kebabs, hummous salads, tsatziki, sweet potato fries and other small dishes. Open late.

For dinner, Taxi Stand Soup (what else can I call it?), the soup I wrote a love affair about in my last post, is my first choice. It’s in the empty lot just before Tutti Frutti restaurant. If you can’t see her, it might be because she’s hidden by all the parked taxis, their drivers slurping up her braised pork soup. No menu – just soup. 25,000 dong – 30,000 dong depending on what you order, with a fresh coconut to accompany it if you’d like (an extra 10,000 dong).

Another option is the seafood place I photographed below, Chi Em (Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street, no address but on the left side if you’re walking from Mui Ne toward the Russian end of the beach; +84 166 808 4171). Lovely and family owned, it was less touristy than some of the other seafood joints along the beach.  Opt for the tamarind crab, the scallops (fried in pork fat and shallots and served with peanuts) or a smaller fish stuffed with chili, lemongrass, ginger and herbs.

Grilled fish stuffed with chili, herbs and lime.

Mise-en-place for the small outdoor kitchen at Chi Em

No abode (outdoor or otherwise) is complete without a small altar of offerings.

Where to drink

We ended up buying small bottles of Vodka Hanoi (cheap, $1.25 Vietnamese vodka that is distilled from rice.) and mixing drinks on the water’s edge and chatting. These can be procured from any corner store on the beach and in HCMC. Strangely bereft of them in their namesake of Hanoi, and Hanoi friends hadn’t even heard of the stuff. For celiacs: the blue label is distilled from rice, the red label from corn and grains.

For actual bars, ended up at Fun Key Bar (124 Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) a few times after dinner. Very reasonably-priced drinks, right at the edge of the water and very nice owners and staff. Open for lunch too, and my wheat-eating friends say their crepes are a good bet. Open quite late.

That’s about it for now! I only spent 6 days in Mui Ne, but it was a fun place to explore, great to be near the beach (though it’s not a lounging beach – be warned! It’s very, very windy) and a fun last-minute decision for a Christmas vacation.

I’ll be based in Ho Chi Minh City for most of my time here; other than the trips to Hanoi and Mui Ne, I will likely explore the Mekong Delta (markets!) and perhaps Hoi An or Hue, but it’s been really wonderful to have a base for these few months. The city’s got no shortage of districts to explore, there are lots of fun people in town and I wake up daily thankful that I’m eating such amazing food.

More soon!

-Jodi

The post Mui Ne, Vietnam: where to stay, what to eat & what to do appeared first on Legal Nomads.