Read the rest of her post (and the comments) here.

I traveled to Vietnam in January 2007, and I bought that same book from a vendor next to Hoan Kiem Lake. If I had been there one year before, or if she had one year later, we might have met in one of those Hanoi coffee shops with the cool metal filters that drip strong coffee into a thick layer of sweetened condensed milk.

I wasn’t such a huge fan of the book, though. I fell asleep reading it on multiple occasions, and I left it behind in a hostel.

Here are two photos from my 2007 trip to Vietnam:

Hoan Kiem Lake sits at the center of the Old Quarter, a quaint area of Hanoi in which each street specializes in a different commodity (shoes, fruit, bags, silk, holiday decorations, etc), motorbikes whiz past, and food preparation and consumption occur in the same sidewalk space.  The lake’s reflections were incredible at dusk, and I enjoyed watching ladies practice tai chi (hmmm… how do you say tai chi in Vietnamese?)

In the lovely gardens of Hanoi’s Temple of Literature. I’d dyed my hair bright red about a week before.

Here’s a paragraph from an email I sent home from that trip:

My first impression of Vietnam, as I awoke on the train from China, was of a visual geometry completely unlike the the six-story concrete boxes so prevalent in the city I’ve called home since August.  The workers’ triangular wicker hats, the tall Victorian-style houses, even the rice paddies formed sloping triangles in my surprised eyes.

OK, enough travel reminiscing for now. Back to the “real world” of China…