{"id":4286,"date":"2025-12-22T09:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T17:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/?p=4286"},"modified":"2026-07-01T12:17:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T19:17:54","slug":"going-to-vietnam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/2025\/12\/22\/going-to-vietnam","title":{"rendered":"Going to Vietnam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have a tradition of spending the holiday outside of the US, so this year we decided to go see more of Vietnam. This time, we focused on the north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It only took 30 hours of travel to get here: a quick 3 to Atlanta, 17 to South Korea, and then another 5 to Hanoi. I slept okay on the long flights, and got to watch both halves of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. I also saw some incredible aurora borealis over Manitoba, which was probably a better show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024346104\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024346104_04ddb702f6_z.jpg\" alt=\"Aurora from the Plane\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Aurora from the plane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After landing and clearing customs in the modern Hanoi airport, we got an airport pickup and about an hour drive into the old part of the city. We&#8217;ll use the local taxi app more as we go, but for the first ride it was nice to meet a guy holding a sign with our name on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We got an immediate lunch nearby at a coffee shop overlooking the street. Some caffeine and food helped put us on the right track, and then a strong massage followed by a shower and a short nap got us through the first day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At night, we took a local food tour led by <a href=\"https:\/\/motorbikecitytours.com\/hanoi-by-night-foodie-motorbike-tour\/\">women on motorbikes<\/a>. We went to Bun Cha Obama, got a beer at Train Street, had some soft noodle rolls called<em> banh cuon<\/em>, then a whole bowl of steamed clams in lemongrass, and finally a matcha flan for dessert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-8f761849 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024415470\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024415470_dd83acbf2e_z.jpg\" alt=\"Clams in Lemongrass\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Lemongrass clams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024433665\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024433665_7e4dab4939.jpg\" alt=\"Mei and Cat\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Mei and a street cat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have a tradition of spending the holiday outside of the US, so this year we decided to go see more of Vietnam. This time, we focused on the north.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vietnam"],"geo":{"latitude":21.0328369,"longitude":105.8513184,"description":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4286"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4328,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286\/revisions\/4328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}