Paul's Oriental Travelogue

How I Hate Vietnam

Vietnam is a land of wonders, sights, smells, sounds, and a hospitable, happy people. Sometimes I feel like going Barry Goldwater on their little asses. (In the 1964 Presidential campaign, Arizona Senator Goldwater advocated telling Ho Chi Minh to stop...
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Evening

Well St. Patrick's Day wasn't the raucous hootenanny that I anticipated. The several Australians, who were already drinking on the bus to My Son at 10AM, were nowhere to be found. It was still a fine time, the only black...
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Eire-Nam

Looks like it's still Hoi An for Saint Patrick's Day. I was aiming to be in a bigger city for this auspicious occasion, the better to find well stocked bars and irishfolk. But since I didn't make it to My...
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Asian Beer Survey Part 1

Wherever you go there's always a local beer waiting to greet you and be sampled. I've been pondering how this somehow proves a grand overarching theory of human one-ness but really all it shows is beer is easy to make...
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Melbourne Women

The word ridiculously has been removed from selected verbs in the following monologue. Otherwise it would seem twice as overawed and fawning as it is. The Australians must have something going on. The guys are ____ cool dudes and the...
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That's just, like, your opinion, man

Here's a timely and topical article in Salon's "Ask The Pilot" column. Non subscribers can watch an ad to get access to the whole site for a day. He had some interesting notes a few weeks (months?) ago about the...
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School of the Rails

Danang's where the train goes but there's not much there, save a big airport, big bridge, and a million people. I met some english-speakers on the train and we shared a cab down to Hoi An, a town of historical...
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