The Peterson Pack on the Move

In many of my previous blog posts I have attempted to create a comprehensive history or scientific outline through hours of research and writing. But, as one can imagine, that is extremely tiring, and I feel that we have strayed from our initial idea of a "travel blog." So I have decided to follow the wise words of the one Rachel Barber, and just write about some of our funny stories. Ignore the fact that my parents have told me to do this same thing countless times—it didn't sound as smart coming from them. So I'm going to go all  the way back to Vietnam. There, surrounded by people the same height as Quill, she and I were both "baby." And they sure loved their babies!  Everywhere we went, people would cross the street to ask if they could get their picture taken with Quill. All the little old ladies just wanted to cuddle her and pinch her cheeks. They absolutely loved her—the cutest possible girl in the eyes of the Vietnamese, with her pale skin, blond hai...

Location: Temple of the Second Emperor in Nihn Bihn. The creature next to the human is a unicorn   You’ve heard of a unicorn, right? A horse with a horn on top of its head? Yes, course you have. But have you heard of a Vietnamese unicorn? It is more of a lion with horns. It has a luxurious coat with a great big mane, a big tongue, and two scary eyeballs. It also has two short spiked horns that look a little like an antelope or goat.  It’s pretty funny. We have seen these "lion goats" on various occasions, but the funniest time was the first time. It was at a water puppet show in Hanoi. The show started with humans, dragons, frogs, fish, and phoenix, which all looked normal by American standards. It was quite a surprise when we saw their "unicorns" for the first time. For a while I thought they were some weird looking dragon, until Tre looked at the booklet and it said “Unicorn Dance.” Everybody thought the unicorns looked so weird. On other occasions, like at the se...

Last night we went on a night train from Nihn Bihn to Hue, Vietnam. We left at 10pm and arrived at 9am. It was super fun. The room was as big as a medium sized closet with two bunk beds on either side of it. My mom and dad took bottom bunks. Tre and I got the better top bunks. I don't know why they took the bottom bunks, but I am sure glad they did. When we finally got on after waiting for the train to come, I had to put my bag below me and climb onto the top bunk so that everyone could get in and stop blocking the hallway. We had already eaten dinner, so we didn't have to get food from the people yelling in the hallway selling stuff. It was pretty late so we went to bed. We woke up around 7am and ate some of the food they gave us in cardboard boxes. It was fine, but buffets are much better. We read for a while and when we got off, we took a taxi to a super amazing hotel my mom picked out and it had a buffet.  A selfie on the night train Throughout this trip we have been on man...

We've really enjoyed our time in Vietnam. It's been a whirlwind of experiences, some expected and others less so. It's been very different from what we’ve seen elsewhere, from its crazy cities to beautiful terraced rice paddies, and I’ve loved every minute of it. I suppose I shouldn't be reminiscing yet, we're still here and will be for a while, but I just wanted to show off some of our more memorable experiences. As a testament to my organizational skills, some of these events didn't even happen in Vietnam! On our last day with our Vietnamese hiking guide Duong (credit to Jason and Eryn for the recommendation), he took us on a tour of Ninh Binh on the backs of scooters. The scooter drivers were him, Thuk (our van driver while hiking), and two tiny Vietnamese ladies, Luan and Mei, that must have been some of their buddies. Don't be fooled by her tough biker demeanor—she still loved to squeeze Quill's cheeks and arms, just like all the other Vietnamese l...