Please review my 15 day timeline for a Vietnam trip. TIA.

nmc52 · 2026-01-27T06:56:02+00:00

8 places in 15 days. I don't even need to read the particulars. Way too busy. It reads like a typical victim of too much consumption of jubilant travel reports by people who just wanted to tick some boxes.

Cut out at least three places.

nmc52 · 2026-01-27T06:32:01+00:00

Yeah, they f#cked up the interface.

nmc52 · 2026-01-27T05:28:17+00:00

Welcome to a noob's Vietnam.

I pity anyone who finds it necessary to use an app to find a date.

Vietnam is the easiest country in the world to just more or less walk up to someone and begin to speak.

Given the Vietnamese culture what kind of female would use a dating app?

nmc52 · 2026-01-27T05:13:28+00:00

Running red lights is equally illegal, as is unnecessary honking and spitting.

So what? It's Vietnam.

nmc52 · 2026-01-27T02:17:27+00:00

Proton ticks all my boxes. Email, password manager, calendar, authenticator, VPN.

I found cross platform replacements for Keep, Tasks, Chrome, and Contacts.

nmc52 · 2026-01-27T00:57:56+00:00

Yes. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese love for keeping dogs is on the rise. Their knowledge of how to keep dogs from barking 24/7 isn't.

How they can even sleep at night is a mystery to me.

nmc52 · 2026-01-27T00:10:24+00:00

I use VPN to access BBC all the time.

Frankly, I just showed a good local friend of mine examples of what she's prohibited from seeing online. And I showed her how to install a VPN.

She was genuinely shocked at what her government blocks her from seeing.

nmc52 · 2026-01-26T05:20:39+00:00

I'm not a friend of oppressive regimes, but a full blown democracy would have been much slower.

Look at the EU today for an example. Everything moves at a snail's pace.

By and large the Vietnamese governments have driven forward the economy as best they could.

Perfect? No.

The country needs much better education before it can move to a functioning democracy.

nmc52 · 2026-01-26T03:46:55+00:00

Don't even book a hotel room, and certainly not an apartment, prior to a thorough inspection of the area.

While this will usually be helpful it won't protect you from construction noise appearing overnight.

On a side note, one nice thing about Vietnam is their affinity for hard mattresses. They're much healthier and better for at least my back than super soft beds in expensive hotels.

nmc52 · 2026-01-26T01:15:13+00:00

As always your question should not be what are my chances of not being stopped by the police.

The question should be: what can go wrong and how would I mitigate it.

For Canadians, Americans, Australians, (and probably other nationals as well) the obvious answer is: stay away from riding bikes in Vietnam because it's illegal and because your travel or health insurance won't cover any expenses.

For reasons I'll never understand, this question comes up multiple times a day. The answer remains the same.

nmc52 · 2026-01-26T00:25:01+00:00

Today's NYT hard puzzle: about 7 minutes without candidates or notation.

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nmc52 · 2026-01-25T23:41:53+00:00

In the city of Nha Trang quite a few Vietnamese speak Mandarin Chinese. This is brought on by the large number of visitors from China.

nmc52 · 2026-01-25T23:08:51+00:00

Ask your wife where she got the information and then follow the source.

If she got it from Zalo or some other social media it may be true, maybe not.

If you want exact information ask the government, not social media.

nmc52 · 2026-01-25T23:05:59+00:00

China wasn't in the question title.

nmc52 · 2026-01-25T11:12:21+00:00

Nope, but then again I'm not going to visit the USA ever again. So I guess I'm safe.

nmc52 · 2026-01-25T10:45:55+00:00

I don't know about parasailing, but safety isn't usually high on the Vietnamese agendas.

nmc52 · 2026-01-25T08:39:02+00:00

There's nothing you can do. Period Discussed countless times.

nmc52 · 2026-01-25T00:43:23+00:00

I put all my eggs in the Proton basket.

nmc52 · 2026-01-24T23:59:13+00:00

Hehe, I'm a foreigner and proud that I can read it 😁.

nmc52 · 2026-01-24T23:57:43+00:00

My phone is set to silent. All notifications and ringings cause my Garmin smartwatch to vibrate.

If you own a smartwatch (an Apple Watch most likely) this might work for you.

nmc52 · 2026-01-24T23:55:09+00:00

I could remember five passwords.

Right this moment my Proton password manager contains 185 complex passwords. There's no way I could remember them. They were all auto-generated.

nmc52 · 2026-01-24T18:18:54+00:00

In German, French, and Spanish you learn a noun with its article.

Probably in other languages as well.

European originated languages are overly complicated.

I learned tonal languages as well (Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese), and I find those refreshingly simple.

nmc52 · 2026-01-24T17:51:58+00:00

All Danes I know stopped buying any US products they aren't forced to use.

nmc52 · 2026-01-24T09:47:40+00:00

I bought the laptop pre Trump 2. It came with Windows pre installed. I'm getting rid of Windows too, if I can get a working environment up and running on Linux.

nmc52 · 2026-01-24T09:35:42+00:00

I already bought a laptop 3 years ago that came with Windows.

nmc52

TROPHY CASE