Good Travel Information

We checked out of the Prince Hotel at noon on Black Friday with 12 hours to kill before the train south. Stephenson disappeared and reappeared across the street on a second floor balcony. The Culi Cafe. We went up for lunch.

Turns out it's an Australian owned joint. Good food and a little travel booth inside too. Gar made friends with the owner Travis, who also owns a travel agency. He gave us plenty of sound advice, including how not to get all our gear and tapes yanked during our Family Sightseeing Tour In Vietnam. I ordered some pasta and a long black. Travis advised us on a few ways to steamline and simplify our journey through the central highlands. The next and most critical leg of the journey is arranged and planned. The jungles of Vietnam are not a joke. The jungles of Vietnam are no longer a film synopsis. Tonight we head into The Shit. If anything is going to go Seriously Wrong, it will probably happen in the next week. Everybody kiss your Jesus piece and send one up. Time to pull this thing out of the furnace.

Travis got his buddy on the phone who is a New York Times photographer stationed in Hanoi. Stephenson and Morgan passed the phone off and got some advice on how to dance though backwoods communism with half a billion in equipment.

Culi Cafe. Nice place to stop on your way through Hanoi if you're trying to keep a movie on the rails. Come for the long blacks. Stay for the Good Travel Information.