Hoàn Kiếm

One benefit to this long trip is we have become very disconnected from world news. We rarely get English speaking tv in countries, and honestly, don’t seek out the news on our phones, so we live delightfully in the dark. This week, this isolation from reality became an issue.

We were checking into our hotel in Hue yesterday and the receptionist apologized for the noise in the hotel - she said they’re making preparations for “the storm”. We looked at her and said “storm? What storm?”

She went on to tell us about the Typhoon that was barreling straight for us! So we got to our room and looked it up and found we were in a bit of trouble.

For those not following weather on this side of the world, Typhoon Nuro (Karding) is barreling toward Vietnam. (A typhoon is just hurricane, but in the Pacific instead of the Atlantic. ). Nuro went through the Philippines last night as a category 4/5 and did tremendous damage and is picking up strength and speed heading straight for central Vietnam.

We were scheduled to drive thru Hai Van pass Tuesday and stay in Hoi An Wednesday thru Saturday this week. But the typhoon will make landfall as a cat 4/5, a direct hit in Hoi An, on Wednesday morning. 😳 It is supposed to be the strongest storm Vietnam has seen in 20 years! So unfortunately we had to change our plans, very quickly.

Sadly, we had to scrap our plans in beautiful Hoi An, jumped on a cheap flight this morning and headed back to Hanoi in northern Vietnam. Flexibility is key. We’ve already been here, but it is the most likely place to just be stormy, not life threatening. So … we’re in Hanoi just waiting this out to see how bad it gets with fingers crossed. Not sure how long we’ll be here, or where we’ll go next now - it’s in the hands of Mother Nature. We have about 36 hours before the weather gets dicey, so going to enjoy the good weather tomorrow while we can.

We went out tonight - took a rickshaw ride and had dinner on Beer street. We had a “BBQ plate” - fun cooking our own meat and veggies sitting on the street.

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