Lao Cai Province

One of the destinations outside of Hanoi was Lao Cai Province. It is in the central north portion of the country right up next to the Chinese border. The 200 km took 9 hours to drive because of the bad roads. Here are a few good pictures...

Return to Hanoi

After worked wrapped up on my site a little early we moved north to Hanoi. I visited Hanoi back in 2005 on my Southeast Asian adventure. I had an awesome experience when I was there the first time, and the city did not disappoint upon my return.

One of my first stops was Hanoi Backpackers Hostel where I stayed in 2005. Max, the owner, was more than surprised to see me and a little worried about what sort of trouble I would cause this time. I assured him that since I was in town for work I would be on my best behavior.

I also explored more of the city's sensory stimulating streets.



While I greatly enjoyed Hanoi the first time I was there, this trip reminded me how much I love the city. It is definitely one of my favorites out of all of the cities I have visited. There is something new and interesting to see, hear, smell, and taste around every corner. There are fabulous restaurants of every variety and a seemingly endless number of things to do and explore.

I hope to get the opportunity to return to Hanoi several more times through work.

Local Workers

Here are a few photos of some of the local workers on my site.

I handed out candy canes one day during a break.

Chris is 6' 3" and about 230.

Special thanks goes out to TSgt Linda Miller who was my photographer for this mission and took many of the photos you have seen in the recent posts.

View from the base camp

Work on site

After the vegetation has been cleared we survey the area to find the

proper location to begin excavation.

Next we lay out the grid.

On this site we completed the excavation of 1200 square meters
using trowels 99% of the time.

The sediment is passed down the bucket line.

The dirt is then screened and all non-natural materials are collected.

Every piece of collected material is closely examined for its importance. Items of evidentiary value are collected.

Creepy Crawly

This guy jumped out from under a rock while I was excavating and managed to run from my hand to my shoulder before I got it off.


I won't lie to you. It scared the $*!# out of me.

Base Camp

So that you have a better idea of how we have been living, here are a few photos of our base camp.

Looking up from the HLZ

Kitchen/dining room/living room/movie theater/meeting area

Team gear

Looking up through the base camp

The hooch that I share with my team leader. My tent is on the left.

Water is pumped out of a nearby creek to fill these tanks, which are used for...


Our showers

The flight to the site

Here are a few pictures of the flight from Hue to the site. We flew south over the coast in a Mi-17 out to the site.






The little brown dot at the end of the top red arrow is the helicopter landing zone in the lower left corner of the next photo...

Getting there

After several long flights, and an unusually long layover in Guam in the middle of the night we managed to all arrive in Da Nang in one piece. Rather slightly frayed, but one piece nonetheless. One of the perks of Da Nang in that we get to stay at the Furama Hotel. It is owned by a Japanese company and it is one of the nicest hotels in the country. It is a little ways south of town and is right on the beach. There are two pools and multiple restaurants and bars.

Unfortunately that only lasted one night… Because my recovery site was in a different province than the one that Da Nang is in, we had to drive two hours north to Hue the following day. The journey was made in a four car caravan.

We spent two nights in Hue commuting out to the site by helicopter each morning and returning to civilization each afternoon. This was because the base camp was not completely finished. In the evenings we got to explore Hue, which I had been to before in 2005, and take care of a few last minute necessities.

Le Loi street in the late afternoon.