Phuong met us at our Hanoi hotel for breakfast on the first morning with a hand-drawn map of the Old Quarter that listed eight street-food stalls and which hour each was good. She did this on her own time. We ate at six of the eight. The trip ran on those notes.

We did the Mekong slowly. Three nights on a converted rice barge that stopped at floating markets at five in the morning. The barge was a Linh recommendation; we would not have found it on our own. Phu Quoc at the end for the beach and the decompression. The country we expected was loud; the country we got was paced.

Phuong put us on the night train to Sapa in a sleeper cabin she had personally inspected the week before. Two nights in a Hmong homestay where the daughter taught us to make banh chung. Two nights in a French-colonial hotel in Sapa town with a view of Fansipan. Cold every night; the right kind of cold.