My first semester in China as an English teacher was over.  I would leave at dawn for Vietnam on Monday, January 25, 2010.  Now it was time to go and see if I had what it takes to travel for real.  This would be the first time traveling alone in the developing world without a gun or a posse.  I not only didn’t speak the languages, but lacked any mathematical ability whatsoever.  I knew that I was poor by American standards, but in Laos, I was a millionaire. Trouble lurked ahead when I would try to calculate the cost of a soda or a room.   If I was a…