Here is our attempt to answer those questions, preempt a few others, and provide an overview of our experience.

Our Path Between December 2006 and April 2007

(please excuse the fact that the map below looks like it was scribbled on by a 2-year old)

December: Bangkok – Koh Pha Ngan – Bangkok – Hanoi

January: Hanoi – Halong Bay – Sapa – Bac Ha – Hanoi – Luang Prabang – Nong Khiaw – Luang Prabang – Vang Vieng – Vientiane

February: Vientiane – Da Nang – Hoi An – Saigon – Phnom Penh – Siem Reap – Battambang – Bangkok

March: Bangkok
– Patong (Phuket) – Ranong – Khao Sok – Phang Nga

April: Krabi – Ao Nang – Ko Lanta – Railey Beach – Krabi – Bangkok – Prague

Most Waves and Smiles

1. Best Boat Ride – Siem Reap to Battambang, Cambodia
2. Best Boat Ride, Honorable Mention – Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw, Laos
3. Outrageously Cute Kids – Trek Outside Luang Prabang, Laos
4. Condensed Milk and a Smile – Phnom Penh, Cambodia
5. Tet Flower Market – Saigon, Vietnam

Visually Spectacular

Click on the More Photos link at the bottom of each entry for even more images.

1. Sapa, Vietnam
2. Bac Ha Market, Vietnam
3. Cai Rang Floating Market in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam
4. Halong Bay, Vietnam
5. The Andaman Beaches, Thailand

Digging into Humanity

A selection of stories that highlight the less seen.

1. Battambang on a Motorbike
2. The Other Side of Siem Reap
3. Across the River in Luang Prabang
4. Handing out Books to Village Kids – Laos
5. Vietnam’s Open-Kimono Exhibit about its Subsidy Period

Food – top eating experiences, in no particular order

1. Chau Tom – Hanoi
2. Beef in a Leaf – Saigon
3. The Lao Trinity – Jeaw Bong, Khai Pen, and Sticky Rice in Luang Prabang
4. Prawns on the Mekong, Vientiane
5. Cambodian morning soup
6. Cambodian fish Amok
7. Thai knom jeen in Krabi

Photos

• Southeast Asia Overview – landscapes, people, and sites
• Southeast Asia People – the faces, the smiles, the color, the diversity
• Southeast Asia Food – this part of the world is tough to beat when it comes to the table

Videos

We’ve purposely tried to keep ‘em short. Check for them at the bottom of an article or check for an index of articles that have a video embedded here.

Some of our favorites:

1. Saigon, Vietnam – possibly the only place (with the exception of Hanoi) where the traffic makes us laugh
2. Battambang, Cambodia – who knew a day on the back of a motorbike could be so fun?
3. Boat to Nong Khiaw, Laos - sitting on kindergarten-sized seats for 8 hours can be butt-numbing, but this trip is worth it

If you have a high-speed connection, stick around for the slideshow below.

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Our Mekong Delta Tour

• Boat trip from Saigon to My Tho
• String of shameless buying opportunities in the form of coconut candy, honey and tropical fruit production outlets on an island near My Tho. This is the epitome of Vietnamese conveyor-belt tourism
• Short lunch visit on the island of Ben Tre. Terrible, tasteless, overpriced, and totally inauthentic tourist slop not included in the price of the tour. Note to tour operator: this is a disservice to your country, its culture, and the fabulous cuisine your country is capable of serving in its sleep.
• Overnight in Can Tho. Hot water shut off and all staff mysteriously unavailable to turn it back on.

• Cai Rang floating market
• Cai Rang market on land with a tour of a rice noodle production (one of the other factories was already closed for Tet – darn!)
• Chau Doc with a visit to near by floating fishing villages
• Cham village – a minority Muslim ethnic group
• Boat to the Cambodian border and on to Phnom Penh

Photo Essay – Cai Rang Floating Market

Video – Vietnam’s Mekong Delta Highlights

Practical Details – Arranging a Mekong Delta Tour

We don’t particularly enjoy organized tours, but the Vietnamese make it very difficult to piece together a 2-3 day Mekong Delta trip on your own using public transportation. Organized tours are easily booked at any travel agent in Saigon (Pham Ngu Lao backpacker neighborhood has dozens). Choose whether to return to Saigon or continue on to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

We booked our tour with Kim Travel, combining two tours in one to give us the maximum amount of time on water. The tour cost $43 per person, including two nights (basic) accommodation and three days of transportation, tours and tour guides (there were times we wished the last two points were not included). It was a commodity tour for that price – not great, not awful and it got us to where we wanted to go.

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Saigon’s Tet Flower Market
Saigon’s Tet flower market took up the whole of Cong Vien park near Ben Thanh market. It was filled with every type of orchid, bonsai, and bougainvillea imaginable. Elaborate flower displays were soundtracked with funky tunes and children on school excursions waved furiously and yelled “hallo” as they walked by. The brave ones asked where we were from and then giggled uncontrollably as we tried to say “hello” in Vietnamese. Everyone was on a holiday high; you could feel it throughout the city.

Cruising Down the Mekong
In a bid to make the Cambodian border just before it shut at year’s end, we left Saigon for a Mekong Delta tour with three days left to go. In a parade of floats, boats filled with flowers went full-steam up the Mekong River for last-minute delivery to Saigon. In the Mekong Delta towns of My Tho and Can Tho, city blocks were engulfed in flower markets and abuzz with excited buyers. Boats pulled up to the docks and overflowed with bright pink bougainvillea and yellow carnations. People strolled the markets searching for the perfect floral combinations to ring in the new year.

If the volume of flowers is any indication, it’s going to be a very lucky year.

Photo Essay – Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

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The American War or Vietnam War?
It’s all about perspectives. The Vietnamese call it the American War. We felt the presence of its history more in the central and southern parts of Vietnam than in the north. Remnants of American military bases and battle sites are still visible in places like China Beach, outside of Danang. Victims of land mines and those affected by agent orange walk the streets. Tourists sites remark about unexploded bombs that still mar parts of the interior Vietnamese landscape. Southern Vietnamese seemed more open, or perhaps able, to talk about the war and the division that occurred within their country. As you move south in Vietnam, you’ll also find more people whose relatives escaped as “boat people” through airlifts to the United States in the mid-1970s.

Although not as pleasant as exploring food markets and new neighborhoods, we spent two mornings at war-related sites to see the Vietnamese perspective on the War. We left with a greater understanding of how hellish it must have been for all involved. And we still can’t tell you exactly why it started or why it lasted so long.

War Remnants Museum
US military planes and tanks adorn the garden of the War Remnants Museum in HCMC. The exhibits here offer a sobering look (and albeit lopsided one…victors write the history books and build the museums) into the horrors and aftermath of the Vietnam War, from the immediate loss of life (estimated at 4 million) to the effects still felt today of chemicals like Agent Orange that were used during the War. The photos inside the exhibit are sad, ghastly and numerous. The point about the insanity of war is well made. We’ve visited various genocide, war, and oppression sites around the world and this one left us particularly devastated. Unless you don’t have a pulse, you can’t help but feel a bit discouraged about humanity and what people, regardless of their stripe, can manage to do to one another in the name of war.

Cu Chi Tunnels
Located about 40 kilometers outside of Saigon, the Cu Chi region was the site of a 200-kilometer network of tunnels. These tunnels provided a way for people to navigate the area without being seen and to live underground. Tunnels were complete with kitchens, bunkers, factories, and clinics. The persistence and ingenuity of the fighters was impressive, particularly as they scavenged metal from downed aircraft to create medical equipment and build booby traps.

Our tour began with a North Vietnamese propaganda film praising the courage of the Cu Chi fighters. It was another example where we learned more from what was *not* said.

The hole seen here is an example of a hidden entrance to the tunnels. Someone could drop down into the tunnel system to disappear or pop up above ground to lay a trap and then disappear again. If you compare the size of the hole compared to the shoes, this shows how small the entrances were. Even though a section of the tunnels was widened to enable tourists to crawl through, the tunnel was still barely navigable and prompted almost instant claustrophobia.

We can’t imagine what it must have been like to live in the tunnels, sometimes for days on end, during heavy bombing. Of the 16,000 original Cu Chi residents, only 4,000 remained at the conclusion of the war.

When you’re finished with these sites, head to someplace pleasant and happy – like a soup stall – and marvel at the fact that we can somehow happily co-exist, even after our countries’ governments pointed guns at one another just over three decades ago.

Practical Details – Arranging a Cu Chi Tunnel Tour

Cu Chi Tunnels: Although tours can be irritating and include bathroom stops conveniently located at handicraft shops, the easiest and cheapest way to view the tunnels is by booking a tour in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Basic tours cost around $4/person and include transportation and a guide for the tunnels. Entrance fees to the tunnels are additional.

War Remnants Museum: 28 Vo Van Tan, Q3, Ho Chi Minh City

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HCMC, is a bright, bustling cosmopolitan city. Even with its glitz and splash, it maintains a distinctly Vietnamese feel as street food stalls press up against 5-star hotels. You can still see the French colonial thumbprint in HCMC with buildings like the People’s Committee building (formerly the Hotel De Ville) or the cathedral just a few blocks away.

Although some might argue, both the variety and quality of food was a notch or two above that of Hanoi. The presence of a strong and growing middle class is obvious in the way people dress, shop and eat. We also found that people in HCMC were friendlier, more open and just happier to chat.

Although the traffic volume was also a notch or two above Hanoi’s, HCMC’s large streets allowed pollution to dissipate, making the air easier on the lungs and eyes. But as in Hanoi, we had to adopt a fatalistic attitude and simply step into sea of honking motorbikes, bob, weave, and hope for the best. Specially marked “tourist security” police are strategically placed to rescue paralyzed and stranded tourists. Picture yourself in the middle of a 32-lane boulevard and you’ll be more than happy to be escorted by friendly, brightly clothed crossing guards, like you were back in kindergarten. We were.

Southern Vietnam is warmer in climate and people, making it a good place to visit after touring around the north. We spoke to a number of tourists who went the other way; they had a harder time adjusting.

Photo Essay – Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

Video – Street Scenes from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

Practical Details

How to get there: Flights, trains and buses from all over Vietnam lead to HCMC.
Where to stay: Located near Ben Thanh market, Nymph hotel sits atop a tailor shop that fronts onto a night market. $15/night for a room with an ADSL connection inside a room that is remarkably quiet given the neighborhood. Good internet speeds, nice room, fun neighborhood, highly recommended.
Address: 38 Nguyen An Ninh, Ben Thanh, Ho Chi Minh City, Q1, Tel: +84 (08) 8247561, pkcvn@hcm.vnn.vn
Where to eat: Food stalls in Ben Thanh market during the day and seafood stalls outside the market in the evening both offer great seafood at reasonable prices. Quan An Ngon (138 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street) offers a variety of street food dishes in a pleasant garden setting.
What to do: Cu Chi tunnels and War Remnants Museum. Just walk around and take in the city and its people.

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Here’s just a wee taste.

Ben Thanh Market

The best approach here seems to be to wander. Arrive before you’re starving, so you’re able to soak up the atmosphere and take in the breadth of what’s on offer.

Barbecued shrimp paste on sugar cane (Chao Tom) makes another appearance, at left. But the show-stealer here is the Bo La Lot, or seasoned beef in a leaf. The vendor at Xuan Mai told us it was betel leaf, though Vietnamese street food experts might argue with that. Anyhow, this grilled dish became one of our favorite snacks inside Saigon’s Ben Thanh market. The beef was seasoned (some combination of star anise, nutmeg, cinnamon, and fermented fish sauce, perhaps?) and topped with roasted peanuts and a zippy dipping sauce.

A host of other tasty nibblings are available, including grilled pork meatballs and Vietnamese shrimp summer rolls. During one of our visits, the folks running the stall were packing a giant box full of 100s of fresh shrimp summer rolls, apparently for some pre-Tet celebration. We had summer roll envy.

Saigon Street Food Soup Stand

Just outside our hotel away from the din of Ben Thanh market was our adopted neighborhood soup stall. Tiny tables and chairs and giant metal cauldrons play host to banh canh, a ubiquitous soup made with wide tapioca noodles that have a different consistency than the more common vermicelli. Served with pressed mystery meat sausage and bits of shrimp, the broth was mildly sweet with a hint of pineapple. Stalls like this provide a great place to meet locals, too. We enjoyed a bowl with a brother and sister pair on their way home from work to catch a movie.

Gelatinous Mystery Bits

We were certain we spied prawns in some type of clear rice gelatinous dumpling, but we were deceived and ended up with a constellation of gelatinous bits and pressed meat swimming in a sweet vinegar sauce. No one at the stall spoke English, but they were all friendly and watched closely with curiosity. Beer was warm, required ice, and ultimately proved tasteless. Put a hash mark in the “interesting” column for this experience.

Lucky Star Dim Sum

If you’re hankering for dim sum, check out Lucky Star. Although a bit more expensive than what you might find on the streets, it’s well worth it, particularly if you’re a dim sum enthusiast. The dining room is mildly formal, and per cliché, tables are family-style round and only outdone in size by the gigantist-style dining room.

We treated ourselves to a few varieties off a long menu. While waiting on your dim sum, you can take the edge off with some Asian amuses-bouches in the form of peanuts and sweet and spicy pickled cabbage.

Steamed shanghai buns (like a dumpling and not a doughy pork bun) come stuffed with pork and sided with a notable vinegar soy lemongrass sauce. We also opted for a variety of shrimp dumplings, all loaded with discernable chunks of prawn. Though the steamed black mushroom dumplings were tasty, the shrimp conpoy dumplings (topped with dried scallop) stole the show.

Address: Lucky Plaza, 38 Nguyen Hue District 1, Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon

Seafood Restaurants – Ben Thanh Market at Night

Order a 350 gram prawn – so large, it’s more like a lobster and sports imposing, meaty claws. Its consumption is greatly aided by our friendly waitress, who segmented it with scissors. Upon her recommendation, we also order grilled blood archa with spring onions and nuts on top. Although it sounds awful (the organization responsible for the blood archa’s branding should be recalled), it proves a tasty and tender mollusk-like bit. Gluttons for the same, we order another round the following evening and added huge grilled oysters and fried soft-shelled crabs to the order. Audrey’s first experience with the the soft, mildly crunchy, and substantial soft-shelled crab proves a winner.

Although you are likely to find similar fare in other street-side seafood restaurants, you can find this particular one across the street from the grocery store and a few steps to the left. There are numerous tanks of fresh seafood outside to draw you in.

Any way you slice it, dice it, chop it, or segment it with scissors, Saigon is worth paying a visit to on your culinary tour of Southeast Asia.

Photo Essay – Vietnamese Food and Markets

Video of Saigon Markets and Street Food Scenes

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Video – Rice Drum Dance at the HCMC/Saigon Symphony

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After placing an order with a tailor one evening, we got caught up in a conversation with a bright, talkative woman in her mid-twenties. We chatted for what seemed like hours and stayed long past closing time.

Vietnamese Stereotypes
She tells us that northern Vietnamese are very close to their families, but not very open and sometimes two-faced to others. The southern Vietnamese are warm and speak from the heart. The central Vietnamese on the coast live in fear of typhoons and strong storms – they live for the moment and are open and friendly. The central Vietnamese who live behind the security of the mountains, like in Hue, are smooth talkers, but are not genuine. As in all countries, stereotypes and prejudices characterize people from different regions. We can’t affirm or deny any of this, as we spent little over a month throughout Vietnam. But it was fascinating to hear. Not that this is any surprise, but suspicions and stereotypes – like ethnic jokes – begin to take on a very familiar ring.

A Personal Story
Prejudices aside, this woman’s personal story was representative of many in Hoi An. Her family has owned the merchant house in which her family lives and runs a business for eight generations. She’s of Chinese descent, but identifies herself clearly and proudly as Vietnamese. In a complicated twist of family trees and politics, she tells us that her father worked with the American forces during the war, even though his father was a strong supporter of the Viet Cong. Thirty years later, the father still has a black mark against his name, and as a result, her older brothers and sisters were not able to finish their schooling because of this. For her, things continually improve and time seems to slowly heal old wounds, but certain fields of study and work in the government are both closed to her. She hopes and expects that the black mark may disappear from her family’s record in time for the next generation, her children, to openly pursue what they desire.

She disagrees with the government’s approach of punishing children for the “sins” of the parents, believing that each generation should be responsible for themselves and not the actions of previous generations. Asking how the Vietnamese feel about the war and Americans, she explains that current generations don’t blame Americans today for the bombings and the war of the past.

She concludes, “Today and tomorrow are enough.” In conflicted eras and eras of conflict, these are admirable words to live by. And if their reactions to us as Americans are any indication, the Vietnamese for the most part – from North to South – certainly appear to live by it.

More Photos from Hoi An and Central Vietnam

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Our Driver’s Story
His personal story included a father who was a cook for the South Vietnamese government and was subsequently killed by North Vietnamese forces after the fall of Saigon. His mother was left with five children. Because of his father’s alliance with the government of South Vietnam, the family were exiled to a remote mountain area. Agriculture was difficult in the mountains and his family lived on one meal a day for many years.

About a decade ago, he was able to move to Hoi An and found work as a driver. He had lived a difficult life, but was not resentful and had a wonderful, genuine smile. He was thankful to have a job and was focused squarely on the present and the future.

My Son Temples
We had decided to extract ourselves from bed at this ungodly hour to see the temples in good light and, more importantly, to avoid the bus loads of tourists who arrive mid-morning. “Beat the rush” feats such as this are becoming more and more difficult as everyone begins to adopt the same strategy. Eventually, we will all be getting up yesterday to enjoy today. At any rate, to our great surprise, we succeeded. So much so, that we were in fact the very first to show up at the gate, with only one other couple just behind.

As the gates of My Son opened, we had the temples to ourselves in a perfectly quiet morning shrouded in fog. Early morning extraction was worth it.

My Son is the main surviving architectural complex of the Champa dynasty; its oldest structures are believed to date back to the 4th century and the site was used until the 15th century. Parts of the temple complex were destroyed during the Vietnam War when the Viet Cong used the area as a base and American forces bombed it.

Photo Essay – Central Vietnam

Practical Details – Arranging Transport to My Son, Vietnam

My Son can be easily reached from Danang or Hoi An. Arrange for a driver to take you ($15-$20 from Hoi An) or join a minibus tour ($5-$8/person) where “authentic” musicians and dancers will greet you at the temples.

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Here are a few of our favorite Hoi An dining experiences:

Mango Rooms – Deliberately hip ambience, playful decor and fusion food served up in what feels like your interior decorator’s living room. Every dish has – surprise! – mango as one of the ingredients. We noshed on tempura fried vegetables (okra, sweet potato) with mango curry sauce. Salads included mango slices, rubbed chicken pieces, vermicelli, basil, coriander, and various other greens.

Finish yourself off with yellow sticky rice, topped with mango, coconut milk, and toasted peanuts. Even more beautiful looking dishes come out of the walk-through kitchen…we’re told that those are reserved for the owner and his friends or guests.
Address: 111 Nguyen Trai Hoc, Hoi An, Vietnam

Cafe des Amis – On the riverfront with a small indoor and outdoor eating area. Take your choice of a seafood or vegetarian taster menu (90,000 Dong or $6). One menu proved more than enough for two people. Seafood taster includes:

• White Rose dumplings (a must, as only one Hoi An family has the recipe, and thus a monopoly on their production) – rose-shaped shrimp dumplings topped with fried garlic and onions and, sided with a swab-worthy spicy sauce.
• Crab soup with soy
• Rice chips (like a crunchy rice pappadum) served with a warm squid salad (squid, peppers, onions, greens) and generous fish chunks sautéed in a golden baby shellfish sauce, sided with a lemon ginger dipping sauce.
• The meal ended with crème caramel in a cup.

Address: 52 Bach Dang, Hoi An, Vietnam

Cafeteria Ly – Not too far from the main market, this modest place serves up some of the best wantons and Cao Lao in town. Wantons are generously stuffed with meat, freshly sauteed shrimp and dished with peppers, onions and tomatoes on top. Sweet, fresh, crunchy, and salty all play nicely on this Chinese flavor playground.

Cao Lao is a famous Hoi An specialty of thick (thicker than bucatini?) round noodles, thinly-sliced pork, and cilantro. Pieces of broken rice cake transform this into a savory texture play. The soy sauce is not your average Kikkoman either. It tastes brown and earthy, like a cousin of Tamari.

Both dishes far exceeded our expectations and were fresh, full of different tastes and outfitted with adequate piles of fresh herbs.
Address: 22 Nguyen Hue St, Hoi An, Vietnam

Photo Essay – Hoi An and Central Vietnam

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