Hitchhiking Vietnam : A Woman's Solo Journey in an Elusive Land

Rating:
Summary: Seven Months in Vietnam
Review: Usually I read customer reviews after I've read the book. This being the case w/ Hitchhiking Vietnam, I am surprised by the strongly held negative reviews by some (many!) readers. With or without Jay, she was pretty much "solo." And whatta adventure! Not one I'd like to experience, but lots of fun to read about on a rainy California afternoon. I liked Karen and found her revelations honest and modest. I'd read her latest book on the Incas. If you like travel books, read Hitchhiking. But don't pay attention to the cover. Actually, it makes no sense!

Rating:
Summary: Contemporary Vietnam
Review: With our renewed rapport with Vietnam it would be good to view or review that area if the world.
This is a diary of sorts of a seven-month trip around Vietnam. Not one of those glossy government or fancy travelogues, but a personal trip that was documented with letters. As with any experience there will be differences of opinions as to the environment and people. My Vietnam of the 60's was vastly different from the war movies of the time.
There are some parts that may be gory to some people during food preparation times. Others would be appalled at the wanton destruction of forests and wild life.
I was reading the book after viewing the film with my wife to show her a little bit of what it was when I was there. She immediately said that the villages (especially the huts) seemed surprisingly like the dwellings in the Yucatan.
Even thought this was a well put together documentary, I was disappointed as my time there was mostly in the central highlands Peiku, An Khe, Kontum and there about. And when she went up the coast she missed all the high spots.
The Montagnards she interviews were Mongol invaders; they were not the Montagnards I was aquatinted with. The Montagnards of the central highlands are approximately 14 to 16 separate people that were in the highlands before the people that call themselves Vietnamese invaded from China thousands of years ago. In essence they are to the Vietnamese the equivalent of our native Americans.
The book is one of the rare descriptions of today's Vietnam and worth reading as I was able to be places that I missed on my tour and imagine the rundown state of the country today