David Lamb’s terrific story in the Smithsonian chronicles Vietnam’s efforts to turn the former Ho Chi Minh Trail into a 1,980-mile “paved multilane artery” from the Chinese border to the Mekong Delta. “The transformation of trail to highway,” Lamb writes, “struck me as an apt metaphor for Vietnam’s own journey from war to peace, especially since many of the young workers building the new road are the sons and daughters of soldiers who fought, and often died, on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”

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Full title: “Bad Karma: Confessions of a Reckless Traveller in Southeast Asia”

Author: Tamara Sheward

Released: Nov. 1, 2007 (U.S.)

Travel genre: Bad Aussies abroad (you know the type)

Territory covered: Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia

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It’s been said that the best way to get to know a country is through its food. As a fan of the food writers Diane Kochilas and Corinne Trang, who combine a traveler’s cultural awareness with a chef’s creativity in their cookbooks, I believe cooking authentic cuisine from abroad helps you get closer to a culture. Dorothy Aksamit went one step further on her trip to the river town of Hoi An, Vietnam: She took a cooking class led by a local chef.

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How times have changed. According to the press release at hochiminhgolftrail.com, this route being marketed from Saigon to the Red River Delta pairs “first-class clubs and resorts with some of the most remarkable, luxury accommodations in world golf.” Cracks the San Francisco Chronicle’s John Flinn: “Just stay out of the bunkers.”

In his Sunday column, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Thomas Swick has some sage advice for international travelers, ranging from ways to stay out of trouble to simple pronunciation tips. Among them: “In Vietnam, don’t say pho with a long ‘o’ when ordering the popular noodle soup. (It’s pronounced more like ‘fuh’). In Ireland, don’t ask, ‘Are there any good books by local authors?’ In Singapore, don’t do a lot of things.”

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This week travelers were drawn to roads in California, Vietnam and danger zones throughout the world. Italy, France, Hong Kong and a discount startup airline were also top of mind. Here’s the Zeitgeist.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Puglia: Italy’s Heel Has It All, Except Tourists

Most E-mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Practical Traveler: As Hotel Prices Rise, a Villa May Be a Bargain

Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Top 5 Most Dangerous Roads of the World
* The photos will make your stomach churn.

Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
U.S. Highway 395: California’s ‘Mother Road’
* Here’s the accompanying photo gallery.

Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
‘American Shaolin’: Interview with Matthew Polly

Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
Fodor’s French for Travelers

Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert

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New York Times and Los Angeles Times critics raved Sunday about Tom Bissell’s new book, The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam. The book explores the journey Bissell took to Vietnam with his father, John, a veteran of the war. (Bissell initially wrote about the trip for Harper’s.) Bissell’s book, its publisher notes, “is the first major book about the war by an author who grew up after the fall of Saigon.” The war has had profound effect on his generation, and particularly, Bissell writes, on the sons and daughters of veterans: “At every meal Vietnam sat down, invisibly, with our families.”

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‘Tis the season when intriguing travel-related photo books hit bookstores, offering travelers a raft of gift ideas. We already noted the recent release of Middle of Nowhere, Lonely Planet’s celebration of picturesque, far flung places. Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Regan McMahon suggested several other intriguing titles. For starters, McMahon noted Hans Kemp’s Bikes of Burden, featuring photos of motorbikes pressed into delivery work in Vietnam. “In each sharp color photo, one can barely see the rider as items from ducks to hula hoops to fish to wooden cabinets to topiary are piled high on the two-wheeled vehicles,” McMahon writes. “My favorite: a shot from behind of a towering stack of live fish floating, one each, in water-filled, gallon-size baggies, with the driver completely obscured.”

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Last week, American fast-foot giant KFC opened its first outlet in Vietnam’s capital city, Hanoi. It was a huge hit. “The line was so long Phan Huyen Trang, 26, had to wait 25 minutes for chicken, coleslaw and mashed potato and gravy,” according to a Deutsche Presse-Agentur report. “‘You have to wait for a longer time to have a KFC meal than to have pho,’ Trang complained, referring to the Vietnamese national dish of beef soup with rice noodles.”

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Bookslut has posted a terrific interview with the Ramones-loving chef, traveler and TV host. Among the highlights, Bourdain talks about his love of travel in Vietnam and what he calls his “Graham Greene worldview.” He said, “To me The Quiet American is a happy book. I read it every year. It nails Vietnam. It’s still there, that Vietnam. It’s a perfect metaphor, he loves a woman who can never fully love him back. It is a perfect metaphor for colonialism and Western adventurism in the East. I don’t care, I just want to be there.” Elsewhere, he remarked, “Vietnam in particular ruined my whole life. My expectations for what I see when I open my eyes in the morning, or even little things like the condiments on the table when I sit down.” Bourdain is the author of the new book, The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones.

The U.S. edition of the Southeast Asia guidebook parody Phaic Tan: Sunstroke on a Shoestring came out recently, and yesterday I got my hands on a copy. It’s hilarious all the way down to the blurbs about contributors ("Jenny Ronalds is a freelance travel writer with a special interest in Southeast Asia who, over the years, has contributed to Travel & Leisure, Globe Trotter and International Gourmet. None have ever been published and we kind of felt sorry for her."). It’s also so dead on in its aping of guidebook style and convention that I almost started believing Phaic Tan was a real place. It’s easy to do. How easy? Take our Vietnam vs. Phaic Tan quiz and find out. 

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Back in October, we noted that small numbers of Westerners were changing their Asia travel plans because of concerns over avian flu. (Some, for example, had decided to avoid rural areas in Southeast Asia.) Three months later, the travel industry is thriving in Asia as the Lunar New Year approaches, according to the AP. Said one travel company director in Vietnam, “According to the figures from hotels, they’ve never known such a high occupancy rate.”