Saigon is a sprawling city, dense with motorbikes, bustling. It's not nearly as Frenchified as Phnom Penh. You see no Asian-style buildings either, mostly two-story skinny ones with balconies plus some huge modern hotels and offices. Obviously a newly prospering place.

We headed to "Little Khao San Road", the local version of Bangkok's tourist street. The families that run the hotels are more interested in us than their counterparts on Khao San Road in Thailand; they want to look at our pictures.

The Vietnamese are different from their Southeast Asian neighbors...they're lighter skinned than the Kymers, and have their own look. Their language is written in our Roman alphabet but with a system of accents that was developed 100 years ago by French missionaries. It's a good system; before, they used Chinese characters but now its easier for people to become literate. The literacy rate in VietNam is probably higher than in the US and it's the only country we've been to in Asia where you see native-language bookstores and lots of people reading. The language is rapid and singsongy, more up-beat than Thai, and accompanied by quirky facial expressions--grins and winks and looks of ironic surprise (at least, that was my take).