Hitchhiking Vietnam (hc) (Broadcast Tie-Ins)

For seven months Karin Muller traversed Vietnam--sometimes by motorbike, often by foot--covering 6,400 miles from the Mekong Delta to the Chinese border. Along the way she survives 52 motorbike breakdowns, 14 arrests, and one awful bout with scurvy. She plants rice with farmers, saves a few leopard cubs from the black market, learns to drive a passenger train, and gets to know a lot of people on her Ho Chi Minh Trail trek. Told honestly and humorously, the culture, pace, land, scents, problems, and beauties of Vietnam are evoked as Muller and Vietnam interact. Snippets of letters home (like "I traded some of my antihistamines for Tampax yesterday. What a relief" and "Am I really blood type A? It's important") highlight the details, while the strong narrative holds them together. Her pictures are excellent, the story riveting, and the writing a pleasure--good reading for a flight to Asia or a day at the beach. --Stephanie Gold