I first got turned onto Karin Muller's trip by her PBS website, http://www.pbs.org/hitchhikingvietnam/ Her story was engrossing and I think that I read every page on the site. I picked up the book a few days later and saw her film footage on PBS shortly after that. One needs to look at all three to get the complete picture. The book is good and stands out by itself, but the film and website add so much flavor and texture to the story. Karin Muller spent seven months in Vietnam as a simple vagabonding tourist. She experienced broken down motorcycles, breathtaking farmland, sketchy border crossings, scurvy, fields of rubies, saving leopard cubs at an animal market, arrests and planting rice with rural farmers. So does dwell a bit on the negative aspects of the "New Vietnam" and the book leaves a lot of the story out. Again, read the book, watch the movie and visit the website (in that order) for the entire experience.