Dad visits his son in Vietnam and accompanies him on a 12-day trip around the country. Some key events include: - Dad celebrates his 70th birthday in Saigon with friends and family via Skype. - In Siem Reap, they have a knowledgeable tour guide named Kim who shows them Angkor Wat and other temples. Dad enjoys learning about Cambodian culture. - In Hanoi, Dad reads a book to teach his son about Vietnam's history and culture. He helps his son avoid tourist scams. - Throughout the trip, Dad is curious and eager to learn. He sees why his son enjoys living in Vietnam. The trip helps Dad understand

1. CHUYEN 0~ DU L!CH, ~M THifC
VIETNAM EDITION /T~P 6 2015
JUNE2015
NOT FOR SALE
m NHAXUATBAN lAOa6NG

2. TRAVEl DOMESTIC

4. n my third trip home since moving
to Saigon, everyone started coming
around.This time, the standard
question "When are you coming
back?" lost a bit of its currency. And Dad
started to make vague comments about
coming for a visit.
After some back-and-forth - involving
food photos, viral videos and a harder sell
than I'd yet given him - our plans evolved.
He'd come over at the start of Tet break,
celebrate his 70th birthday on Feb. 19 with all
the other 'Tet orphans', then accompany me
on my first whole-cotmtry travel.
On Feb. 17, Dad arrived. Fresh off 24 hours
in transit, he was raring to go. I took him to
the Tet flower market on the back of my bike.
He thrilled at seeing a passing biker with
seven beer cases stacked between his legs.
He'd never expressed too much interest in my
114 I'Ward June 2015 I wcnMetn<m.ccn
adoptive home, but now I could see it written
on his face, and in all those photos he made
me posem.
Over the next couple Saigon days, we
puttered around a bit. We saw the fireworks,
and went over to my cleaner's house the next
day for Tet lunch. That night he blew out the
candles on another birthday.A few friends
came, and we Skyped my mother in when it
was time for the birthday speech.
The next day we woke up, scrambled to
the airport, and started our 12-day, five-stop
grind.
Dad's Dream
I'd budgeted in three nights for Siem Reap -
the only stop he'd explicitly requested - and
booked the hotel. We thought getting the tour
guide would be the easy part. But nothing is
easy over Tet.
We booked a car to take us around the
temples, starting atstmrise. When our driver
told us he'd wait in the car, we realised the
deal. Siem Reap buyers beware: you will get
charged for everything.
We chinned up and went exploring, along
v.<ith 1,000 other people. But after an hour
of bumping around and taking pichtres
ofstatues, we decided to look for some
guidance. And here's where we encotmtered
our first challenge.
All of tl1e tour guides were booked up, of
course. But Dad improvised. While I went
to the bathroom, he chatted with strangers.
And a nice couple from California ended up
inviting us to share their tour.
Our guide was the cheeky and
knowledgeable Ho Kimhoetm - Kim for
short (kimlweun.kpt@gmail.com). He had jokes,
which my Dad loves. He also had a good

5. amountof experience. I can't remember the
number of times my Dad expressed our good
luck at finding him.
Day 1 was the small temple loop -
Angkor Wat, Bayon (the one with 216
faces of the god-king carved in) and the
tree-swarmed Tomb Raider temple. Then
we attended the Vaudevillian Phare circus
(pharecambodian.circus.org). It was super cool.
Dad loves cultural stuff.
Day 2 was the large temple loop - far less
crowded, no less beautiful. That night we
went to Park Hyatt Siem Reap's (siemreap.
park.hyatt.com) free Apsara dance performance
- damn spectacular, taking place twice
weekly in the Hyatt's pristine, fire-lit central
courtyard.Then we met some friends at 1940s
Shanghai-style Madame Wong Cocktail Bar
(misswong.net) for a drink, which is more my
kind of cultural experience.
Day 3 we headed to Kulen Mountain - the
magic mountain where the Angkor kings
harvested their temple stone.This was a holy
place, a place of pilgrimage, where even the
tourists seemed to be part of the magic.
The Fortune-Tellin9 Monk
When Kim offered us a ttun at prophecy,
Dad told him a story. It was nearly 30 years
ago that he got his last forttme told, this time
in tarot. And it was damning. That night,
he got a call about his mother - she'd just
had a stroke. Over the next year, as both of
his parents' health deteriorated, his business
struggled.The yOtmg man who'd told his
fortune - one of my mother's students -
never read tarot again.
I, however, told Kim I'd do it.
I put a thin folio of Hindu Vedas on my
head, parting its pages with a pencil. Handing
A Quick lntro to Dad
- He was bom In Philadelphia, and
currently resides In New Jersey
-He owns a documentaryfilm
distribution business
- While working In the New York City
Dept. ofCity Planning, he suppotted
my Uncle Fred's petition about
releasing snakes In the city to help
with the ratproblem
- He loves classicalmusic, and
thinks our catdoes too
- He once ate 14lobsters ata single
lobster buffet sitting

6. it back to the monk, he told me about the
page I'd landed on, describing Armara.
"Armara was chosen by the king, Mohov
Shuth, to be his queen," Kim translated.
"She was a commoner, and was elevated
to the royalty. Armara was really good,
she was really educated, really useful.
Everything got better."
I asked about her parents - I'd made
my pre-fortune wish for the happiness
and good health of mine - and Kim said,
"Sure, of course! For her parents too."
Seeing my good luck, Dad decided to
give it a try too. And he landed on the
worst page in the book -about Yama,
the god of judgment, who normally exists
between hell and earth. When I asked
Kim about Yama, he said, "In one day, the
god of Yama got into hell to see what was
going on. In one day, the assistants of the
Yama burned everything in the hell."
His wish had been for my good fortune.
On Kim's urging, we started spreading
money around -100 Riel notes (VNDSOO)
to anyone who asked. We went up a
winding staircase to pay our respects
to the golden Buddha carved into the
mountaintop, touching his eyes and
mouth, dropping 100's everywhere we
could.
Later, swimming under a nearby
waterfall, dunking young monks
116 I 'WardJune 2015 I wcnMetnn.ccn
underwater while Dad watched, I felt like
we'd finally redeemed ourselves.
Father Knows Best
Dad warned me that if we did certain things
in our fairly upmarket hotels, we wouldn't
be invited back. He reminded me to write
a TripAdvisor review for Karavansara, our
Siem Reap accommodation.Thesweet yotmg
manager Rei apparently talked v.'ith him for
"10 minutes" about how nice it would be if
we would do this. "It's a good job for her," he
reasoned, "and it's a small thing we can do to
help her out."
Sideways related to this is something
I slowly realised: Dad is a prototypical
mark. A woman approached us after our
overpriced boat ride into Cambodia's
Tonie Sap Lake, holding plates adorned
with our blinking, mid-conversation faces,
and Dad seemed to entertain her US$10
offer. Small moves that help me to avoid
rip-offs in my daily life - like ordering
food in Vietnamese - were futile. We paid
VNDSO,OOO a bowl for our streetside pho on
our first night in Hanoi. I wasn't looking to
cause a scene.
The next day, Dad wanted to do some
washing. Our schedule was pretty tight,
only two nights in each place minus travel
time. But Dad brought the Woolite.
After he did some sink washing we
headed out for the night, leaving the
shirts and underwear hanging by an open
window. But Hanoi's a bitch for line-
drying, especially when your window
opens onto a wall.
Everything was still damp when we
got back, and we were leaving the hotel
at 7.30am the next morning. So Dad
improvised, and took the blow dryer to
each article of clothing separately. I can still
hear that sotmd in my mind.
This ties into Pro Tip #1: if it makes him
happy, don't fight it. Maybe Dad wants to
spend your siesta time washing clothes he
doesn't need in the sink, maybe he wants to
buy a US$10 T-shirt at Angkor Wat. If he's
happy, you should be happy.
Understandin9 Vietnam
I don't know about your dads, but mine is
the smartest man in the world.
In the morning, Dad was reading a
book I bought him before the trip, NeilL.
Jamieson's Understanding Vietnam (never
mind the two other books he tore through in
the first week). Though I bought the book for
him, Ididn't get past the first 30 pages, and
he was teaching me things. He read a poem
to me at breakfast about colonial resentment:
Milrn; a mere boyfor rice and a tunic?
Even in hungerand rags one still knows shame.
My parents taught melong ago,

7. Agir/1VIlo rtms after boys brings ridicule
upon herself.
-Nguyen Khuyen
Like our tour guide inSiem Reap, this book
gave Dad somecontext. It helped him to better
understand what's evolved here.
Later, we wandered into an exhibition of art
about Hanoi's Long Bien Bridge, at Maison des
Arts (mnisondesnrtshnnof.com). Dad had just read
about its birth, and this encounter was one of
thosesynchronistic travel threads it seemed we
were meant to pick up.
The owner, Nga, told us about her project,
while Dad wisely held back. He'd just read
about Paul Doume•; thegovernor-general
of French Indochina at the time. During the
bridge's three-year construction, 3,000 forced
labourers were drafted, many dying on the
way to its completion.
But when Nga told us her motivation
for preserving Long Bien, Dad began to
understand how Vietnamese people make
sense of their complex history.
"Webelieve there are many souls under the
bridge," Nga said.
The Rest of the Trip
Idon't want this to tum into one of my Skype
phone calls home (Mom will be more than
happy to fill you in on thedetails). Suffice it
to say we had fun, through cafes, hotels and
laundry blow-dryingsessions. We did some
light tourism in Hue's Imperial City and on
Victoria Can Tho's up-river excursions. I
tried to match Dad up with some cool, age-
appropriate friends. Even now, a month after
him leaving, my friends are still asking about
him-and teasing me about having had a
glimpse into my fuhtre.
We slowed down after Hanoi - we
did aboutsix different things in our one
full day there - instead concentrating on
eating well, hanging out in our lush hotels
(and swimming in La Residence Hue's and
Victoria Can Tho's lush pools) and walking
around aimlessly.These are basically the
things I do in my everyday life here, the life I
wanted to let Dad see.
When we returned to Saigon, we met more
friends, went to more cafes.We bought more
shirts (to make a total of 20+ on the trip), and
spentone ofour dinners going place to place
toget in as much of my local favourites as we
could. The nextnight, Dad took my friends out
to Cue Gach Quan.
On the morninghe was leaving, he told me
something he'd expressed a few times aln>ady.
'1 see why you want to live here," he said. He
saw the energy of this place, he went on, it was
all around.
And that's the best thing he left me with,
besides for a five-pound salami and two loaves
of rye bread. The idea that he gets what my Life
here is about, and he approves. t!!l

8. RAVEL
Six Senses Vietnam
sixsenses.com
Six Senses Vietnam are inviting you to
celebrate your summer with them and are
sweetening the deal for Vietnam residents
this year. On the price of all rooms they're
including round trip airport transfers,
a daily buffet breakfast and a bevy of
adventure and wellness programmes at
all three of their five-star luxury resorts.
The Wonders of Vietnam
@ La Residence Hue
/a-residence-hue.com
La Residence and Spa Hue are rolling
out what General Manager Phan Trong
Minh calls "the most intensive experience
of Vietnam that any traveler could have
inside a single week". Incorporating five
UNESCO sites, The Wonders ofVietnam
package shepherds travellers from the
'stupendous grottos' of the world's
largest cave system, into the pavilions
and palaces of East Asia's most charming
imperial city. "Hanoi and Saigon are
fine destinations, but these sites are the
Vietnam that every traveller dreams of."
You won't get an argument from us.
Father's Day, Asia-Style
@InterContinental Nlia Trang
nhatrang.intercontinental.com
Father's Day can sneak up on even the
most devoted offspring. So make it easy,
with a special Asian set dinner at his
favourite beach getaway. Cookbook Cafe's
six-course dinner should have everything
he's looking for, including a complimentary
glass of sparkling wine - and his favourite
present, a mug that probably says 'World's
Best Dad'. All this plus live music, Jun. 21
- VND499,000++ per person.
White Ni9ht
@InterContinental Danang
danang.intercontinenIaI.com
Admit it, you've always wanted to be
Don Johnson. Now you can Miami Vice
your way through M Prive's new White
Nights, dressed in your most pristine to
a backdrop of the Monkey Mountains.
Drinks pour for free for ladies from
9pm to llpm, and the dreamlike vibes
continue all through the night. Every last
Saturday of the month, 9pm till late.
Paradise Hotels and Cruises
paradisevietnam..com
One of Halong Bay's premiere vacation
specialists is now combining their
specialities - offering two and three day
packages that combine their hotels and
cruises, plus much more.Take a spin on
the Paradise Luxury vessel, then dock
for the night at stylish Paradise Suites
Hotel, island-hopping, caving, kayaking
and cooking in between. Packages start at
VND2,150,000 per person, per night.
Pullman Danan9
pul/ma.n-danang.com
June is seafood month at Restaurant Epice,
and if a restaurant with a perfect little
slice of beach nearby is emphasising their
seafood offerings, you know there's got
to be something special going on. Every
Saturday evening in June and July, throw
down your hard-earned VND695,000 net
for the freshest scallops, oysters, fish and
grill you can handle, or carouse their day
pots for some Thai green chicken curry or
braised beed Massaman - saving some
room for the chocolate fmmtain treats, of
course.
Father's Day Feast
@ Novotel Nha Trang
novotel-nhatrang.com
Enjoy a poolside BBQ dinner with Dad, and
don't even entertain thoughts of not eating
all the fresh seafood and Australian beef he
wants you to eat - you're a growing boyI
girl, after all. Ifyou can get him away from
the other tremendous plans you have lined
up early, he'll get a free drink from 6pm
to 7pm. And if you're that good a planner,
you might as well sign up early - booking
a day in advance lops 15 percent off the
VND630,000++ rate. l!!J
wardvietiWI'IlCCI'II IJune 2015 wan'l l 123