Traveler's Companion Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia

The new arrival on the Asian travel scene, Indochina over the past decade has emerged as one of the region's most popular destinations. The reasons are not difficult to fathom. For one, the Vietnam War wrote Indochina into the Western imagination unlike anywhere else in the region. And two, the fusion of rich indigenous cultures with more recent French colonial traditions makes traveling here an experience in exotic nostalgia for many visitors.Nostalgia is not the only reason to visit. Cambodia's Angkor Wat - easily Southeast Asia's most impressive ancient temple complex - would be reason enough to travel to Indochina. Add to that the sleepy charm of Laos with its ancient royal capital of Luang Prabang and the exciting push and shove of Vietnam, where bustling cities combine with rural vistas of paddy fields and hundreds of kilometers of unspoiled coastline, and it is easy to see why Indochina is capturing the imaginations of so many travelers. (5 3/4 x 8 3/4, 292 pages, color photos, maps)Maitland, Derek is the author of 'Traveler's Companion Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia', published 2002 under ISBN 9780762723348 and ISBN 0762723343.