Words cannot describe...
when accents and idioms play such a large part.

In Vietnam a toilet is a Happy House. A sign in one admonished: Do not put strange substances in the toilet. Then there was the restaurant named My Dung.

A menu description of a wine: Dark Soris [even if you look this up, you won't know what it means] plum color with sweet red fruit aromas. A concentrated mix of spiciness and funkiness and the integration of oak make this Pinot Noir a mouthfilling wine.

A Vietnamese photographer was giving tips. I thought he said "Select lens cap mode" before I realized he was saying landscape mode. His discussion of temperature had me wondering when to put my camera in the oven and when to put it in the freezer. It turned out he was talking about Kelvin color temperature. My camera was saved a horrible death.

Besides Asian accents, I had to sift through New Zealand and Australian accents of my travel mates. We spoke the same language, but it sure didn't sound that way!

Despite all these communication blips, what I was seeking managed to emerge. I wanted to see the country now - after the turmoil the war caused during my university years - and try to understand better the results.