By far, Mr. Hung’s foodstall (near the river) is the best place to eat hands down. You can enjoy the best food here in all of Vietnam.

This is the most touristy town yet. But it is a good touristy town because the shopping, food, and people were great. We got some fake Lacostes, mini North Face backpacks, and some perfectly cut tailored shirts and pants for $10 a pop and we’re talking fabric and service with high quality. The party’s at Phuong 1 on 7 Tran Phu street.

It’s been a lively stint but I think 2 days is enough damage because shopping is the biggest pull here. As Lonely Planet jabs, all of a sudden backpackers after Hoi An are looking spiffy with their collared shirts and custom-made trousers. Now I look less like Gandhi and more like a tourist again. Mom, you’d be proud of me if you saw me right now.

Nha Trang! On a 12 hour sleeper bus, here we come…

Noura and I spent a fabulous Eid in this slice of heaven. KK is a short-stop before KL with a mild yet vivacious city climate and a silky serene island scene. We jettied our way to Manukan Island which is located just off the edge of earth between nowhere and no care. Shot great pics. Fabulous.

I have been recently peeping around the market for a solid phone that supports social network services in an integrated way (Facebook, Flickr, Twitter); this all in a phone that does the usual organizer management without toying around. I’m sick of Windows Mobile and its issues primarily because it’s interface is function-based and overly complicated. (I’m not doing File, Open, URL… to play music). On the other end, I am not too excited about Nokia’s interface, case-in-point the Nokia N97 and my wife’s XpressMusic 5800…

Enter HTC Hero. From the HTC Hero website, I quote… “HTC Hero is our first phone to embody HTC Sense™ – an intuitive, seamless experience built upon three fundamental principles – make it mine, stay close, and discover the unexpected.

Make it Mine: With HTC Hero, personalization reaches a level never before possible. Rather than burying important content under layers of menus, the HTC Hero lets you put it at glance view, with a selection of widgets that can be placed right on the home screen. The widgets themselves can be personalized with a variety of designs and sizes that best match your personality.

With Scenes, a new profile feature, HTC Hero becomes multiple phones in one. Create and switch between Scenes that reflect different moments in your life. Your Hero becomes a weekend phone that helps you relax with your choice of tunes, catch up with your favorite friends and capture some memories with HTC Footprints™. And when you go on a trip, your phone becomes your personal guide and gives you instant access to local time, weather and maps.

Stay Close: Today, staying in touch with the people in your life means managing a variety of communication channels and applications ranging from phone calls and emails to Facebook updates.

HTC Hero makes staying close as simple as turning to your friend and saying hello. When you view people, you see the different ways to get in touch, you also see all your interactions like emails sent to your personal and work accounts. You can even check for social network updates and event notices as well as see the latest pictures your friends uploaded to popular photo sharing sites.

Discover the Unexpected: Many of the most memorable moments in your life are experienced, not explained. Even basic functions like the dialer will pleasantly surprise you on the HTC Hero. You can find a person by dialing their phone number or simply by dialing the first few letters of their name. With HTC Hero, you can look at things through different perspectives. Your inbox is not just a list of emails, but a catalog of conversations, a collection of notes flagged as important, and a document library of all your emails with attachments. Your Album is the gateway to online collections of you and your friends on Facebook or Flickr.

Search just about anything, anywhere on your HTC Hero. The dedicated Search button combs through tweets in Twitter™, locates people in your contact list, finds emails in your inbox, searches through appointments in the calendar and very nearly finds needles in haystacks.”Yes

Nike air maxes, lotto’s, spiky hair, Nike bags, messenger bags with cell phone pouches, soft skin tones, low-rise socks, sandals, what looks like a highly-ornate Buddhist 15-foot totem pole, 3/4 capri pants, throngs of people…all converging, walking towards the immigration counter in Bangkok, Thailand, where I have just landed. And I could almost swear my $2.99 hairdresser is standing in front of me in line…

Basim: “No plans. Let’s just stay at home. Just chill. You know, it’s been a while since we’ve done that…”

Noura: “No way! Why don’t we go to Kuching?”

[24 hours later we’re on a plane eating peanuts...]

What a beautiful hidden city in Malaysia. It’s a perfect walking city and a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of KL. Kuching was a pleasant surprise for me.

People are so nice and easy going here. The Sarawak people have this happiness and peacefulness about them. I’m glad I came.

I am rushing to etch some memories of this heavenly refuge on paper to preserve its beauty in my heart. The girls are working with smiles. I love who they are and I just met them 20 minutes ago. Something about them makes them feel like family. I can see right through them; they are not very complex creatures. This culture is very welcoming, hard-working, and…humble. Not flamboyantly proud, but satisfied and quietly content.

Outside, motorcycles catch my attention as I look up and gaze out through the window. Through the palm tree leaves, I see the Thai beach, crystals dancing in the fatherly son. The father looks down on Pattaya pleased with approval and continuance, diligently yet effortlessly serving its bounty. The leaves of the trees wave their fingers, tickling the air – hunched over the water – tending to their visitors, procuring shade. That is…during the day. In the menace of the night, it’s a completely different story.

The Thai ladies have silky coconut-soft skin, walking on the sidewalks of shops while they tend to their children or exchange innocent flirtatious smiles with passers-by. Free smiles are plentiful and go without earning here where the spirit roams free. The spirit has love, respect, an appreciation for life, food, animals, and family. I wonder what else they live for. It is absolutely amazing to see such a vibrant culture who is so full of the right character traits that is not on top of the world.

I am glad I was able to visit this land and understand their joys. I now understand the music. I sympathize with the poor, sick, and elderly as if they were my own family’s. I smile in admiration when I see strangers, wishing they could understand my cuckoo. They are not strangers! That word creates wide distances between the hearts. Just because someone across the world is different does not mean they are strange in the connotation of meaning weird.

One must seek to understand. One must wear their clothes, visit their land, eat their food, live their days and history to truly understand a people. I think people in America are too shielded from the true rip the skin off side of the world; really seeing what’s inside the world and its people and its history. When I lived in America, I thought the world ended between California and Maine. Imagine the effects visits like this could have on the world – it could really bridge the gap and make the world a more loving place. We have so much ignorance in the world, but I am not going to get into that and ruin the spirit. I love Thailand and I am definitely coming back soon!

Itinerary: Day One

• Grand Palace – Emerald Buddha Temple
• Canal Tour – Chopraya River
• James Taylor Tailor – Sukao Thai Road
• Royal Lapidary – Gemstone Manufacturer
• Rot Sabeng Restaurant
• Muay Thai Boxing – Ratchadamnon Road
• Centre Point Hotel – 15 Petbury Road

Itinerary: Day Two

• Pantip – Electronics Shopping
• MBK – Apparel Shopping
• CentralWorld – Shopping Mall
• Shogu Bushi – Sushi
• Tok Tok ride
• Hollywood Disco – Live Performances

Itinerary: Day Three

• Pattaya Beach…