Ellen and I were sitting at the computer in our hotel lobby in Hanoi's old quarter trying to plan for our time in Fiji when Mahn, the hotel owner approached."You hear 'bout Saddam Hussein?" he asked in badly broken English."Yes," I replied as Ellen continued to type."America kill many our people," he said.Ellen stopped typing. We both looked up at Mahn. He was the first Vietnamese person to make mention of the Vietnam war.With a hand chopping motion, Ma...

  People, Ellen among them, sit in the lobby each morning with giddy smiles on their faces waiting for guides to appear with their routes. I study them all with anxiety hoping we'll be grouped together with the older or out of shape. Sadly, most are physically fit. I don't ask what our route will be. I know I'm not going to like it. We're in the town of Sapa, Vietnam, in the Tonkinese Alps. (The dot on the map north-west of Hanoi, near the Chin...