Southeast Asia

In 1802 the last Nguyen lord, Nguyen Anh, defeated the Tay Son rulers of Vietnam after a traumatic civil war. He returned from the north

Vietnam is full of underappreciated cultural blends.     China had ruled Vietnam since 111 BCE. The Vietnamese finally gained independence in 939, after China’s Tang Dynasty disintegrated.

I put off going to Vietnam for a long time.   Many other Southeast Asian cultures were heavily influenced by India about 2,000 years ago,

  I found lots of things that I didn’t expect when I was in Vietnam.   They showed me that Vietnamese culture is unique and

This torso of a standing Buddha statue from the 14th century in the northern Thai town Chiang Saen is different from what Westerners are used

Bangkok quickly grew after it was founded by the new Chakri Dynasty in 1782, but it never developed into a grid pattern like Chicago or

  The Khmer Rouge tried to stamp out religion in the late 1970s. Monks were forced to disrobe, pick up hoes, and labor in rice

Greek gods and Indian concepts of the universe’s vastness never cease to wow, but-   -a look at the Buddha’s footprints in Wat Pho reveals

Cambodia has so many ancient Khmer temples and so much natural beauty that they will always give you new things to see. But it also has