andrew pham is a really great writer!! i honestly wasn't expecting his writing to be as good as it was. i also didn't realize how multifaceted the story would be, i kind of just assumed it would strictly be about the experience of biking through vietnam. it actually had a lot of really interesting and emotional family history intertwined with the trip itself. a very honest account of his feelings about being vietnamese-american/being around vietnamese people. the story perfectly culminated in a really beautiful/painful conversation.

Leuk boek om te lezen tijdens de vakantie in Vietnam omdat veel beschrijvingen van het alledaagse leven nog herkenbaar zijn of juist inzicht geven. Helemaal leuk als de reis van de hoofdpersoon en die van ons samen vielen, zoals in Hue en Hoi An. Als boek zelf ook een bijzonder verhaal, maar niet altijd even goed of interessant opgeschreven. De beschrijving van de eerste helft van de reis voelde te kort.

When people ask me what living in Vietnam was like, I point them to this book. Andrew X. Pham is honest about the complex realities of Vietnam in a way I haven't seen in other English-language books. Americans tend to have a myopic, self-centered view of Vietnam that keeps them looking backward to the American-Vietnam war, when most Vietnamese are looking to the future. A good prescription for having one's guilt-tinged eyes cleared to see Vietnamese individuals for what they are: individuals.

Fantastic memoir. There is much to be learned from this story about the legacy of the Viet Nam war as it has affected one family who eventually emigrated to America.

This emotional, action-packed journey will make you re-evaluate your own citzenship, your culture and your beginnings. The story also details the gritty (sometimes frightening) unseen world of local Vietnam. A must for anyone traveling to the country or coming back from a trip! I'm left with more respect for refugees and for those who stay and somehow thrive in the dark, unlivable impoverished corners of our world.

Ultimately a sad book, the story captures the author's bicycle ride from California through Vietnam, the nation of his birth from which he and his family fled after the American War.

Pham is seeking his identity. Is he Vietnamese? Is he American?

As he wander through Vietnam, he experiences the country's people, the poverty, the beauty, but also the discrimination against Viet Kieu--Vietnamese who live outside the country.

Where does Pham fit? Ultimately, he decides it is America, his adopted country, where his fate lies.

The story alternates between scenes of Pham's complicated family life both in Vietnam and America and chapters reflecting on his travels in his native land.

Although I enjoyed the ride, the author conveys a sense of melancholy. You can sense that his search for the answers to questions that have long haunted him may not have provided a satisfactory response.

The author explores themes of identity, family, and the culture of his birth country of Vietnam via a solo bike trip around the Pacific Rim some twenty-odd years after the fall of Saigon and his family’s escape to America. Pham experiences life in the US as an outlier; will he discover acceptance as a Viet-Kieu in the country of his birth and come to terms with family tragedies and secrets? The reader comes right along for the ride through Pham’s imagery-dense (but not flowery) writing; one can easily picture the landscapes (rice paddies, rutted roads, sparkling beaches) and catch the aromas (fish sauce, marketplaces, sketchy hotel rooms) Pham experiences. I’m left wondering about the changes in that country since the book’s publication in 1999; hopefully, the poverty and desperation of citizens found during Pham’s excursions are much less common in today’s economic powerhouse of Vietnam.

Andrew Pham paints a vivid picture of Vietnam: the food ("We wolf down our plebeian meal of catfish, rice, pickled firecracker eggplant with shrimp paste, and steamed string beans from his garden"), some not so appetizing native dishes ("their chopsticks hovering above plates of boiled gizzards curly like cashews, pig hearts sliced like truffles, intestines chopped up like rigatoni"); the people ("You can tell a Vietnamese by the way he wears his sandals. Is the stem firmly held between the toes? Or does the ball of the heel drag beyond the sandal? Do the sandals flap like loose tongues when he walks?"); the poverty ("They walk to the highway and ride a three-wheeled Tuk-tuk to Hanoi four days a week. Rice-girl makes her own rice dumplings and Papaya-girl picks her fruit from the family orchard. Neither has enough merchandise for a stall at the market or makes enough to pay for a permit to sell on the street, so they go door-to-door").

Pham has a talent for visual description and he brings the landscape of Vietnam into sharp focus. This is the strength of the book. We are with him as he bicycles through Vietnam as a Viet-kieu (how natives condescendingly refer to foreign Vietnamese) and we come to know the people (cruel to kind) he encounters.

The flashbacks to his family, particularly scenes with his overbearing father, his sister (Chi), and a girlfriend from his past are well-rendered.

Though this memoir has many strengths, the narrative is distant at times, as if the narrator is afraid to let the reader in too close. Despite the fact the story is told in first-person, I didn't feel fully engaged. There were times when I wasn't sure what was at stake in this journey, and I wanted to know more about the meaning of this trip.

Came for the Vietnam travel story. Stayed for the great thoughts, feelings, and insight on being Vietnamese-American

This book made me feel really thoughtful and introspective. An's cycling adventures reminded me of my own cycling adventures in Asia (except his experiences were 100x more scary and painful). And his brutal honesty about feeling disconnected to his Vietnamese roots was something that connected with me on a deep level. Pham writes in a way that paints vivid imagery and deep emotion, and I feel like his story and the story of his family will linger in my mind for a long time. Overall, the story is really sad, but I loved the experience of reading it.

"When I was hungry or thirsty, I stopped at ranches and farms and begged the owners for water from their wells and tried to buy tortillas, eggs, goat cheese, and fruit. Every place gave me nourishment; men and women plucked grapefruits and tangerines from their family gardens, bagged food from their pantries, and accepted not one peso in return. Why, I asked them. Senor, they explained in the patient tone reserved for those convalescing, you are riding a bicycle, so you are poor. You are in the desert going nowhere, so you are crazy. Taking money from a poor and crazy man brings bad luck. All the extras, they confided, were because I wasn't a gringo." (5-6)

"[E]verything has a buyer, everyone is for sale." (104)

"'Forget this place. Go see the world,' Truong urges me. 'Everything has changed. Your roots here have turned to dust. Nothing here to bind you.'" (161)

"We are chatting amiably about the virtues of the house when our eyes meet -- a strange moment -- and we know we are holding a common thought: the transparency of our situations. Fate could have switched our destinies and no one would have been the wiser." (181)

"Grim-faced men in soldier uniforms laze in bars. I feel their eyes on me. People here do not wave, smile, or point as they do in Saigon. Northerners simply stare." (223)

"So, I let her interpret my half-truths. At this I am good, for I am a mover of betweens. I slip among classifications like water in cupped palms, leaving bits of myself behind. I am quick and deft, for there is no greater fear than the fear of being caught wanting to belong. I am a chameleon. And the best chameleon has no center, no truer sense of self than what he is in the instant." (339)

Andrew X. Pham spins a beautiful and heartbreaking tale through this autobiography and family biography. Told from An's perspective as he grows from a young, entitled schoolboy in Vietnam into a humble and respectful world traveler, this story delves into the importance of family ties, values across cultures, poverty, class and love. An travels by bike over thousands of miles from California to Vietnam in a quest to discover more about his family history since immigrating to the United States. A very introspective read. Recommended for anyone who enjoys cross cultural and personal analysis and discovery.