We love to write about all of the beautiful and interesting things we see in our travels around Asia. However, not everything in the world is so pretty and Asia is no exception. We wanted to share with you a sad article about the abduction and trafficking of women from Vietnam to other countries in the region like Cambodia.

Click here to read the NY Times article that was published just last month.

Reporter Nicholas D. Kristof has covered this issue as well as others extensively in several parts of the world and he has a page of video reports on YouTube.

The latest film directed by Clint Eastwood stars Eastwood himself as a disgruntled Korean War veteran, Walt Kowalski, whose next door neighbors are a family of Hmong immigrants. I haven’t seen the film yet but after reading the NY Times movie review of Gran Torino and seeing the initial 8.3 rating on IMDB I’m really looking forward to seeing what looks to be another great and interesting film by Clint Eastwood!

To continue the discussion about riding motorcycles in Vietnam, our recent daytrip outside of Hanoi and last week’s visit to Luang Prabang, here is a NY Times article about motorcycles in Laos which talks about the influx of Chinese motorcycles, toys and technology into this and other SE Asian countries.

We’ve both been to Vietnam in past trips but this trip we’re going to visit Laos and Cambodia for the first time. Just this week the New York Times website posted a list of The 53 Places to Go in 2008 and Laos was made it to the top of that list! You can also read the featured page about Laos.

One of the things we’ve heard about Laos is that the pace of travel is slow and relaxing. There are two areas in particular that sound interesting to us: Luang Prabang in the North and Si Phan Don in the South. But the best thing is that since Laos is near the beginning of our trip we’ll have plenty of time explore and to change directions if something else seems attractive in that country.