Just because somewhere might make one a "little uncomfortable" is no reason not to visit, although I agree that perhaps a honeymoon doesn't need to be filled with travel privations.

Indeed, for me, one of the prime benefits of travel is to move outside my "comfort zone" and experience that feeling of knowing you're "not in Kansas anymore".

What a tragedy, if you have the money to travel, to never leave "home" and see what a fascinating, complex and exciting place our little ball called Earth is!

The world would be a much safer and better place if more of us were able to do that - recognise our difference, but realise how much we are all alike - wanting enough to eat, to stay warm and healthy, and for our kids to have a future.

I love Lonely Planet and Moon guides for their different insights, although my one criticism of LP (since it became a world-wide publishing success) is that it has lost a bit of the ideosyncratic stuff that originally made it a guide to the off-beat and unusual.

Go to Vietnam. Walk into a restaurant, and order something off the menu without knowing the English translation. Learn to say Hello, Please, Thank You and Goodbye in Vietnamese (it will be appreciated, and you will get the benefits) and smile (everybody understands that!)

And go now, or as soon as you can, before the crowds arrive, there is a Holiday Inn in every city, and an organised, air-conditioned bus tour to all the "City Highlights".

( And just to tell somebody else - I went to see The Rolling Stones in Melbourne on Thursday night and had the time of my life - they were loud and more energetic than men in their 60's should be, and surely proof that it's better to burn-out bightly than to just wear-out and fade away!!!!)