Okay, after reading these two threads for 4 days, let me give my thoughts:

- Enough have been said about title. I don't see much wrong with it myself. It is factually correct and doesn't imply anything in it.

- I appreciate the frankness and honesty of the OP.

- The overall tone of her original post does indeed discourage others to visit Vietnam and poor countries in the world. That's probably not her intention, but unfortunately she uses words in the post that gives that result.

- The trip was tougher than she expected, and she said it was the first time on a trip that she felt she was ready to go home by Day 13. That meant reality and her expectation did not match. She did say she picked a very rigorous itinerary with lots of activities. The conclusions I got are that she overplanned her activities, she underestimated the hardship of the journey or something like that.

- What's most troublesome to me is her tone in her original post and replies is her attitude that her travel is "more real" (my words, not hers) than those who stay at nicer places, and those travelers don't know what those places are "really like" (my words, again). I think that's ridiculous and condescending.

Most travelers stay at the nicest places their budget allows. You mean going to stay at The Oriental in Bangkok is less real than staying at a no-name 2* local motel? What about Asian tourists visiting New York. Is the YMCA more real than the Waldorf-Astoria, or is the Waldorf-Astoria more real than the YMCA?

And the OP used words like "pampered" and "sheltered" to describe those who stay at the 4-5* hotels, suggesting that those travelers are not experiencing the real Vietnam. Really? How would she knows?

- Initially, I thought the OP wrote what she wrote because of innocence or ignorance. As I had very much the same feeling as hers when I visited China as a kid in the late 70's and early 80's. But the OP is well-traveled, so I really don't know what got her to write what she wrote, and what's her real intention in her original post on the Europe forum.

At the risk of being cited for "background checking", the OP had doubts in advance about visiting a third world country. In a post which she titled "Politically Insensitive Question about Rip-offs and Beggars" she said her husband would not return to Mexico because she felt they had been

Many travelers are uncomfortable visiting places with beggars, poverty,

Oops - I clicked too soon. The title of the OP's post about Mexican gas stations was "Politically incorrect & sensitive question, but I'm asking it anyway, about harassment & rip-offs":

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34853373

When researching her vacation, the OP also started a thread called "Asia--1st time traveller--What's the biggest culture shock?" in which she anticipated many of the issues she encountered on her trip.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34846876

Many travelers avoid destinations with poverty, beggars, dirty bathrooms, poor service in restaurants, gastrointestinal problems, etc. Others think those issues go with the territory if you want serendipitous adventures, cultural encounters and exotic settings. The OP went outside of her comfort zone and it didn't work for her. That's fine, but it was the tone of her post that was disturbing.

I did a search on julies posts on this forum. She provided insight and assistance about her travels. These posts are very much in keeping with the normal information sharing on this forum. There was no animus or venom contained therein. The Europe forum often contains posts with highly judgemental content. As a group, they don't play well with others.

The OP should get credit for taking an extended trip outside her normal comfort zone. Most do not. When one goes outside that zone, sometimes one becomes uncomfortable.

I read Julie's (the OP) post and all the comments the other day and never got the impression that she didn't like VN, only that she experienced some culture shock. Fair enough, I've experienced that in Italy! She also undertook a much harder trip than many of us would and I think she deserves credit for that. I read her comments as liking VN, would go back to Asia but needs some time to digest the experience and in the meantime, will go to more familiar territory that she is comfortable with.

Look, I HATED Asia the first time I went (Hong Kong and Bangkok) for many of the same reasons. I was used to Europe and Australia and Asia was a slap in the face. But many of you know that I was determined to not base all of Thailand on Bangkok and Asia on those two cities and went back a few years later and now Bangkok is my favorite city and Asia, especially SE Asia is my favorite region to visit. I've been to Asia at least 10 times in the last decade and hardly get to Europe at all these days. So lets give the OP a break and agree she is entitled to her impressions and opinion.

"The Europe forum often contains posts with highly judgemental content. As a group, they don't play well with others. "

Gpanda, can I suggest we treat each other as individuals, and not as members of a group, real or perceived? The latter kind of perception has led to a lot of problems in the world.

*****

I agree that people ought to be entitled to their feelings. We can always endorse how someone feels, without simultaneously having to endorse their conclusions. In this case, it is perfectly fair to be shocked and saddened by poverty no matter where one finds it. It does not mean that the poster on that thread was blaming those living in poverty for their plight, still less was julies saying that she was shocked by the Vietnamese people themselves. Given that this was the case, I agree that many of the responses to her thread were out of line.

That said, julies, perhaps when you have had a chance to recover, could you consider reexamining some of the beliefs to which you seem to subscribe? I ask, because some of the things you said in your thread, and in this one, were and are quite distracting, perhaps more than you realized.

For example: Does staying at a two star hotel really make one a more morally responsible traveller than staying at a four star one? Is one's spending on vacation and on charitable causes necessarily a zero sum game?

Are people who take group bus tours as opposed to independent travellers (or for that matter, people who travel to this as opposed to that destination) necessarily unacquainted with the 'real' world? What is relatively more important when it comes to the shaping of our character - where we are coming from in our everyday life, or where we go (and how) on vacation? (Consider that the backgrounds of others are rarely known to us: that popular figure of scorn, the group bus tour traveller, might in their regular life care for a severely handicapped child, or be handicapped themselves, or have grown up in poverty, or otherwise have experience that hardly makes them blithely unaware of life's realities.)

And finally: (rhetorical question meant for the group at large): Most people living in poverty never travel, be it to other countries in their own global sector or even to the next town, Does their lack of travel necessarily make them the lesser in knowledge of life experience, or of what is sometimes referred to as 'pushing the comfort zone', than those of us who have travelled, even those of us who have gone to Asia, Europe and just about everywhere?

Sue xx yy-I agree that posters should be evaluated as individuals. I was merely remarking on the difference I noted in the tenor of the oP's posts on the Asia board from the tenor of her( assumption from screen name) posts on the Europe board.

Now back to the generalization upon which you remarked. There are many more perjorative posts on the E board than the A board. I suspect this may be a result of the fact that the E board has a much larger number of posters as well as a much larger number of posts. If one looks at the time of the responses on the two boards, one notices that they response time on the E board is much quicker. This may not be a factor, but my guess is that is why there are many more caustic posts. I'm often wrong, this is merely my observation.

Laurie-we're glad your an Asia convert. Was Eric the same way?

Much ado about nothing!
OPs post had nothing offensive in it at all. We may be surprised that she saw "nothing charming" but that's about it.
At the end of her post she didn't say she wouldn't revisit Asia - just that she didn't know.
Too many posters in the Europe branch added and misinterpreted what Jules wrote rather like Chinese whispers.
An Indian I once met many years in Goa said "we are different to most of India - nobody here goes to bed hungry". True or not I don't know but that's another yardstick of poverty.

Well I think that people on the Europe board like to use hyperbole -- like "This thread should get an award for having the most pompous, self-righteous criticism ever heaped on a trip report."

It seems like people can't understand that there's a gray area and see things as either black or white. I find it a bit disconcerting that people can't have a more civilized discussion about this. By contrast, this thread on the Asia board is more measured.

Well, I've had my say, but I've posted in the original thread. My beef is that as many of you know the report in question is quite unfair to Vietnam and its people.