In 1997 I took, together with a friend, one of my most fascinating trips in all Asia. We backpacked on Highway A1, the „Mother Road“ of Vietnam, all the way from the old, seedy Saigon, the Party City, in the south to Hanoi in the north, the One-Party-City, capital of Communist Vietnam since 1976. On our three week-long journey by bus, train and in a Mercedes dating from the lifetime of Ho Chi Minh, we experienced the smells and sounds of old Vietnam, endless paddy fields, tropical beaches untouched by any sign of tourism and markets in the middle of the road, filled with all kinds of tropical food, teeming with vendors and buyers with their ubiquitous conical hats. Streetfood at its best, 1700 Kilometers of quintessential, old Southeast Asia.