This doesn’t mean going into villages made of bamboo or anything, either. Just stopping off somewhere that the tour buses don’t on the main roads will get you this kind of treatment.

From Lillie’s original post:

“If people weren’t smiling at you (or you weren’t smiling) in Vietnam then you were doing something very wrong.”

Really? And that’s wonderful that you don’t find the travel tips useful but I’m pretty sure you’d be in the minority there. Most readers (unless they’re cranky losers scouring for subtle criticisms to attack) likely have never been to the places Lillie’s writing about and have very little experience traveling in such places. To them the tips would be quite useful. I find them to be at least.

I also don’t quite get the “we’re all journalists now” point. Isn’t the idea of relaying an individual experience the very nature behind the idea of blogging in the first place. I mean, who reading Lillie’s blog is wishing she had a publisher to grill her over the facts??? Nobody but you.

It also seems as if you have summed up Lillie’s entire existence through one or two articles that you no doubt googled in order to make yourself riled up. There’s a lot more to the blog than tips on saving a buck.

If you wanted to contribute something you may have included some input on whether or not Lillie’s experience with bait and switch taxi drivers is something to be concerned about. I’d say that quoting one price and then switching to an inflated price is something a would be traveler should be aware of.

It’s also a bit baffling how you want to encourage Lillie to stick to her words all while outright trashing her opinions. Seems so authoritative to me.

Yet you also say that you doubt that you could offer any travel tips about Viet Nam even after 3 years of being there. Really? Maybe you just have a problem with the offering of tips (although it hasn’t stopped you from offering blogging tips).

A travel blog can only be what it is. You can’t have 3 years of experience somewhere when you only have 1 week or 1 month. The reader knows that this is one person’s opinion, one person’s experiences. Do you think someone should not blog until they have experienced things the way you have?

At the least you have unleashed your frustration on Lillie unnecessarily in my opinion. I believe an apology is in order. I challenge you to find a more open minded traveler in any capacity than Lillie. She has handled herself on this trip with grace, smarts, class and warmth in the face of some challenging and a few outright offensive experiences. She has never let the negativity to impact the thrill of her adventure for longer than a minute or two. She always points her readers towards the positive experiences (which comes quite easily by the way since there are considerably more positives).

I have followed her trip from the first post and before hand I had never considered traveling to Viet Nam. Her words have me up at night trying to figure out when and how my inevitable trip there will be. She has spoken of Viet Nam highly in nearly every single related post, and if she sees more smiles in Laos than VN how does that negate all of her previous opinions? It doesn’t.

Your view of the locals point of view is extremely useful. I know your words will influence my actions in Viet Nam. I believe Lillie humbly mentioned the same. The personal and confrontational nature of how you got your point across left a lot to be desired.

You also may want to consider that assuming all your points are in fact true, that the local folks are growing tired of the backpackers and their ways, then perhaps Lillie was greeted with frowns due to *their* preconceptions and past experiences. While this may ultimately have originated with a rude and hostile backpacker from the past, Lillie has no way of gauging those interactions. It seems a vicious cycle has developed making it hard to accurately place the blame.

I also get the part about hard and fast budgeting, and will use those tips on future travels as well. Admittedly it is difficult to judge how much things actually cost when guidebooks and horror stories have you on high alert at all times. I believe Lillie was very flexible in this way as well. She offered a compromise to the taxi driver when he did the bait and switch instead of lashing out in anger and giving only the agreed price. She fairly renegotiated a contract lower after suffering a humiliating act of inappropriateness from a hired guide instead of taking more drastic measures.

All in all I am upset because (again in my opinion) you have severely misjudged Lillie and made her the poster girl of your little cause. I can’t be sure but I would guess that I am the only commenter that has read her every post. Only then can you make a somewhat fair assessment.

I have to ask, if travel writing is the lowest form of literary self indulgence, then what is travel writing critique supposed to be?