If you go to Hoi An, you can buy custom tailored shoes and clothes for good prices.

BBC: Reader Q&A: How to explore Vietnam with kids

If I were to plan a trip again, I would prefer to do more 'hands-on' tours, like the lantern making and rice pancake making in Hoi An.

BBC: Reader Q&A: How to explore Vietnam with kids

Following a successful piloting phase in Viet Nam in 2010, the programme was adapted for guides at the My Son and Hoi An World Heritage Sites.

UNESCO: Heritage Guide training enhances professional skills of guides at My Son World Heritage site | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

Visits to the former imperial city of Hue, a vegetarian Buddhist monastery and the herb farms around Hoi An follow (participants pick lemongrass, basil and cilantro and use them to make fresh spring rolls).

CNN: Exotic culinary tours around the world

Many Malaysians will see you as someone who lives in an ivory tower, hob-nobbing with the hoi-polloi and out of touch with the realities of what is happening in Malaysia.

FORBES: The Malaysian Third Way: A Public-Private Partnership

Some of the programs have an almost mystical allure, mainly because they are by invitation only and thus closed off to the hoi polloi.

FORBES: Magazine Article