Biking along narrow dirt lanes between coconut groves and rice paddies, acutely conscious that this was once an area devastated by war, we knew we had left our comfort zone!

After long careers, our children grown and gone, my husband and I felt it was the right time to do something bold - so we signed up for a bicycle trip starting in Saigon, meandering through the Mekong Delta in Southern Vietnam, and ending at the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

First stop, Saigon (also called Ho Chi Minh City), a large, bustling city with crazy traffic and an odd mix of cultures. The French colonial past can be seen in the architecture and food; the current Communist government makes itself felt through huge billboards featuring socialist slogans and pictures of Ho Chi Minh, Marx, and Lenin; and the high-end shops (Rolls-Royce next to Prada next to Cartier) make it clear that a market economy is flourishing. After a couple of days in town, a short van ride brings us, our bikes, and our Vietnamese guide to the outskirts of the city to start riding.

Bicycling through the lush landscape of the Mekong Delta is a unique experience. Every day was a feast of smells, sights, and tastes! The biking itself was fairly easy, since the terrain is quite flat, except for the dozens of little, arched, one-lane bridges that cross over the web of streams originating from the Mekong River and forming the Delta. At the end of each day, hot and tired, we were glad to relax at quaint waterside lodges offering trays of fresh pineapple, mango, longans, and dragon fruit. We could hardly imagine this area as the terrifying war zone it was for many years.

After three days we reached Chau Doc, and boarded a boat going upriver to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. There, we saw many beautiful temples and palaces, although virtually all of them were relatively new, rebuilt after decades of war. We ended the day at the Genocide Museum, a painful, sobering memorial to the immense destruction and suffering caused by the Khmer Rouge reign of terror in the late 1970s.

Back on our bikes, with a new Cambodian guide, we spent three days riding through the countryside toward the UNESCO World Heritage site of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom! You have probably seen photos of these almost 1,000-year-old temple complexes - many overgrown with vines and banyan trees - but being there in person is truly breathtaking. Most surprising to us was finding out that, in its heyday, this was one of the largest cities in the world, with a population close to one million people! Due to drought and disease, it was abandoned and within a few hundred years, fell to ruins. One great advantage of biking around the site was our ability to get to lesser known temple sites with virtually no one else around!

We will remember this trip forever and are already thinking about what our next challenge should be. Any suggestions?

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This is the first in an occasional series of Weekly Update articles by NNV Board Members on topics of interest. Morgan Gopnik joined NNV as a volunteer in 2014 and has been helping members with a variety of tasks ever since. Click here to read more about Morgan and all of our other Board Members.