When I was in Phong Nha, I met a French girl who had been travelling in Malaysia before making her way to Vietnam. I was excited to ask her what she thought of it -- I had heard great things about it and hadn't met a lot of travellers on the backpacker circuit who'd been there. 

"It was horrible," she said. "I was travelling with some of my girlfriends there and we felt so uncomfortable. Everyone stared at us like we were whores."

I wondered what she and her friends were wearing, but she insisted they were dressed fine. Her remark made me nervous, so before boarding my bus from Singapore to Malacca, I pulled out the long, ankle-length black skirt and loose white tunic blouse from my backpack and hoped for the best.