After job losses and the housing crash, the author and her family leave L.A. to start over in a most unlikely place: a nine-foot-wide back-alley house in one of Ho Chi Minh City's poorest districts, where neighbors unabashedly stare into windows, generously share their barbecued rat, keep cockroaches for luck, and ultimately help her find joy without Western trappings.

Karin Esterhammer was an editor, writer, and travel columnist at the Los Angeles Times for fifteen years. She's been published in the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, and other...