Highlights Of Vietnam (and there are many)
Leaving Viengxay, Lao we took a bus northeast in a rainstorm. The road conditions remained ominous with landslides and fallen trees crossing the one and one half lanes of road. It was always difficult when buses and trucks came from the opposite direction. Looking out the window was just as unnerving looking down cliffs of mud that oozed into the jungle 50 meters below. Many foreigners living in Lao have mentioned the treacherously winding cliff road conditions all over the country but I didn’t hear of any accidents in particular.
The Vietnamese border crossing is rather simple this far north. It’s always a good idea to have some U.S. currency on you because it seems to be the preferred exchange for most border crossings in South East Asia. We waited at a restaurant for a Vietnamese bus heading for Hanoi, still another 12 hours away, or more. The people at the restaurant were willing to exchange money so we changed a little more than we needed for the bus, a meal and a few snacks and bottled water along the way.
We arrived in the outskirts of Hanoi at a bus station and had a difficult time settling on a fair taxi price to get us into the old French quarter or to the edge of the lake. Once we got out of the taxi the madness was apparent. There was either a constant flow of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles that it appeared impossible to cross the street, any street. I watched an old woman carrying a bamboo stick with two baskets, on at each end of the stick cross the street in the middle of the flow and hardly look about. Drivers honked and swerved and she pulled up on our side of the road. Sometime during my month in Vietnam I was told, maybe tongue in cheek – maybe not, that it’s the drivers’ responsibility not to hit pedestrians, but if they were going to hit you, they’d rather kill you than pay the hospital fees because it’s cheaper. Through out South East Asia there is a large percentage of drivers that have never taken a drivers training program and don’t have a license.
As an American I was a little apprehensive about going to Vietnam due to our two countries warring past and expected there to be some residual resentment towards Americans. I was fifteen when the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Interacting with the Vietnamese, one of their first questions after they found out I was American was, ‘How old are you?’ My response was always the same; ‘I was fifteen when the war ended.’ At that they would carry on as if I was any tourist from any country.
I was so enamored with the chaos in Hanoi that I stayed for eight days not including the two nights and three days spent in Ha Long Bay on the coast. To get a glimpse of the Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese perspective was enlightening and loaded with propaganda but the international journalist photos of the war told no lies and it was disturbing. I was in dismay of how little information Americans actually received about the atrocities even after the war except by those that returned emotionally scared and not appreciated for the efforts, many were forced via the draft, to do for their country. Some of the affects of Agent Orange are still in the soil and there are many disfigured people on the streets four generations later. I met one woman who is fourth generation without vocal cords. She ran a restaurant with other Vietnamese that are deaf, blind or without vocal cords. Although tragic it also presented awareness.
From Hanoi I hooked up with some Italians and a German and we hired a car and driver to take us to Ba Be National Park inland near the Vietnam/Lao border. This was an old colonial French vacation spot far from the heat and bureaucracy of the new capital in Hanoi. Mountains sprang to the sky while tranquil streams fell off the thickly forested cliffs and fed rice paddies, fields of water buffalo and finally spilled into a massive beautiful lake complete with a few green islands. Boat tours, fishing trips and hikes abound but we stuck to the lake road for a nice long walk on a mostly paved single track. We were only there for one night but I would suggest staying longer.
I took the train to Hue, the old capital. The train ride was straightforward except for the parade of graves out the window almost the entire way. Once in Hue there is a lot to do, cruise the Perfume River and stop at the tombs of past Kings before the French moved the capital to Hanoi.
I took a great tour north to the Vietnamese tunnels and traveled a bit on the Ho Chi Mien Trail from Hue. It’s a jump off town for where the Vietnamese tunneled and communicated with boats and dealt with the American military dumping bombs and something like 72 million gallons of deforestation on their country. Bomb craters are seen in numerous places along the coast.
Hoi An was special for me in one particular way, it has a Gemstone Art Museum. www.gam.hoian.com. I was impressed with the craftsmanship of jeweled rings, bracelets, necklaces, etc. There are also very large gemstones on display in their natural rock form. Hoi An is packed full of restaurants, sites to see and a lively nightlife for the 20’s and 30’s age group but be careful for ‘light fingers’, they are everywhere in the world but we crossed them here.
Nha Trang was once a U.S. Military ‘R & R’ spot but now the signs are in Russian as well as Vietnamese. I believe there is still a flight from Moscow to Nha Trang directly. The Vietnamese aren’t so happy about it because, rumor has it, the Russian Mafia have also arrived and could possibly be competing over the same turf as the Vietnamese underground. It has the potential to be volatile. The food and the beach are nice though.
Saigon was my last stop and again I entered the War Museum with the same result as before, guilty by association. I sat in café to watch rush hour traffic and was impressed with the fluid chaos before me. I pondered my tour down the coast and took a bus to Phenom Pen, Cambodia the next day. Dengue Fever was rearing its ugly head in the city said the English teachers I met.
