Vietnam

First visit "since the war" (~1998)

Being there:

I have to admit trepidation at coming to Vietnam, after having lived through "the First Televised War" as a teen. My stomach was in knots. The view
from the road between Hanoi airport and the city is green - rice fields - as far as the eye can see. Plus water buffalo, and men and woman with those stereotypical conical hats. "Viet... Cong". It's just two old words but they come with an awful lot of emotional baggage. Just for the record, it's known as the "American war" here, not the "Vietnam war". Makes sense.

Architecture:

The city is a bizarre blend of Colonial buildings, Chinese style buildings and really ugly buildings, built by the various conquering factions - French, Chinese and Russians respectively. I've never seen anything quite like it, where history is so distinctly reflected in the buildings. Like most developing countries I've been to, there are countless shops, many small and dilapidated, but others with brand new, "first world" stuff ostensibly for ex-pats and affluent Vietnamese. There's an "American
Standard" (plumbing) shop a couple of blocks from the hotel, with a giant wooden Buddha statue in it's doorway. Appreciated the juxtaposition. Rub the Buddha's belly for good luck.

The streets are filled with bicycle/moto traffic like Beijing had 10 years ago when I first visited there, and women carrying big baskets of fruits or wares attached to bamboo poles slung over their shoulders. Bikes outnumber cars I would guess 500 or 1000 to 1 which while chaotic, makes for less pollution than places like Bangkok. The air is a little thick on the busy streets but the sky is clear and blue. Very un-Asia.

I had to work about half of Saturday but spent the afternoon walking around. Between the motorcycles ("motos"), bicycles and the odd car, it can be death-defying act just to cross the street. In fact I came so close to getting hit (at nominal speed, mind you) that I halted two motos... with my hands to their headlights. And hot? Humid? I perspired so much that the only area on my shirt that wasn't soaked were the sleeves, where they didn't touch my skin.

Local Heroes:

Hi Ho! Ho Chi Min is a prominent guy here. Dead yes, but not forgotten. There's a mausoleum for him, a big, ugly building with a Russian quality to it. In fact pretty much everything there that's ugly here seems to have been built by the Russians...

One of the customers I visited had a little shrine in the conference room. A little statue of Ho with his signature goatee, bar and sickle plus Vietnam's "star" on a backdrop of Communist-red cloth. Very patriotic. No statues of Nixon or LBJ in sight.

Food:

"I'll have some more of that... green stuff". The food's been wonderful and so far haven't gotten sick from any of it. It's remarkably cheap - we ate in what was probably the best restaurant in town - the a visiting dignitary from Iraq was dining in the next room. Outstanding dinner for 4 with drinks and dessert... best in town... $35. You don't drink the water here, tho' - amoebas. Dysentery... the variety that doesn't "work itself out" without medication. Beer is cheap and reasonably tasty however - "Halida" is locally produced. "Hanoi" brand beer didn't thrill me.

Among the interesting things tried were some kind of giant snail, and a soup made from green flowers that look a bit like bolted broccoli. Lunch included an eel dish - I like eel but prefer it Japanese style - pre-boned with a sweet sauce. Dog is eaten here; fox is supposed to be quite tasty, and roasted field mouse is a specialty of the South. The mice eat only rice so they're clean and not too strong flavored - but that'll have to wait for a Saigon (Ho Chi Min City) visit. Cats? Could be just lore but they told me that the local cat population had been decimated by eager diners, causing the rat population to grow, and people were being incented to raise house cats to keep the rats in check. Brings new meaning to "Meow Mix" doesn't it?

It could be just my "sample set" but it seems like restaurants here specialize in a few things - the Flower Soup Restaurant, the Flabby Tabby Cafe. Everybody gets more or less the same dishes. Last night's pick served up the green stuff (in the photo) along with chunks of fish, all fried at the table in a great deal of oil and consumed along with copious amounts of beer. Served on cold noodles, you add a sauce based on shrimp paste (smells awful, tastes great - there's a jar in our frig') and chilies until it's shrimpy and spicy enough for your taste. I was a bit surprised at the lack of spice in the food. We were eating at local places so it wasn't as if the food was being toned down for Western taste buds.

Pho and wide:

Ph? (pronounced somewhere between "far" and "fur", with some diacritical marks I don't know how to make) seems to be the national dish of Vietnam, and if Boston is any indication, the next trendy yet cheap student food for the US. A bowl of noodles with meat of choice is about $3.00 in Boston. Seems inexpensive at home until you look at the cost here - closer to 50 cents - and it's eaten at breakfast, lunch and dinner. There's never a bad time for pho, apparently.

Next stop:

Sunday I arrived in Singapore for a week there, then back to India from whence I came (apparently they liked having me there) for a follow-on visit. I've been trying to get to the Taj Mahal in Agra, about 200km from Delhi. I have been to India four times now; Agra is less than an hour flight from New Delhi but I've yet to get there.