Good Morning Vietnam

The first glimpse of the country appeared to be a dumping ground for
Russian military hardware but was the city's main airport. We were
quickly processed by officialdom and whisked north by an internal
flight. We finally landed around midnight in our intended destination.
At last we were 'in-country'.
After a crazy taxi ride through a midnight landscape of Blade
Runner-esque apparitions, we met our guide and had a well-earned drink,
or two, of cool beer. The holiday had started.

Vietnam.

Most people only know about the country through American films about
the war. Most of its history chronicles the Vietnamese people's
struggles to eject foreign invaders. First it was the Mongols, followed
by the Chinese, the French were eventually thrown out by Ho Chi Minh
and finally the Americans. Despite 're-unification' the country still
feels very divided. The north has a more relaxed atmosphere about it.
Hanoi is very much a European city where the pace of life is more akin
to Paris. It has a colonial atmosphere which is provided by the many
westerners there on business. It is definitely a place to sit in a cafe
by the lake watching the world go by.

The only time it is not relaxing, (like Vietnam as a whole), is when
you try to cross the road.

The Vietnamese 'car' is a motorbike. Whole families, pigs, in fact
anything and everything is carried on them. Add a smattering of
pushbikes, cyclos, cars, and the occasional small lorry, and the roads,
initially, appear to be absolute chaos. There is no road-rage, just an
endless cacophony of warning horn hooting. There is just one absolute
rule for pedestrians - once you step onto the road DO NOT STOP. If you
hesitate or attempt to go back you are more likely to be hit. Just keep
walking and everything, amazingly, goes around you.

The only really dangerous road in the country is the notorious Highway
5, the Vietnamese M25 - but with a ceaseless stream of traffic. There
is a hierarchy operating here.
Cars, vans and lorries drive in the middle of the two lanes, heading
towards each other, until the smallest vehicle pushes its way into the
steady stream of motorbikes. They in turn speed around the cyclists on
the outside of the lanes. While all this is going on, workmen are
building and expanding the highway all the time. But through all the
dust and confusion the women still appear very dignified and
serene.

Hanoi is the perfect city for Uncle Ho to have his final resting-place.
Forever lying in state within a giant, black mausoleum eternally
watched over by stone-faced guards. Every day hundreds of Vietnamese
queue, in the heat, to see their great leader who never saw his dream
of a united country come true.

We travelled south on the single-track Re-Unification Railway, which
links the north to the south. After travelling on this train you will
never complain about British railways again. The trains are hauled by
old diesel engines, and when you leave the station in Hanoi it is like
something out of 'Brief Encounter'. The scrum of passengers all
clambering aboard the cramped carriages, running across the rail tracks
to reach your sleeper compartment before the train goes. Once inside,
and the train sets off, you stare out of the chicken-wired windows as
the scenery changes from urban sprawl to the lush greenery of the paddy
fields and forests, the backdrop being cloud covered mountains. Small
villages are glimpsed amongst the palm trees, water buffalo wallow in
lakes of rain water or are used to plough the paddy fields.

Saigon.
Compared to Hanoi, it seems to be going downhill.

Fast. Drugs, prostitution and corruption are rife.

Like the American soldiers before them the many westerners who have
settled here seem to be using the city as escapist R&;R. At night
you cannot walk past a bar without a mini-skirted woman asking if you
want 'a good time'. Its as though the northern regime still has not
forgotten which side the south was on during the war. They seem to have
forgotten the city, which enjoyed a boom during the war.

The residents were suddenly cut off from the world, forced into a
government they did not want. Now, with Vietnam being an open country
for the last seven years, the foreigners are back, the money and the
'boom times' are back.

No trip to Saigon though would be complete without seeing the sights.
Which are familiar to anyone who has watched Vietnam war films.

The gates of the former Presidential Palace, now the Re-Unification
Palace, which were broken down by an NVA tank heralding victory for the
North.

The former US Embassy. High walls and guard towers surround the ugly,
grey, heavily fortified concrete structure which, recently, was
returned to the Americans.

The War Crimes museum, highlights the suffering of the Vietnamese
people and the 'crimes' committed against them. An exhibition of
American military hardware stands outside. Inside the museum are photos
portraying the damage to the country and its people caused by the
de-foliant 'Agent Orange'.

There are other sights, which bring a piece of Hanoi's calm to the
city. Notre Dame cathedral and the Opera House - both owing more to
French colonisation rather than the Soviet style statues which dotted
all around the country. Monuments to the brave fighting men of the
north. These statues, combined with the propaganda billboards, are the
only real reminders that the country is still a communist state.

Here a 'softer' version of communism seems to be working. Looking back
though it would not matter which political system ran the country as
you could not imagine that anything would be any different. The country
is starting to come into its own. They have a stable economy, even
though the un-official,(illegal), currency is US dollars. Dollars are
more common in the south than the north but it also means that if you
use the local currency it will never be refused.

The rest of the south is punctuated by icons of pop culture, which have
permeated modern twentieth century history.

Water filled bomb craters puncture the green paddy fields.

Briefly glimpsed concrete guard posts amongst the scarce foliage.

The white sands of China beach, where the first wave of American
soldiers landed in '68. Made known when Robert Duvall, in 'Apocalypse
Now', declared that 'Charlie don't surf'. The strains of Wagner's 'Ride
of the Valkyries' impinges itself just out of ear-shot as you stare out
to sea - waiting for the Huey helicopters to appear. Heading for the
main USAF base in Da Nang, a derelict expanse of concrete structures, a
constant reminder.

The constantly destroyed bridge in the DMZ, which crosses the old
border between north and south. The 42nd parallel.

An Austin in a Buddhist pagoda near Hue, the war ravaged city at the
end of 'Full Metal Jacket'. An un-remarkable pale blue car until you
see the picture of the Buddhist monk seated in the lotus position, in a
Vietnamese street, next to the car. He is burning. A protest against
the old southern regime's treatment of Buddhists. In Saigon there is a
monument to him on the street corner where it happened.

Perhaps the most poignant reminder of the war is the My Son massacre
site. The village, populated solely by women, children and the old, was
systematically wiped out by American soldiers. Near the back of the
site is a small ditch where one hundred and twenty villagers were mown
down by American guns after being made to stand up and sit down over
and over again. Near the ditch is a mural by a Vietnamese artist
depicting the 'evil' American guns killing the 'innocent' Vietnamese
villagers. No one is quite sure why the Americans destroyed the village
but it was when the news came out in America, about a year after it had
happened, that the war lost the support of the public. It was the
beginning of the end for the American war effort. Time magazine called
it an 'American Tragedy'.

Vietnam is a country of contrasts. From the use of the swastika in
Buddhist graveyards to the war cemeteries dedicated to the fighters
from the North which litter the countryside.
In Buddhist terminology it is a country of yin and yang. Hanoi is the
city for the day, while Saigon comes alive at night, where, literally,
the cockroaches come out from between the cracks in the pavement. The
country is fast becoming a tourist destination. Probably the best time
to go is now, before it becomes too westernised, although, there is a
Kentucky Fried Chicken in Saigon, or before the Vietnamese people once
again decide to rid themselves of these foreign 'invaders'.