A tale of 2 countries

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Vietnam (February 9th - March 29th 2009)

Bases: Chau Doc, Phu Quoc Island, Can Tho, Saigon, Buon Ma Thuot, Nha Trang, Quy Nhon, Quang Ngai, Hoi An, Hue, Bach Ma National Park, Hanoi, Halong Bay, Son La, Dien Bien Phu

Main sights: Cai Rang Floating Market, Can Tho Museum, Reunification Palace, War Remnants Museum, Jade Emperor Pagoda, Fine Arts Museum, Rue Catinat, Ben Thanh Market, Cu Chi Tunnels, Cao Dai Great Temple, Po Nagar Cham Towers, Thap Ba Hot Spring Centre, Hon Mot snorkelling, Son My Memorial (aka. My Lai), Hoi An Old Town, My Son, Hue Citadel, Bach Ma National Park, Hang Sung Sot, Hidden Cave, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex, Municipal Water Puppet Theatre, Temple of Literature, Ngoc Son Temple, Jazz Club by Quyen Van Minh, Dien Bien Phu war relics

Top 3 experiences:

1) Rowing the Mekong Delta with a war veteran
2) Playing beach football with the locals in Quy Nhon
3) Sailing Halong Bay

Daily budget (travel, food and accommodation): US$25 = 18 pounds

My rating: 8.5/10

Overview:

Technically, North and South Vietnam were reunified on April 30th 1975. It's more than 30 years since North Vietnamese Army (NVA) tanks crashed through the gates of the old Presidential Palace in Saigon, marking the end of the Vietnam War. The border at the 17th Parallel has long been consigned to the history books. North and South Vietnam no longer exist - today there is only Vietnam.

Except it doesn't really feel like that.

Maybe it's the fault of the endless Vietnam War propoganda backfiring. At revolutionary museum after revolutionary museum, you get a blow by blow account of the North's campaign to liberate the South from Us aggressors. Very occasionally, you might be lucky enough to see token acknowledgment of the fact that thousands of South Vietnamese fought alongside the Americans (although they're instantly dismissed as misguided, mercenaries or traitors). But to my mind, the way a significant part of the population has been written out of history makes you wonder if the country really has come to terms with the war - or if it's simply repressing bad memories like a car crash victim with post-traumatic stress.

Or maybe it's the fault of the climate. South Vietnam has a tropical climate with bags of sunshine, year-round warm temperatures and a wall of humidity that makes you glad there are so many beaches. And there are enough sweet fruits to keep you going for a lifetime - not just pineapples, red papayas and yellow mangoes but rambutan, mangosteens, jackfruits, sapodillas, dragon fruits, passion fruits and a million other varieties you can't even identify.

By contrast, North Vietnam's climate is a good 15 degrees colder with cloudy skies and drizzly rain. North Vietnam cuisine relies more on vegetables than fruit - the few varieties it does have are sour like green mangoes or bitter like the pineapples.

Or maybe it's the fault of the people. The South Vietnamese have a noticeably more Western outlook - they welcome tourism and enjoy playful bartering over prices. Across Vietnam they have a reputation for being carefree, flaunting whatever cash they come across in the many bars and clubs.

But the North Vietnamese find it harder to shake off their shackles. After all, they won the war and it seems to have come as a shock that long-time trading partners Russia and China have switched their attentions to aping the Americans. Although they have reluctantly also become capitalists, it doesn't come easily to them. For example, the North Vietnamese will try and rip you off whenever possible like the South. But it's much less good natured here and they have no qualms about misleading you or lying outright if it gets you to part with your cash.

Thirty years after reunification, Vietnam remains a tale of 2 countries. And you get no prizes for guessing which one wins my vote!

Rowing the Mekong Delta:

We originally booked a Mekong Delta boat tour for 2 reasons. Firstly, we wanted to see Cai Rang, the largest floating market in the delta. And secondly, we wanted to prove wrong the folks at Can Tho Tourist Office who confidently told us there was "no nature" in one of Asia's biodiversity hotspots.

Now the floating market is incredible. Watching hundreds of sampans dodge one vessel and pull up beside another before piling on dozens of freshly-picked pineapples is a surreal sight. And it's true we didn't see much in the way of wild animals (other than crocodiles below a leather shop, monkeys in cages and snakes in a restaurant snakepit).

But as it happened, everything else about the tour paled into insignificance beside the dazzling life story of the guide himself.

Here in this 70-year-old man is a perfect illustration of how North and South Vietnam just do not get along - and perhaps never will. A captain in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), he fought alongside US troops against his fellow countrymen in the north. And in spite of the North Vietnamese propoganda in the Can Tho Museum, he remains convinced it was the right thing to do.

After the American army withdrew and the ARVN collapsed, he reluctantly turned down an opportunity to fell the advancing communists along with 135,000 other boat people for fear that his family would suffer. Instead, he stayed put and endured the standard punishment for the many thousands of people with suspected ARVN sympathies - a forced-labour camp. He spent 2 years at the 're-education camp' (some were held for decades), where he faced back-breaking labour and daily instruction in Marxism. Many of his friends died in the harsh conditions but few tried to escape, he explained, for the simple reason that if they were caught they were shot.

To this day he remembers the layout of the camp and many of his most incredible anecdotes were born here. I use the word 'incredible' deliberately because his stories would struggle for credibility were it not for the intense conviction with which he delivers them.

For instance, he remembers the prisoners cheering when Khmer Rouge soldiers shelled his camp because they thought it was US soldiers rescuing their comrades-in-arms and restarting the war. And he remembers helping to cut out a fellow inmate's appendix with a shaving razor because the communists refused to give them even basic medical equipment or support.

After leaving the camp early for good behaviour, he recalls being spied on by the North for several years. "Now I am too old so they don't bother," he explained. Nevertheless, he continues to remain suspicious of the North and rails against the corruption he encounters in Hanoi. He even suspects that one day the Americans will return to finish the job they started in Vietnam.

I'm not saying our guide is typical of South Vietnamese - for starters, the younger generation is more interested in partying than politics. But at the very least he's a reminder than the North-South divide is still very much alive for many Vietnamese.

Oh, and he cooked us a delicious dinner free-of-charge later that evening. He even bought us coffee at his favourite cafe afterwards! You simply don't get that level of hospitality in the north...

Quy Nhon:

Quy Nhon is without doubt my favourite place in Vietnam. It's a heady dose of all the positives of South Vietnam without any of the negatives.

Here, the locals truly are at their friendliest. A simple walk down the beautiful promenade quickly descends into chaos as first one kids asks your name and then another twenty come out of nowhere to try the same. And when they see you have a camera another 20 magically emerge from the beach to try and squeeze into a photo. There's a genuine enthusiasm for tourists that I haven't felt since rural Cambodia. Despite the continuing trickle of backpackers over the years, every foreigner is treated as if no-one's ever seen anything quite like you before.

Another Southern characteristic found here in abundance is playfulness. Quy Nhon surely has the highest concentration of sportsmen in the whole country.

The main coastal road becomes practically impassable after sunset because of the number of impromptu football matches. The beach is similarly littered with 5-a-side games and everyone is more than happy for you to join in (although I now know beach football is a damn sight harder than it looks - particularly on the toe nails!). The concept of swimming for pleasure is also less alien than elsewhere in Vietnam. And you just have to let go of a shuttlecock and, before you know it, half a dozen locals are diving all over the place to stop it hitting the floor.

But the most surprising thing about Quy Nhon - and what sets it apart in Vietnam - is the absence of the hardsell. Basically there are no sights here beyond beaches and the world's prettiest leper colony (no, really!!). And it's a pig of a place to get to thanks to the perverse timetabling of tourist buses and trains.
This means few tourists and consequently few tuk tuk drivers and street hawkers.

In short, Quy Nhon is paradise!

Halong Bay:

If there's one activity that illustrates the different mindsets of North and South it's booking a tour. In Saigon, you got to a tour agency with a good reputation, you ask what's included, you ask the price and then you decide whether or not to book it. Simple.

In Hanoi, you go to a tour agency with a good reputation for Halong Bay trips only to discover it's no longer there. Neither are any of the other recommended agencies. Or at least, they're probably no longer there. In the building they're supposed to be housed is a tiny grotto with peeling wall paint and a shifty looking fella beneath a 'Sin Cafe' sign. Hang on, you think, isn't the company supposed to be 'Sinh Cafe'? Ah well, must be a typo.

Except, wait a second. Why is the brochure also packed with typos, the web address full of oddly-placed symbols and the logo the wrong colour? And come to think of it, why is every 3rd outlet on the street purporting to be a Sinh Cafe brach when you know for a fact there are only 2 offices in the whole damn city?

Hanoi, it seems, doesn't do trademarks.

Reluctantly burying your instinct not to give large sums of money to con artists - how embarassingly European! - you enter a Sin Cafe at random. The fly-by-night shyster behind the desk seems as surprised as you are that someone has put their trust in his blatant fraud of a business.

He's also very eager to please. So eager, in fact, that he simply answers yes whenever he thinks you want to hear a yes and no whenever he thinks a no is required. He also shows you a detailed work of fiction - sorry, itinerary - telling you what's included and what you'll see. You feel faintly encouraged, enough to hesitantly hand over some cash.

The next day, en route to your destination, you get talking to your fellow passengers and gradually piece together what's going on. Everyone, it seems, has heard different versions of the plan - and paid vastly different sums of money for exactly the same tour. What's more, you find you're not travelling with the company you booked with, as promised, nor even with the company whose logo is on the itinerary you're clutching in your hand. Who you're actually travelling with is frankly anyone's guess.

Bearing all this in mind, however, it comes as little surprise to find you're bypassing practically every element of the itinerary, or that optional extras like kayaking that cost $25 in the booking office cost $3 on the boat.

North Vietnam is not the easiest place to be a tourist.

Bearing that in mind, it's lucky indeed to have a site like Halong Bay on its doorstep. Even if the tour guide's idea of customer service extends little beyond emptying your wallet, Halong Bay is emphatically worth it. It's indescribably beautiful. One of the natural wonders of the world with cathedral-sized caves hidden inside thousands of limestone cliffs jutting into brilliant blue waters.

Halong Bay is so beautiful, in fact, that for a few blissful hours you even forget you're in North Vietnam...

Random facts:

In Buon Ma Thuout, look out for delicious ca fe chon - coffee made from the droppings of a particularly lucky weasel who has been fed premium coffee beans.

In the border town of Dien Bien Phu, there's not a single legitimate money-changer who can give you cash accepted in Laos. Believe me, we've looked!

In Hoi An, you can find half a dozen riverfront bars with panoramic views of the beautiful Old quarter. A glass of local brew will set you back the princely sum of 16 pence.

Impressions:

It's hard not to find some part of this country to your liking. In fact, Vietnam is less a country and more a collection of fantastically diverse locations. There are chilled-out tropical islands (Phu Quoc), cosmopolitan cities (Saigon), vast beaches (Nha Trang, Quy Nhon), spectacular seascapes (Halong Bay) and soaring mountains dotted with colourful tribes (Son La). Whenever you tire of one setting, a 3 or 4 hour busride will take you somewhere completely different.

We were lucky in having more time to explore than most tourists - 7 weeks, whereas many backpackers bomb through in 2 or less.

There's no doubt in my mind that the more time you can spend away from the well-trodden Saigon-Hanoi coastal trail, the more you'll enjoy Vietnam. While in tourist traps like Nha Trang and Hue, most Vietnamese are depressingly obssessed with the bottom dollar, they really go out of their way to look after you in the less-visited spots. We got invited to a debauched midday feast in Chau Doc, a home-cooked dinner in Can Tho and a family reunion in Quang Ngai - and in each case, nobody would accept a penny from us!

Whenever we met a particularly aggressive tuk tuk driver or street seller (and rest assured, there's no shortage of them), at least we could remind ourselves not everyone is like that.

All in all, Vietnam definitely lived up to expectations. In the West, the legacy of the Vietnam War lives on to this day through a combination of incredible films, history books and media comparisons with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So the prospect of actually visiting this legendary country and seeing the steps it has taken towards recovery was something I was really looking forward to.

Thankfully, for anyone with even an interest in the Vietnam War, there's no shortage of things to sink your teeth into. Every town had its moment in the spotlight and many now have monuments and museums to retell their story. To this day, there are war relics dotting the landscape while many more have been salvaged and turned into haunting works of art of handicrafts.

On a darker note, many of the hillsides are still bereft of forest as a result of the defoliants sprayed by the Americans. And the number of handicapped beggars reminds you that the legacies of Agent Orange, UXOs and land mines will continue to be felt around the Ho Chi Minh trail and beyond for many decades to come.

This country has one of the most interesting tales to tell in modern history. The last 70 years have seen colonialism, defeat of the French, separation of the country, the Cold War, defeat of the Americans, reunification, hardline communism and now market-driven capitalism. Best of all, you can easily find places - and people - that give you an insight into how life dramatically changed every step of the way. And there are undoubtedly many many more changes to come.

Vietnam - incredibly varied, forever changing and anything but boring.

Next stop: Laos

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