Good Morning, Vietnam!

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You know a date is successful when your "dong" is exhausted and gets smaller and smaller. But yes, that is the case and this mad, frenetic and exotically appealing country is well worth the expenditure and we are progressing from a "dating" stage to a serious romance.

We spent a day and evening four hours out of the city, at an area known as "Halong Bay". The water of this bay is a jade green and there are thousands of uninhabited islands that dot the landscape. Our sailing vessel was stunning. An interior with lacquer furniture, an attentive crew who served up scrumptious meals and a postcard view that would take your breath away was a welcome respite from the madness of Hanoi. We explored the magnificent caves off one island and then kayaked around the bay...the World Heritage status that has been awarded this area is well deserved.

En route to and from Halong Bay, we visited many arts and crafts stations that were run by charitable organizations. Many of the artisans are victims of "Agent Orange" , a chemical used on the Vietnamese by the American troops during that infamous war. It was a poignant scene watching them earnestly put together various paintings and stitched frames despite a malformed limb, stunted physical growth and various other deformities.

How can I write about this country without discussing the Vietnam War? As a young child, I always remember "The Commander Tom" show and how at the end of each show, there was a message written by a viewer to his/her father who was serving in this war. Distant "cousins" to the Americans, I was always afraid that we too would have to go to war not really comprehending the background of this particular conflict.

Today I visited the infamous prison complex known as the "Hanoi Hilton"...constructed in 1894 to house dissident Vietnamese who were rebelling against French colonialists. In the 1960's it was then used to house American POW's who had been shot down during the Vietnam War. Its' most famous resident was Senator John McCain who spent years there before being released. A frightening complex, dark, dank, and claustraphobic...I could not imagine being a "resident" and surviving some of the cruelty that took place in this establishment. The perspective of the museum curator was interesting because the focus of the prison was to free the Vietnmaese from the American "imperialists".

I did not live in Hanoi as it was being bombed incessantly by the Americans.

I was not a parent who received the fateful visit by the military to tell me my son/daughter had died in battle.

I did however, learn that a large component of the prison complex had been torn down and in its place is a massive (by Vietnamese standards!) gleaming skyscraper. Inside was an incredible complex of modern,fashionable and pricy stores. The coffee shop I enjoyed my cappuccino in had marble floors, huge overstuffed leather chairs and was filled not with foreigners, but with Vietnamese people with smart outfits and snappy laptops. This was a side of Hanoi I had not seen. And as I rerouted myself back to the Old Quarter of my hotel, I spied a Gucci store, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Escada at various street corners. Wandering by these shops were old women carrying baskets of fruits and vegetables and old men holding shoeshine brushes in their hand. Two completely different worlds co-existing side by side.

As much as I was confounded by my capitalistic discovery, I continue to be intrigued and hypnotized by this most alluring creature called, "Vietnam".

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Comments

[Jude]

Good Morning, Vietnam!
This has given me more insight to what happened years ago. So much that we really didn't know, my heart goes out to all those on both sides. So very interesting these two different worlds living side by side. I never would have imaged a "Gucci" there. What Beautiful sites at "Halong Bay" and the rural ones too. I would have loved that! Glad you are enjoying it all, excited and waiting for the next stop :)))))