Floating away in Vietnam
Over the last two weeks we have traveled the length of Vietnam, from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Vietnam is harder to get your arms around than Thailand and Laos, but is more interesting in the end. 
On November 1st we flew from Luang Prabang to Hanoi and stayed for four nights. Hanoi is fascinating for a few days, then it gets a little suffocating. The Old Quarter is crammed with so many scooters you can't believe it. Their driving style is completely insane. Everyone warned us about crossing the street in Hanoi. It's actually really interesting. You just walk into the flow of scooters and they all swerve around you. It's unnerving at first, but it actually works for some reason. The normal laws of physics don't apply here.
From Hanoi we went to Halong Bay for a three day boat, bike, hike and kayak tour. I know I said this about Laos, but Halong Bay is definitely one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. I'm not nearly articulate enough to describe it so just take a look at the pictures.
From Halong Bay we went a few hours South to a small town called Ninh Binh where we cycled around for a day. A highlight from Ninh Binh was when a random man ran along side my bike and just hopped onto the rack over the back wheel. He needed a ride and I happened to be going that way so he just jumped on. The language barrier was insurmountable so we just rode along until he hopped off and waived good bye.
From Ninh Binh we took an agonizing twelve hour overnight bus to Hue. That was the last overnight bus we will be taking. We're getting too old for that :-) The next day we took a twelve hour bus tour of the DMZ , which was interesting but was waaaaaaay too long.
Two days later we took a four hour bus South from Hue to Hoi An through heavy rain. Hoi An is supposed to be the most beautiful city in Vietnam. When we got there water was pooling up in the street corners, but the road was clear outside of our hotel. After dinner and drinks the water in the streets was about knee deep so we took off our shoes and waded back. By the time we woke up in the morning the water had risen another five or six feet, completely flooding the town. Our hotel lobby and shops were under several feet of water. We left the hotel in a canoe. It was the biggest flood Hoi An had seen in ten years so it was time for us to pack up and leave central Vietnam. We booked a flight to Ho Chi Minh City out of Danang for later that night.The one hour drive to Danang turned into a full on Rambo mission. Our taxi driver took us as far as he could but the water got too deep. He wanted us to either return to Hoi An or get out of his cab in two feet of water and pelting rain. We called bull shit and just sat in his cab until he flagged down a cargo truck and worked out a deal with the driver to take us to the airport.
We crawled into this huge truck cab and muscled through water that was so deep it was stalling cars and scooters all around us. After about 5 km the truck driver stopped and told us to get out since he needed to go in a different direction. We got out of the truck in the pouring rain, standing in the middle of nowhere completely soaked with nothing but our backpacks. We could do nothing but laugh about it.
The truck dropped us in front of a local family hanging out in front of their house. The older gentleman helped us figure out how to get to the airport, which was only a few km away. He went into the rain for a good ten minutes to find us a taxi, put us in it and sent us on our way. We made it to the airport in time to catch our flight thanks to a lot of help from a handful of strangers.
A few days later we read that flood waters submerged 188,000 houses and killed 28 people. It also flooded a crocodile farm so thousands of crocs were on the loose! We were never in danger but it was pretty interesting seeing water take over like that.
Ho Chi Minh City is far more commercial and familiar feeling to Westerners. It is completely different from Hanoi. You can really feel the cultural difference between the conservative Communist capital in the North and the more liberal Capitalist vibe in the South. We ended up staying in HCMC for five nights.
While in Vietnam we hit the War Museum, the DMZ and read a few books about the war to try to understand the jigsaw puzzle of circumstances that lead up to the conflict. The current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not as gory as the Vietnam war was but are similar in so many ways... the US trying to prop up a preferred government despite a huge local resistance... the lack of large-scale international participation... the entanglement and escalation over time... politicians giving overly optimistic updates on the progress... the lack of domestic support. They are also different for many reasons, but I find the parallels interesting.
It's hard for me to understand a lot of it because I wasn't around during the height of the Cold War, but how Laos and Vietnam falling to Communism was going to threaten the United States national security is still hard for me to understand... especially after traveling through the area. These are small, rural, poor countries.
The Vietnam War was tragic for both sides. The US lost over 50k+ troops while Vietnam ultimately unified around a Communist government. The Vietnamese unified the country and gained independence but lost over 3 million people, had their infrastructure destroyed, was blanked in chemicals that still prevent plants from growing (and still cause birth defects according to some credible sources) and was sent into economic and political isolation for decades.
In Ho Chi Minh City you can't help but notice all of the men missing arms and legs. They are everywhere. I'm not sure if they are the neglected who fought for the South, farmers who stepped on land mines or if it is unrelated to the war. It would be interesting to find out...
I just wrapped up a book called Vietnam Now, which gave me a much better understanding of how the country has fared over the last few decades. Since the 80s they have been opening up their economy, relaxing a lot of their social restrictions and have normalized relations with most of the world. Both Clinton and the "W" visited over the last few years. Overall things seem to be pointed in the right direction.
Whatever your politics are, the Vietnamese are incredibly gracious hosts and are a pretty amazing bunch when you understand their hardships and rebound over the years. I give two huge thumbs up to traveling in Vietnam.
[All of our Vietnam pictures can be seen here]
posted by Eric Stahl @ 2:15 AM
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