Good Morning Vietnam

Posing for the camera

Another cozy flight. Another adventure.


We landed in Ho Chi Minh Airport in the early evening. I walked down the long empty corridors of the arrival terminal into the immigration hall. Next in line. My immigration officer looked more like an army officer in green coveralls and a cap.. actually he had the look of an Eastern version of Castro. He click, click, clicked through his computer for what felt like an hour. He told me nothing and sat rigid in his chair.. Click. Click. Click. Click..  What's the problem? Is it my hand-written visa from the embassy in Doha? Have I been air marked? Am I on the next Locked Up Abroad? Oh God. Am I sweating?! 
Click. Click... "OK."
"OK?"
"OK."
"OK!" I smile at the officer hardly able to contain myself as I try not to skip and jump past him to collect my baggage. Five minutes suspended in front of a Vietnamese immigration officer is long enough. There is something nerve wracking about a new place with a totalitarian government, a language barrier, and notorious jails, even if all I had to declare is that I packed too much clothes for my two-day stay.


I met up with the Captains wife and we chatted about where to shop while we waited for the crew. One hour later we were at our palatial hotel and off to grab a bite on Pham Ngu Lao St., a bustling strip filled with restaurants, coffee shops, boutiques, and still decorated with red flags and lights for the Chinese New Year days before. 

The food in Vietnam is delicious, spicy, sweet, complexed, with ginger, garlic, chili, odd shaped mushrooms, bok choy, baby corn, pork, calamari, fresh fruit juices, iced green tea,  gỏi cuốn (spring/summer rolls) and bánh mì (French baguettes!.. a culinary remnant of the French colonial rule which ended in 1954). 




We woke up early the following morning and perused the streets lined with stores selling copies of books, dvds, paintings, designer t's, copper buddhas, chop sticks, woven bags, silk, jade bracelets, all at the fraction of the price we're used to in the West. For $100US you'll get $2,000,000 Vietnamese Dong. After the initial sticker shock with items priced in the hundreds of thousands you realize that picking up a handful of things (t'shirts, shorts, shell covered boxes, and bracelets), each with six figure price tags, you get to the cash and realize you've just spent $5US for the ten items in your hands. Dinner? $11US for us both, including alcohol, and that was on the expensive night.




Vietnam... crazy, traffic, smells, dust, markets, narrow streets, bicycles with heavy loads, cool, hot, tangled power lines, red bunting, fruit vendors, crowded markets, chickens, motorbikes, slippers, socks with toes, mani/pedis for $3us, rooms for rent, backpackers, vespas, rickshaws, drugs, cheap designer bags, cheap t's, cheap shorts, cheap food, cheap beer..

Every now and then you visit a place where you can see the cultural stains of war. This usually translates into beautiful and sometimes political story-telling artwork, frescoes, or influences seen in architecture. During this visit we saw national pride, red flags, 'war remnants' museums, and the Thalidomide-like disfigurement of those physically affected by Agent Orange-- second generation war victims born after the end of the Vietnam War. We visited the War Remnants Museum. It was originally opened as "The House for Displaying the War Crimes of American Imperialism" and later renamed as the "Museum of American War Crimes"the name was changed again after the normalization of US relations. Its exhibits included a yard filled with military equipment, tanks, a UH-1 Huey, A-1 Skyraider (my husband told me not to call it a 'bomber' so -- 'Skyrader'... insert eye-rolling smiley here), an F-5A fighter and unexploded ordnance in the corner (!). Inside, the museums rooms were filled with propaganda posters, gory exhibits of graphic photographs of the guerrilla warfare, sadistic acts of violence, and the use and effects of the napalm and phosphorous bombs and Agent Orange. There were visitors crying, others watching in fascination, disbelief, and abject horror, and a very large American woman dressed in a black tracksuit with "making the world a fitter place" written on the back just to lighten the mood.










What makes Vietnam Vietnam are the people. Their warmth and hospitality made every hustle-and-bustle-filled day feel like a fun-filled, hot, sticky adventure.


Good morning Vietnam. See you again soon.