Good Morning Vietnam

Good Morning Vietnam!

I just finished up a nice family vacation all around Vietnam. It was surreal being there at times as High School history classes built it up to be distant and exotic.

The first night in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) my parents took my friends and me out to dinner where we racked up a 6 million dong bill. It’s not actually that much but I saved the bill since it looks ridiculous. The next two days were spent touring northern Vietnam. Ha long Bay is about 3 hours east of Hanoi and is considered one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. The day we were in Ha Long Bay, Hanoi received its worst rains in 30 years (about 20 inches over the course of the day, or 1/3rd of the citys average annual rainfall). Although much of the flooded had subsided once we arrived in Hanoi, the rice fields still looked like lakes and many parts of the city were totally underwater. That evening we saw a traditional water puppet show and had dinner at the restaurant of world renowned chef Bobby Chin.

Much of the next day was filled with travel back to HCMC ,but in the morning we got to visit several places including the prison where many American pilots, including John McCain, were held (they had his flight suit on display). The place had been turned into a museum and the propaganda machine was still in full effect. They outlined the horrors committed against Vietnamese “patriots”when the prison was run by French colonists and how well American “invaders”were treated by the Vietnamese during the American War. They also showed pictures of the anti-war protests back in American and labeled them with captions such as “Some photos represent the solidarity of American people with Vietnamese people in the Vietnamese struggle for independence and unification of the Country”and “. An interesting twist on things to say the least.

The old district of Hanoi was interesting as it still displayed clear communist planning. Streets were named after various goods sold on that street. There was a “Bamboo St”, “Jeans St”, and even a “Bong and Pipe St”. Sure enough various bamboo vendors lined Bamboo St. and you could find yourself the ideal bong on Bong and Pipe St. if that is what you desire.
In HCMC on my last day in Nam we visited the American War museum which can be summed up simply as gruesome and horrible. While parts were blatant Vietnamese propaganda, there were other areas where clearly our Propaganda had been hiding the truth. Agent Orange was a pretty messed up weapon. The images were very graphic and I felt uncomfortable being there.
One thing I regret is not having time to get a suit made, many of my friends got a custom tailored suits for $65. Ralph got a leopard print suit made and I’m pretty jealous about it.

We are back on the ship on the second day of a two day cruise to Hong Kong. It Election Day today and everyone on the ship has agreed not to go on the internet so the ship has enough bandwidth to stream MSNBC in the union. Political fervor is everywhere. It will be interesting to read newspapers tomorrow in Hong Kong regarding Obama’s win, and after the foreign interest I’ve seen thus far regarding the election I’d be surprised if it’s not on the headlines. In all of the developing countries we have visited I have found Obama to be favored usually for one reason; he is in the same political party as Bill Clinton who opened up free trade and spurred an economic revolution in many developing countries. They are probably quite happy today, as is most of the ship, including myself.