Well Hello Vietnam!

My dad spent some time in Vietnam working on helicopters while he was with Boeing. Throughout my childhood I (Bill) heard stories of what he saw while he was there. It wasn't all good but it wasn't all bad. He went back about 3 years ago and had a good experience as a tourist and I was looking forward to getting a first hand look at what Vietnam had become.

Big, modern Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

We flew in to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City. Most people still call it Saigon, and they are technically correct, but the central part of the city is still officially named Saigon. Either way I was a bit nervous about coming to a place that my own country bombed extensively in the not so distant past but I was pleasantly surprised both by the welcoming nature of the people and the modernity of the city.

Lively night on the Promenade that runs through the central district of Saigon

Vietnam was devastated the war but now they have a vibrant, modern country that, while communist in title, looks more capitalist than some places I've been in the west. Everywhere you look there is something going on.

Sugary sesame donut like thing anyone?

Markets with things that probably don't even have names in English...

Markets with beautiful things too

Cooked banana thingys too!

Locals milling around selling homemade donuts, street vendors shining shoes, and of course motorbikes outnumber cars by at least three to one, which is evident right away:

Crazy controlled chaos... They do drive a bit slower than Americans are accustomed to and so accidents are more rare than you would think, and less devastating, but they do still happen. We saw one happen, but unlike Nepal the overwhelming majority of people wear helmets, so it seems that life has a higher value in Vietnam.

Saigon is host to some spectacular architecture from the old colonial days. There is a Notre Dame Cathedral that is built only out of stone from France. From the modern era there are a plethora of skyscrapers.

We went up the Bitexco tower which was literally across the street from our hotel and had spectacular views.

The French Notre Dame Cathedral made of imported French stone. Note: riders in the foreground have helmets on.

Right away you realize that everyone in Vietnam is a millionaire... Exchange was ~22,000:1 USD

If you know anything about Vietnam today you know things are cheap, beer costs around the same as water. You can get by on a lot less than you would in Europe but at the same time the basics of existence still work pretty well. There are no rolling blackouts like Nepal, internet works pretty well and mobile phone service seems decent. There is a ride share business called "Grab" that we first used in Kuala Lumpur and it works very well and cheerfully takes all the painful negotiation out of getting a taxi somewhere. Funny little thing about Grab, you can request a motorbike just as easily as requesting a car, the driver even shows up with a helmet for you to wear.

On the darker side we went to several sites that showed "history" including the Vietnam war which they called something like the "War of American Aggression" where the liberation forces rescued the people of the South. This sounds a lot like the Southerners of the US talking of the American Civil War. The War Remnants Museum is chock full of this sort of propaganda. The museum has extensive pictures and descriptions of atrocious things from the Vietnam War, including lots of photos of the effects of Agent Orange. Embarrassing doesn't even begin to describe how this sort of thing makes you feel as an American but in a war of that scale enough ugly things are going to happen to fill 10 museums and it's their country, they can fill the history books with whatever they like.

A Chinook helicopter left behind by the US, probably one my dad laid hands on

Nearby is the "Independence Palace" where the last hold outs of the South's government were located. In the final throws of the war, a spy from the North that infiltrated the South's military dropped two bombs on the palace with a stolen F-5 fighter aircraft, a pretty clear signal that things weren't going well for the South. Shortly after, tanks from the North bulldozed through the palace fence and "liberated" the South.

The Independence Palace, with what I like to call "70s fabulous" architecture

Roof of the palace where bombs were dropped by a spy

On the lighter side, after so much walking in Nepal, Kenzi was ready for a rest on the beach and I was ready for a bit of Kitesurfing. Through friends of friends of friends we ended up at the Coco Beach Camp in La Gi (pronounced something like lah zshee or la g) about four hours outside of Saigon. We scored a great little bungalow about 100 feet from the South China Sea.

Our home for three nights on the South China Sea

While the beach club has a very western name, the clientele are nearly all are Vietnamese people from Saigon escaping from the city.  The owner was a kitesurfer also and seemed to be happy to have someone to kite with. He loaned me gear and we got several fantastic sessions in. It is more than a week later and my body still hurts but it's a good hurt.

Some of the really small, colorful beach huts at the Coco Beach Camp.

We rented a scooter from the camp and took a ride into the town to pick up some snacks and hit an ATM. It's great fun riding around a place that has basically no westerners and seeing the people look at us with dumbfounded looks. We stand out like sore thumbs!

La Gi was really a fun place to check out and lay low for a while but eventually you've got to move on... so we're off to check out Hanoi.