Good Night Vietnam

I am writing this from Langkawi, Malaysia. It is the first sun and heat that we’ve had since Cambodia. And yet, we find ourselves grieving our departure from Vietnam. It really got under our skin.

It is a beautiful and diverse country. It is creating its own destiny. Here’s a few random things:

Sapa Back to Hanoi –

Traffic –

Say what you will about the “craziness” of Hanoi traffic, let alone the rest of Vietnam, we kind of learned to admire it. Yes, there are a lot of horns blaring. But there is also respect for each other and the norms of how they navigate. I don’t remember any outstanding incidents of road rage. Cars will randomly do U-turns in the middle of busy streets. The rest of the traffic waits. Motorbikes will go down the wrong lane. Other drivers get out of the way. Yes, there is a pecking order with buses on top, then vans, cars, motorbikes, bicycles. Yet a vendor can push a bike loaded with vegetables down a buy street without problem.

Crossing roads takes a little getting used to, but then it’s a breeze. We would routinely see old men ambling across busy streets, just taking their time. Everyone goes around them.

We’ve wondered if somehow the Buddhist heritage plays a part in this.

NT Elysian Hotel –

Random Shots –

Winners and Losers –

The Vietnamese people were incredibly friendly to us. We often wondered how this could be? Especially after going to museums, tunnels, and the Hanoi Hilton, and seeing the brutality of it all.

We had an insight after going to the Vietnamese Women’s Museum. The Vietnamese have been at war for thousands of years – Mongols, China, Japan, France, and the United States. They’ve finally won their independence. The museums celebrate the victory. There are monuments everywhere. There is a real pride in the accomplishment. There is pride in the all-encompassing effort they put in to achieve victory, especially against the technologically advanced, wealthy, and much more powerful United States.

Now they are more interested in making their country prosperous and happy. There is an “it takes a village” ethic still going on, strongly supported by the communist government. BTW, it’s still a good idea to be a party member, even though if your ancestor wasn’t an active member of the liberation, you still can’t hold political office.

We, in America, don’t have much pride in this war. Hence the shock that they, for the most part, don’t really think about it. They’re just moving forward.

Weather –

We were warned that it would be hot hot and sweaty, with rain. This did not happen. We had maybe an hour of rain in Bangkok before we arrived in Vietnam. The temperature was idyllic.

Ho Chi Min City, South Vietnam where we started was a perfect temperature, maybe a sweater at times, (for Ellen, Steve just layered up on shirts). We keep checking as we went north and sure enough we needed to get puffer jackets and gloves for Hoi An, Ninh Binh, Sapa and Hanoi. Those rain jackets we’d been carrying with us finally came in handy.

So if you are thinking about a trip to Southeast Asia, plan it around their seasons not ours. We really can’t complain, we have had great weather over all and here jackets actually keep you warm unlike Minnesota!

We have also had very few bugs, but Malaysia is turning out to be hotter and buggier,