SAIGON AND ON…

30,000 feet over Da Nang, Viet Nam, a city we left just 16 hours ago. Lucy asked, “Why didn’t we just fly home from there?” I then had to explain the complexities of direct flights, major hubs, not to mention a family of four flying  Business Class during peak season using miles.

Then there is the whole issue of Viet Nam in general—it’s not always easy. It is a very interesting place and while I didn’t see all the country everything I did see was very memorable.

And yes it is OK to still call  it Saigon. Ho Chi Minh City is its name but the people who live there for the most part still call it Saigon. One tends to slip back and forth.
For me it has more historical significance as Saigon and there are better rhymes.

I would have to say while intensely interesting, it’s not the most compelling place I’ve ever been. It lacks the intensity, color and magic of India. It doesn’t pulsate like Hong Kong or Tokyo. It doesn’t jingle, jangle and tantalize like Thailand. And it lacks public displays of piety so it loses that godliness of a Cambodia, India Thailand, many of the  Muslim countries. But it makes you stop, think and remember while looking ahead—not too shabby.

It’s Viet Nam, and for someone my age the fact one can be in Saigon staying at a hotel like the Park Hyatt (superb) or going to Nam Hai on the China Sea, truly the most beautiful resort I’ve ever seen, is astounding. For anyone 45 or older, Viet Nam still conjures up a war zone.

It has been 35 years since the last shots were fired, but like I said to Taylor, our being here (Nam Hai) is like you taking your family to a great resort in Basra in thirty years.

I was very young during the war—well, not that young towards the end—but I’m embarrassed to say most of what I remember comes from the TV show Truth or Consequences on Channel 11. Bob Barker used to bring home soldiers and surprise their moms who were in the audience. I recall the ecstatic, weeping moms hugging their sons in uniform who would only be home for a few days. Even then I wondered how the mothers could bear it.

Me and mothers—an ongoing theme.

I had heard about the Tet Offensive but would have been hard pressed to tell you anything about it.  I now know Tet is Viet Namese New Year and thanks to a pool side tutorial from Glenn I know why it was significant—same with the My Lai massacre. You can watch Platoon but you don’t get all the facts.

I must say for my entire life I never understood what the Viet Nam war was about or why we were there. I thought it was the same old South wants freedom, North communism— I probably lumped it in with Korea. I now know how complex it was. I read several books while there, one from the other side, written by a field doctor called Thuy Tram called Last Night I Dreamed of Peace, a poetic diary written by a party member which gave a human portrayal of the Viet Cong Westerners don’t usually get.

Flying out yesterday we sat next to a man from Wyoming who spent a year and a half fighting where the Nam Hai now sits—it makes it all very real though in many ways just as confusing.

And almost everyone you meet in Viet Nam is in their 30s or younger—so it’s all Gettysburg to them.

War aside, today if you’re in H.C.V.C. staying in District 1, their “best part of town” you could be in any thriving Asian metropolis. It has its own brand of sophistication, it’s on the brink of cool, very energetic and the traffic is beyond belief. You spend much of your time playing chicken with motorbikes. There are 3.5 million motorbikes, few traffic lights, and it feels like no rules. Pedestrians have nothing resembling the right of way.

Yet while the Asian Tiger is alive there, it is still a socialist country and you feel it in certain ways. You cannot access Facebook, for one. You can on your Blackberry, but not all of it. Same with Twitter. I read an article in Bangkok that said the Viet Namese may outlaw them altogether.

And in terms of sights, you see what they want you to see or what they have to see is what they want you to see. No one stops you or follows you. It’s just the sights all pretty much carry the same message: “We won the war—we whooped America’s ass.” It’s everywhere from the War Museum to the Reunification Palace, where right outside the screening room  sits a captured US chopper—you can see it from every seat.

The Cu Chi Tunnel is a detailed tour of how they beat the Super Power using ingenuity and cottage industry labor. They built these amazingly intricate tunnels where they did everything from disguise their activities, hideout, capture people, move arms, live and operate on people.  “The American Enemy” is the most common phrase at most tourist sights. But they all take dollars and seem happy to see you.

In all cities I want to see how the people really live. I asked the driver to take us to the real parts of town but we ended up in a middle class market. My interest in the Indian slums led me to believe they had to exist in Viet Nam, and on the way out of town we passed corrugated roadside makeshift crammed-together housing. I pointed it out to the driver who said, “Nice new roads.” He was clearly not taking me there.

We drove 2.5 hours to the Mekong Delta to experience real river life. I was dubious when there were 4 tours to choose from; one of which ended in what looked to be a Viet Namese Luau. I picked the shortest and least touristy. It started with a demonstration on how to make coconut candy. I told the guide I didn’t want to see anything being woven, cooked, or carved. “Just the people.” He then sat us in two plastic chairs, plunked some jackfruit and mango in front of us and made us listen to three girls sing Viet Namese folk songs.

At that point all I could think about was that we drove this far to see rice paddies and boat life, and not only are we stuck with bad music and old fruit, I forgot my DEET. We finally got on a boat and had a brief, quasi-backwater  ride that felt a bit Disneyish—the right “villager” conveniently popping out just as we passed by. We left there for a longer float on the Mekong at sunset. Compared to our time on the lake in Cambodia and the visit to Mr. Thai’s family this was nothing. I’m so grateful we had that.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved being there. The Park Hyatt Hotel is splendid, the food is delicious. The shopping is not as good as one is led to believe—Cambodia was better. But I love seeing and experiencing any new place, and Viet Nam is a place on the verge of something big. Ten years from now, I can only imagine what it will be like.

I would totally return to see the North. And then our last three days spent at The Nam Hai—it is without question the best resort I’ve ever been to. It’s worth the trip if only for the spa. It floats, and at night they light the water with torches. There is no one on the beach. This part of the China Sea is totally undeveloped—so far—but there are signs everywhere announcing the new resorts coming in. I fear in ten years it could look like Cancun. Though everyone I spoke with there agrees they will have to make it easier to get in and out if they want more people to come. If you live in the West, Viet Nam is several plane rides from most major hubs, though I did find out Air France has a direct flight to Saigon from Paris.

But once you get to Da Nang or any of the resorts in that area there are three great day trips. Hue, My Son, and Hoi An. Had I only known I would have stayed there longer. We could have gone to two but the love of the resort was too powerful. And Lucy really needed pool time. We did get to Hoi An, which is a seventeenth century trading port town that has remained miraculously intact despite the devastation that went on around it.

The mélange of Chinese, Japanese, and Viet Namese architecture has been restored and the town is pristine, historic and filled with artists as well as villagers. It’s a very special place. Some of the ancestral homes are open to the public with family members still there; others have been turned into museums and shops. It was a nice break from the resort, as I felt guilty just relaxing by the pool, being pampered with massages and swimming with the girls while surrounded by so much history.

So 18 days, 9 flights, 8 cities and towns, 9 pieces of luggage, 8 massages for me alone, 40 bowls of noodles (the group), endless laughs at each other’s expense. It was a great trip, binding our family through the shared memories. And I have to give some special credit to my girls. Though I have been dragging them around the world since they were little, and they have always been good travelers, they both really came into their own in different ways on this trip. Taylor has obviously traveled more and endured years of endless car rides to obscure sights in out of the way places. She has spent some of those trips in misery, but with her newfound photography, she is the one begging for one more pagoda, market, sunset. At 8:00pm the other night when we were pulled over on the side of the road, I was sitting in the car while she was playing with the light on her camera for her rice paddy night shot. Part of me was restless, but I was so happy she had her own passion and way to see the world I just watched her.

Last night we arrived in Bangkok—a big airport—clueless as to where our luggage was coming out. Lucy and I got through passport control ahead of Glenn and Taylor, and on her own, Lucy walked up to the giant board blinking with which carousel each flight was using. It took her sixty seconds to find it—Vietnam Air 853, Carousel Number 21. And with that she took off  alone across the crowded airport pulling her Betsy Johnson carry-on, red curls flying as she passed Carousel 8: Jakarta, Carousel 9: Beijing–  I could barely keep up with her, she was up to #16: Kolkata.

“I thought they spelled that with a C,” she said.

“They do,” I said “well, did…I’ll explain later, it’s sort of like Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City.”

Then she breezed past #19: Abu Dhabi. “Where’s that?”

“The Emirates,” I said.

“Can we go there?” she asked, not breaking her stride, on her way to collect her luggage from Ho Chi Minh City.

“You bet we can.”

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