thedrifter
01-30-06, 04:14 PM
At ease in the new Vietnam
By Rhoda Amon
Newsday Staff Writer
Spotting Joe Griffey's gray hair in a line of tourists emerging from the Bamboo Green Central Hotel in Da Nang, two aging Vietnamese motorbikers raised their hands in a smart American salute. Griffey clicked his heels and returned the salute.
As the motorbikers instinctively recognized, Griffey had been here before -- last time as a young Army major in 1968. Now he was on a very different mission to Vietnam -- as tour leader of our group from Friendship Force International, the organization dreamed up by former President Jimmy Carter and friend Wayne Smith to foster global understanding, mostly through travel with home stays.
"It was very moving," said Griffey, 68, of his encounter with the motorbikers. "They were probably old South Vietnamese soldiers."
We experienced many such moving moments on our tour of Vietnam, most often in the North. Surprisingly, we encountered more hospitality and eagerness for friendship in Hanoi, the old enemy capital, than in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), the bustling South Vietnamese metropolis.
"I expected it to be the other way around," Griffey said.
Our arrival in Hanoi was in no way typical. We were greeted with flowers at Noi Bai airport by Khong Dai Minh of the Vietnam-USA Society. Later, under a big banner reading "Warmly Welcome Friendship Ambassadors From the USA," Minh reminded us that the Vietnamese have fought, not just our armies, but also the French, Chinese, Japanese, Cambodians and each other. "We've had only 15 years of full peace rising from the ashes of war," he said.
Rise they have. The streets are alive with thousands of motorbikes and large luxury hotels are in every stage of construction. The trickle of tourism that followed the restoration of ties with the United States a decade ago has swelled to a tourism boom.
Hanoi is "a pleasant surprise" to Griffey and his wife and co-leader, Pat, who are from Auburn, Ala. In fact, Hanoi was the high spot of the tour for all of us, since it was the one place where we stayed with a host family and caught a glimpse of Vietnamese life outside the tourist circuit.
The wife in the host family chosen for Eileene Griffith, another member of our group, and me was Yen, 37, a psychiatrist who works at the state hospital and also manages her five-story house, takes care of her two young children, cooks multicourse meals for her family (including two grandfathers) and sees private patients in her ground-floor office. Her husband, Thang, 42, does acupuncture and loves to sing American songs with his state-of-the-art karaoke system.
The couple has a precocious 10-year-old daughter, Trinh, who speaks English fluently and interpreted for all of us.
We gathered each evening of our four-night stay for a songfest in Griffith's room, where the karaoke system is set up. She didn't get much sleep because the neighbor's chicken coop was just outside her window in this crowded urban enclave. A rooster woke her at dawn with his shrill greeting -- a juxtaposition of the old and new Vietnam.
We encountered this medley of old and new wherever we went. Vendors in conical hats still carry baskets suspended from bamboo poles across their shoulders, passing computer and video shops. In rural areas, children still ride on the backs of water buffalo.
Home stays are not for everyone.
Our host family had modern appliances but no air conditioning, only ceiling fans, and the small bathroom Griffith and I shared had no shower curtain; we sloshed on the wet bathroom floor. But Yen greeted us each morning with a delicious breakfast concoction of eggs, rice and vegetables. The couple waited on the ground floor every evening to welcome us back whenever we returned from a day of sightseeing.
At a farewell party at the Vietnam-USA headquarters, we sang "Oh Susannah" and "Let There Be Peace on Earth," and they sang the Vietnamese equivalent. We departed with hugs and kisses and promises to keep in touch.
Traveling with a guide
After Hanoi, we moved south through Vietnam, staying at four- or five-star hotels with soft bedding and shower curtains, but it was not the same: We were just tourists now. We were fortunate, however, to have a dream of a guide traveling with us through Vietnam: A patient young woman, Thu Giang (pronounced Zan) from the Vietnam-USA Society, went out of her way to cater to our every whim, including arranging for vigorous massages (a specialty here) for travelers with aching bones.
Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An -- three cities in the central belt between northern and southern Vietnam -- blended together in a rainy mist. (The October rainy season is not the best time to visit Vietnam.) Hoi An, an old fishing village, now a World Heritage Site, has narrow streets clogged with motor scooters, ancient pagodas and modern hotels with state-of-the-art computer centers.
We waded through ankle-deep water to visit the Citadel in Hue, the former Imperial capital. Begun in 1804 by Emperor Gia Long, the Citadel was home until 1945 to emperors who functioned inside an Imperial Enclosure, a citadel within a citadel protected by 10 fortified bridges across a moat. It was the scene of one of the fiercest battles during the Vietnam War.
Joe Griffey pointed out bullet holes made when U.S. Marines retreated into the Citadel after meeting unexpected force in 1968. Our guides, uniformly young, rarely talked about "the American war." Most were not yet born when bombs were falling on Vietnamese villages.
In Da Nang, the high spot is the Museum of Cham Sculpture, the only one of its kind in the world. The exquisitely detailed sandstone carvings of gods and seductive goddesses date from the 7th to 15th centuries, described as an age of free expression. Most of the art of the Hindu Champas civilization was uncovered by the French in the early 1900s.
The rain let up as we drove the Hai Van Pass north of Da Nang, with some of the most spectacular views in Vietnam. When the road dropped down to Lang Co Beach, a stretch of palm-shaded sand, Canadian traveler Jean Hyrich and I could dip our toes in the calm, warm South China Sea.
Lunch at the Lang Co Beach Resort was cool and elegant. Vietnamese meals are a succession of individual dishes, big on fish and pork, most of it tasty. Dinner in an upscale restaurant such as the Apsara in Da Nang begins with a fish or noodle soup, followed by shrimp and pork spring rolls (a kind of crisp dumpling), beef poached in coconut juice, pork simmered in a clay pot, vegetables sauteed in lemongrass, fried soybeans, rice, fruit, and tea. The Vietnamese cook with less fat than the Chinese and rarely eat sweets for dessert, which may explain why almost all of them are lean. On one occasion we encountered tough beef. Griffey joked that it was "the underbelly of the water buffalo."
Unlike the men in our group, I had no longing for an American steak, though I did have a yen for ice cream. Food is generally cheap, even in the finer restaurants. In Hanoi, when Griffith and I took our host family to dinner, the tab for seven of us came to $38. The family insisted on paying for the taxi -- about $1.50.
Friendly negotiations
Vietnam may be a Communist state, but its people have embraced capitalism in a big way. The guidebook warns that "prices quoted may be four times the real price." I found myself looking for ways to outsmart these savvy entrepreneurs, not the way an "ambassador" is supposed to think.
Our group soon became expert at negotiating. In the silk district in Hanoi and later in Hoi An, for example, Griffith bought three shirts for $5 (American currency is happily accepted). Hyrich acquired a silk scarf for $1. Some ordered a particular style in their measurements. Since we were leaving the next morning, I thought that risky. But the garments were delivered by 7 a.m. as promised, and fit, mostly, although cut a little tight under the arms.
Ho Chi Minh City was our final destination, with side trips to the Mekong Delta and the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Mekong estuaries, so rife with danger for now-Sen. John Kerry and his swift boat companions during the Vietnam War, are now a pleasant boat ride. We wound up having lunch in a woodsy park, where we watched an expert twirl sticky rice until it formed a bowling ball-size sphere. A toothless entrepreneur offered us a snake in a brandy bottle said to cure backaches. For once, our group proved sales resistant.
The Cu Chi tunnels are an elaborate network that once included living areas, a hospital, command center and kitchens. The tunnels were used by the Viet Cong to launch surprise attacks on American and South Vietnamese forces. A Vietnamese ranger led us through the jungle, good-naturedly pointing out the numerous trap doors. One segment of the tunnels can be entered. It's not recommended.
From the quiet jungle we returned to the teeming commerce of Ho Chi Minh City, where you're served with forks in the French restaurants but are given chopsticks on request.
The fast pace of Westernization worries many Vietnamese. Visitors, too. Gazing down a stretch of unspoiled beach at Lang Co, Friendship Force member Caroline Barmettler, 78, predicted, "This will be all condos in a couple years." She was hoping she was wrong.
Ellie
By Rhoda Amon
Newsday Staff Writer
Spotting Joe Griffey's gray hair in a line of tourists emerging from the Bamboo Green Central Hotel in Da Nang, two aging Vietnamese motorbikers raised their hands in a smart American salute. Griffey clicked his heels and returned the salute.
As the motorbikers instinctively recognized, Griffey had been here before -- last time as a young Army major in 1968. Now he was on a very different mission to Vietnam -- as tour leader of our group from Friendship Force International, the organization dreamed up by former President Jimmy Carter and friend Wayne Smith to foster global understanding, mostly through travel with home stays.
"It was very moving," said Griffey, 68, of his encounter with the motorbikers. "They were probably old South Vietnamese soldiers."
We experienced many such moving moments on our tour of Vietnam, most often in the North. Surprisingly, we encountered more hospitality and eagerness for friendship in Hanoi, the old enemy capital, than in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), the bustling South Vietnamese metropolis.
"I expected it to be the other way around," Griffey said.
Our arrival in Hanoi was in no way typical. We were greeted with flowers at Noi Bai airport by Khong Dai Minh of the Vietnam-USA Society. Later, under a big banner reading "Warmly Welcome Friendship Ambassadors From the USA," Minh reminded us that the Vietnamese have fought, not just our armies, but also the French, Chinese, Japanese, Cambodians and each other. "We've had only 15 years of full peace rising from the ashes of war," he said.
Rise they have. The streets are alive with thousands of motorbikes and large luxury hotels are in every stage of construction. The trickle of tourism that followed the restoration of ties with the United States a decade ago has swelled to a tourism boom.
Hanoi is "a pleasant surprise" to Griffey and his wife and co-leader, Pat, who are from Auburn, Ala. In fact, Hanoi was the high spot of the tour for all of us, since it was the one place where we stayed with a host family and caught a glimpse of Vietnamese life outside the tourist circuit.
The wife in the host family chosen for Eileene Griffith, another member of our group, and me was Yen, 37, a psychiatrist who works at the state hospital and also manages her five-story house, takes care of her two young children, cooks multicourse meals for her family (including two grandfathers) and sees private patients in her ground-floor office. Her husband, Thang, 42, does acupuncture and loves to sing American songs with his state-of-the-art karaoke system.
The couple has a precocious 10-year-old daughter, Trinh, who speaks English fluently and interpreted for all of us.
We gathered each evening of our four-night stay for a songfest in Griffith's room, where the karaoke system is set up. She didn't get much sleep because the neighbor's chicken coop was just outside her window in this crowded urban enclave. A rooster woke her at dawn with his shrill greeting -- a juxtaposition of the old and new Vietnam.
We encountered this medley of old and new wherever we went. Vendors in conical hats still carry baskets suspended from bamboo poles across their shoulders, passing computer and video shops. In rural areas, children still ride on the backs of water buffalo.
Home stays are not for everyone.
Our host family had modern appliances but no air conditioning, only ceiling fans, and the small bathroom Griffith and I shared had no shower curtain; we sloshed on the wet bathroom floor. But Yen greeted us each morning with a delicious breakfast concoction of eggs, rice and vegetables. The couple waited on the ground floor every evening to welcome us back whenever we returned from a day of sightseeing.
At a farewell party at the Vietnam-USA headquarters, we sang "Oh Susannah" and "Let There Be Peace on Earth," and they sang the Vietnamese equivalent. We departed with hugs and kisses and promises to keep in touch.
Traveling with a guide
After Hanoi, we moved south through Vietnam, staying at four- or five-star hotels with soft bedding and shower curtains, but it was not the same: We were just tourists now. We were fortunate, however, to have a dream of a guide traveling with us through Vietnam: A patient young woman, Thu Giang (pronounced Zan) from the Vietnam-USA Society, went out of her way to cater to our every whim, including arranging for vigorous massages (a specialty here) for travelers with aching bones.
Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An -- three cities in the central belt between northern and southern Vietnam -- blended together in a rainy mist. (The October rainy season is not the best time to visit Vietnam.) Hoi An, an old fishing village, now a World Heritage Site, has narrow streets clogged with motor scooters, ancient pagodas and modern hotels with state-of-the-art computer centers.
We waded through ankle-deep water to visit the Citadel in Hue, the former Imperial capital. Begun in 1804 by Emperor Gia Long, the Citadel was home until 1945 to emperors who functioned inside an Imperial Enclosure, a citadel within a citadel protected by 10 fortified bridges across a moat. It was the scene of one of the fiercest battles during the Vietnam War.
Joe Griffey pointed out bullet holes made when U.S. Marines retreated into the Citadel after meeting unexpected force in 1968. Our guides, uniformly young, rarely talked about "the American war." Most were not yet born when bombs were falling on Vietnamese villages.
In Da Nang, the high spot is the Museum of Cham Sculpture, the only one of its kind in the world. The exquisitely detailed sandstone carvings of gods and seductive goddesses date from the 7th to 15th centuries, described as an age of free expression. Most of the art of the Hindu Champas civilization was uncovered by the French in the early 1900s.
The rain let up as we drove the Hai Van Pass north of Da Nang, with some of the most spectacular views in Vietnam. When the road dropped down to Lang Co Beach, a stretch of palm-shaded sand, Canadian traveler Jean Hyrich and I could dip our toes in the calm, warm South China Sea.
Lunch at the Lang Co Beach Resort was cool and elegant. Vietnamese meals are a succession of individual dishes, big on fish and pork, most of it tasty. Dinner in an upscale restaurant such as the Apsara in Da Nang begins with a fish or noodle soup, followed by shrimp and pork spring rolls (a kind of crisp dumpling), beef poached in coconut juice, pork simmered in a clay pot, vegetables sauteed in lemongrass, fried soybeans, rice, fruit, and tea. The Vietnamese cook with less fat than the Chinese and rarely eat sweets for dessert, which may explain why almost all of them are lean. On one occasion we encountered tough beef. Griffey joked that it was "the underbelly of the water buffalo."
Unlike the men in our group, I had no longing for an American steak, though I did have a yen for ice cream. Food is generally cheap, even in the finer restaurants. In Hanoi, when Griffith and I took our host family to dinner, the tab for seven of us came to $38. The family insisted on paying for the taxi -- about $1.50.
Friendly negotiations
Vietnam may be a Communist state, but its people have embraced capitalism in a big way. The guidebook warns that "prices quoted may be four times the real price." I found myself looking for ways to outsmart these savvy entrepreneurs, not the way an "ambassador" is supposed to think.
Our group soon became expert at negotiating. In the silk district in Hanoi and later in Hoi An, for example, Griffith bought three shirts for $5 (American currency is happily accepted). Hyrich acquired a silk scarf for $1. Some ordered a particular style in their measurements. Since we were leaving the next morning, I thought that risky. But the garments were delivered by 7 a.m. as promised, and fit, mostly, although cut a little tight under the arms.
Ho Chi Minh City was our final destination, with side trips to the Mekong Delta and the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Mekong estuaries, so rife with danger for now-Sen. John Kerry and his swift boat companions during the Vietnam War, are now a pleasant boat ride. We wound up having lunch in a woodsy park, where we watched an expert twirl sticky rice until it formed a bowling ball-size sphere. A toothless entrepreneur offered us a snake in a brandy bottle said to cure backaches. For once, our group proved sales resistant.
The Cu Chi tunnels are an elaborate network that once included living areas, a hospital, command center and kitchens. The tunnels were used by the Viet Cong to launch surprise attacks on American and South Vietnamese forces. A Vietnamese ranger led us through the jungle, good-naturedly pointing out the numerous trap doors. One segment of the tunnels can be entered. It's not recommended.
From the quiet jungle we returned to the teeming commerce of Ho Chi Minh City, where you're served with forks in the French restaurants but are given chopsticks on request.
The fast pace of Westernization worries many Vietnamese. Visitors, too. Gazing down a stretch of unspoiled beach at Lang Co, Friendship Force member Caroline Barmettler, 78, predicted, "This will be all condos in a couple years." She was hoping she was wrong.
Ellie