Since my teenage years, in the late 80´s, I had one fascination in my mind, and it was called Vietnam. It was the height of the Holywood movies about the war that ravaged the country and besides the movies I used to read a lot of books with stories that develop there. I always wanted to see it by myself...
The Holywood version usually protraited one side of the story. Heroic american soldiers being killed by blood-thirsty vietnamese mercenaries and we used to sight in relieve when a few surviving americans made a great escapade, at the last minute.
Vietnam was a rewarding discovery. What we found shed a completely new light on what we knew about the biased history we were told. The vietnamese history is a history of invasions, of foreign domination, of suffering of its people. The region now known as Vietnam was subsequently invaded by different chinese dinasties, by the japanese, by the siamese (currently Thailand), by the Khmer Empire (currently Cambodia), by the French, the Americans and even at some point in time by the far reaching Mongol Empire.
And why were they so often relatively defeated with ease? Mainly because they were always internally divided into smaller and corrupted kingdoms and also, and that´s one of my conclusions, they are basically peaceful. The fact that they are majorly of the Buddhist religion may also have to do with it, since following Buddhism means abdicating from materialist and violence related affairs. So conquering may not have been one of their main interests and thus became easy targets.
And why were they so often relatively defeated with ease? Mainly because they were always internally divided into smaller and corrupted kingdoms and also, and that´s one of my conclusions, they are basically peaceful. The fact that they are majorly of the Buddhist religion may also have to do with it, since following Buddhism means abdicating from materialist and violence related affairs. So conquering may not have been one of their main interests and thus became easy targets.
While most of the other religions feel they need to spread their own belief onto others, protraying their "god" as the only true supreme entity, disrespecting their right to their own faith and more often than not with the use of sheer force and imposition, the Buddhist only want to be left alone and live in peace. That is unfortunately seen as weakness by opportunists.
In spite of all odds, Vietnam has seen prosperity and economic growth in recent times, at least for the last two decades. Nevertheless, the country is still very poor and the majority of the population lack the very basic for a decent life. However not once have we felt any threath to our well-being nor have we been harassed in any way, except by one isolated incident with a taxi driver in Saigon who tampered the meter in his car and we ended up paying more than double the fair rate. But even that resulted in less than a US$ 10 loss. So a sound advice would be to negotiate the rate before riding, which we didn´t.
Most of the vietnamese income and livelihood comes from its natural resources, especially water. The powerful and mythical Mekong River, for instance, cuts through the country and provides the much needed subsistence for the population. Besides that its one of the most famous tourist attractions, bringing yet one more form of income. It´s important to note that before reaching Vietnam, the Mekong crosses 6 other countries who also basically live on the mighty river. During one of our many boat cruises, I was astonished to notice that there were so many traps for fish and shrimps in the river that, first, the boat we were on had to make detours here and there to avoid disrupting the traps and, second, it seems impossible to me that there was any fish left in the water before the river finally poured into the South China Sea.
Beside the many interesting places we visited, two of them were truly amazing. The Ho Chi Minh museum and mausoleum in Hanoi, where the actual body of the late President and biggest national hero still lays for everyone to see since his death in September 1969, well preserved in a refrigerated glass casing inside a freezing room, where the tourists walk past in an army controlled and quick moving line. Dress appropriately, do not talk, do not touch each other, do not take pictures... take a look and move on!
The second attraction I wish to point out is truly breathtaking. Now Vietnam´s biggest tourist attraction, the Ha_Long_Bay is a group of thousands of small islands, islets and rock formations located in the northern province of Quang Nihn. Only a couple of them are inhabited by small fishing villages of less than 2000 people. Legend has it that the early inland populations, when reaching the shores and looking into the misty distance they believed they were seeing dragons sent by God to protect the land from invaders. Ha Long rightfully means "Descending Dragons".
Ha Long Bay was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1994 and recently in 2012 it was included as one of the New Seven Natural Wonders of the World. It truly deserves the recognition.
To finalize this article, I could not fail to mention the food! Vietnam has an amazing cuisine, based on fresh and natural ingredients that will not disappoint anyone. They eat a lot of "strange" things that may even afront the delicate palate, but that is common in most Asian cultures. Basically all movings creatures are eatable, so let us not go deep into that direction. The national dish seems to be a kind of soup called "pho" made out of fresh garden produce, any kind of meat and rice noodles. Delicious!!! And they eat it also on breakfast...
