Vietnam
The Place
Vietnam forms the eastern edge - meeting the South China Sea - of the area formerly called Indochina. Due north is China. On the country's western border are Laos and Cambodia. Directly east, across the South China Sea, is the Philippines.
Even after nearly three decades of peace the remnants of a war-shattered country can still be found. In an odd irony, the residue of war is now part of the country's tourism pull. Northern Vietnam is anchored by Hanoi, an ancient city established nearly 1,000 years ago. This political capital clings to the rhetoric of a socialist system while at the same time embracing a government-controlled capitalism. The dilapidated villas and façades of the French colonial era give the city an ambience not found elsewhere in Asia.
Beyond Hanoi, the provinces of the vast Song Hong, or Red River, delta reflect the traditional agricultural culture upon which the economy is based. And beyond the delta's plains, the cooler mountain regions, populated by hill tribes, ascend towards the west and Laos and northward towards China.
Southward the traveller finds a chain of coastal provinces washed by the South China Sea. In the old imperial city of Hue, an overwhelming sense of the past pervades the older streets. In the lands of the ancient kingdom of Champa further south are decaying sanctuaries, temples and towers that testify to the conquest by the Viet people from the north. Then there is the city of Ho Chi Minh. Often still called Saigon, it is reviving its hackneyed former image as a hustling-and-bustling city of people on the make and on the go.
