The main point of this post is to share an encounter I had on the way to Vietnam last winter but I want to go there by way of recommending an interesting new book first. I haven't even gotten past the 3rd chapter but it inspired me to start trying to share more of my experiences traveling throughout Southeast Asia. The book is Vietnam Now by David Lamb. If you want an entertaining and informative peek into an amazing country that most of us know nothing about other than that the U.S. fought a long ugly war there, pick it up.
In the first few chapters you’ll learn what I’ve told lots of folks about the Vietnamese today. Despite the fact that the U.S. killed 3 million Vietnamese while bombing Vietnam and Laos back into the dark ages and then isolated the country into a cycle of poverty for years, they are now - just 30 years after the end of the war - probably the warmest, gentlest and most gracious hosts an American traveler could find in the world.
Reasons Lamb gives are intriguing: Ho Chi Min, the founder of the Vietnamese communist movement and leader of their fight for independence, preached that the enemy was not the American people but the American government. Imagine that coming from America’s present enemies like Bin Laden. Another: The war was just another war and blip on the country’s history of 2,500 years. He gives other reasons but you can buy the book for those. For a few examples of how I was the lucky recipient of this Vietnamese hospitality, read on.
On my last trip to Hanoi last February I traveled alone on a crowded plane full of mostly Vietnamese students and workers who live in Korea and were on the way back home for the Lunar New Year, Tet in Vietnam and Seolnal in Korea. Every square inch of available space was packed with electronics, food and other gifts for families back home during the biggest holiday of the year.
A few minutes into the flight, a small man(Bao) sitting next to me could hardly contain his excitement. His face was beaming, and he glanced around the plane at me, out the window, forward to the three Vietnamese men in front of us. He introduced himself and told me he’d been studying some sort of engineering in Korea and hadn’t been home for over a year. His knees were crammed up to his chest because his feet were sitting on top of some Korean home appliance that wouldn’t fit under the seat.
After he insisted that the men in front of us took our picture together (with his brand new Samsung digital camera) he told me he and his fiancé happened to own a hotel in downtown Hanoi and that he would love for me to stay there. Since I wasn’t meeting friends until a few days later I gave it some thought but in fact I was a little worried. Even though I knew all about Vietnamese hospitality from my trip there years earlier I was a little worried that I was being hustled, either into a dingy hotel which would be hard to get out of once I committed to looking at it, or worse. He’d been so chatty so much with the guys in front of us even though he’d told me he didn’t know them. I thought maybe they were in on something together. In certain countries in the region, my suspicions could be very justified.
I remember being a little pissed off when the men asked me to move so they could all take a picture together and then one of them motioned me to just move over to the cramped seat with the box in the floor for the rest of the flight. Weeks later I realized it was just an innocent request that made perfect sense to a Vietnamese man. On several bus rides in Vietnam and Laos, we were crammed in 6 or 7 to a row, people sitting on cargo that had been stowed in the aisles, climbing in and out of the windows at rest stops, one breast feeding hill tribe mother falling asleep with her head on my shoulder.
As we approached Hanoi, most of the passengers had noses glued to the windows to catch a glimpse of their homeland, chattering and grinning. I figured I almost had no way out of the invitation but I would just go through customs and baggage claim and as far as I could to play things out and see what would happen. The offer for a free ride into town made it even harder to turn down. It was when I stepped into the lobby and saw Bao’s beautiful young fiancé with a huge bouquet of flowers, and his handsome little brother and cousin that I relaxed. A driver for their hotel was waiting in a spacious van out in the parking lot and I have to say that I experienced my most hassle free and hospitable arrival in any country ever, that day.
During the 45 minute drive, Bao's cousin practiced his English with me while Bao struggled to keep his hands, eyes and mind off of his fiance and be a gracious host at the same time. They set me up in a gorgeous room in a French-colonial hotel in the center of Hanoi’s charming and bustling Old Quarter that looks like New Orleans if Asians were throwing Mardi Gras instead of drunk Americans. My balcony overlooked the street that ran about 2 blocks to Hoan Kiem Lake where that night’s New Years fireworks and festivities would be centered. When I checked out the next morning, to go meet my friends and stay in a cheaper hotel with the group coming in from Seoul to play Ultimate, Bao wasn’t around but his girlfriend charged me 12$, a pretty high rate for the average backpacker staying in Hanoi. But I gladly paid because the room was spacious, spotless, charming and convenient, and I hated to check out.
