Back in ‘Nam

Sin chao!

Vietnam was a highly exciting country to get into… instantly after you cross the border – you already have “When I was back in ‘Nam…” stories!
The first thing that poped into my mind was that brilliant line from family guy:
“When I was back in ‘Nam, I saw some things and some stuff and some shit…”

One of the first and most noticable things once we arrived to the city of Hue was the massive communist propaganda… The Soviet style creeps out of every street sign.

Unfortunetly, behind these cool pictures stands the “cultural revolution”. I do not intend to discuss the pros & cons of communism here… for the protocol communism is Vietnam is dead anyway – long live single party dictatorship.
The reason that it is unfotunate is that the revolution destroyed much of the authentic culture and unique religion the Vietnamese used to have.
As a traveller, a huge difference lies between visiting places that used to be something and places that are still something.

The story begins with the Hindu kingdom of the Chams that existed around central and southern Vietnam, it’s high was around the same period as the Khmer Empire(or Angkorian Empire – now in cambodia). The Chams believed Shiva was the protector of their kingdom and worshipped him as their main god in addition to other local dieties. Their culture was mainly drawn from the southern Indian Hindu kingdoms (like Hampi) – this includes architecure, art and language.
The Vietnamese equivalent of Angkor Wat is called “My Son” and is in fact the ruins of the Cham Empire spiritual and political capital. Unfortunately, the american was did not spare this monument as supposedly VC forces were hiding in the ruins and so the americans leveled most of it to the ground. To start with the site is a lot smaller than Angkor Wat and what remains of it today (although restoration works are underway) is just a few half ruined temples – most of the intact statues were taken away to museums around Vietnam.

This is called “Shiva Linga” – it is the symbol of male energy… doesn’t leave much space for imagination, does it?

Traditional Cham-Hindu dance:

Then came the Ashokan messangers and brought Buddhism.
Surprisngly enough, the Vietnamese Buddhism belongs to the Mahayana school, which comes in contrast to the rest of the countries (Thailand, Laos and Cambodia) in the region which are Theravadic Buddhists (Hinayana).
The Theravada Buddhism school or “The Ancesteral Buddhism” is a form of Buddhism that clings hard to the original scriptures that arrived to the area from both Burma and Sri Lanka.
The Mahayana school is strongly associated to the Tibetan version – which contains many additions and clarifications to the original scriptures.
One of the stronger sects in Vietnam is the famous-in-name-but-not-in-essance “Zen Buddhism” – which emphasizes it’s practice mainly on meditation.

Throughout many ages of history, the Vietnamese people stood firmly upon their differences with their gigantic neighbour from the north – China.
They have had numerous wars, which included many Vietnamese victories, but still more than a thousand years of Chinese occupation. It seems that China has regarded Vietnam as a rebellious province while the Vietnamese were fighting for their freedom and their definition as a seperate nation.
Freedom or not, a thousand years of occupation and a neghbour so culturally active left their mark on the Vietnamese ways of life.
One of the boldest examples is Confucionism. Confucius was a chinese philosopher who dealt with the questions of ethics. To this day, either you are christian, muslim, buddhist or secular – the Vietnamese look back to the confucian code of ethics when it comes to family life and the relationships of man-to-man and man-to-nature.
A Confucius Temple:

Then came the european traders… and soon enough with the european traders came the christian missionaries. The success of the christ missionaries in Vietnam is second only to the Philipinnes in this area of the world. It can be generally said that most southern Vietnamese would define themeslves as christians if anything.
It is quite weird and surprising to see so many crosses on traditional-architecture built graves.

After the end of WWII, the french protectorate ended and North Vietnam was left to be taken over by the Viet Minh (later to become the communist party).
The communist north was led by Ho Chi Minh (or as they call him “Uncle Ho”) and the south was led by the Nguyen Dynasty and was in fact a kingdom with christianism as it’s official religion!
It is for that reason(supposedly, without talking about world-drug conspiracies) that the south Vietnamese requested the help of the Americans. At that point, south and north vietnam were seperate kingdoms for many centuries. Thus, there was no feeling of unity and surely neither was ready to be controlled by the other.

The American war – as horrible as we know it, with all it’s political slime and the countless innocents that were massecared… the vietnamese have quite a surprising approach to it. Whenever I encountered something written about the american war, there followed a comment that compared it to their long strife against the Chinese and how the American war was a small obstacle in compare to the everlasting Chinese threat.
This is a drawing from the Vietnamese Art Foundation Centre in Hue city…
The style might look very familiar to all those who ever visited “Yad Va Shem”.

There is a lot of War-Tourist in Vietnam, one can go to battle sites, massacare fields that still have bones scattered around them, climb tanks and play with all kinds of left over military equipment around the country. I did not find this kind of attractions to attractive – so to all you guys that were expecting cool photos of the Vietnam-American war related stuff, I’m sorry to disappoint you.
I do have a picture of a cool cannon from Hue though

Traveling in Vietnam can bring mixed feelings, on one hand, the people are extremely nice(I find them second is kindness only to the Tibetan), on the other hand the tourist route is very contained. You will go on quite a narrow path through the country, you will see almost only what they want you to see.
The government gives out special permits to hotels which are allowed to accommodate foreigners. So there are no small family guesthouses and furthermore – there is no going to a small village that is out of the main touristic track. You have to stay in quite big central cities and mostly in very solid looking hotels.

But don’t lose hope! There’s always a solution, the trick is simple, you hire a motorbike and head out into the mountains… there you will find the views you’re looking for, the villages, the super-friendly and curious kids, the crazy foods and everything else your soul craves. Some pics from the biking days in Dalat:

This cute girl just stopped me on the street of her village, got on my bike and showed me a super-cool way through the fields down a beautiful lake… It was amazing how kind she was, she showed me around and I could see she was genuinely excited to show me around here village… We sat down by the lake, bounced some stones off the water – all without exchanging a single word!
Then she led me back to the bike, pulled a branch out of my wheel and walked away… I yelled “thank you” in vietnamese, she turned around, smiled and disappeared behind the overgrowth

This is a “wine” (maybe more like a super-spirit) made of pickled seahorses!

Life support:
The food is amazing, I regret I didn’t adopt Avner’s habbit to take pictures of everything I eat… (Be carefull not to drool on your keyboards now).
It starts from crab&mushroom soups, goes on to Coriander intense bowls of noodle and crispy pork, BBQed scallops & shrimps with garlic and onion… oh my god
Food is much better and cheaper than both thailand and laos.

Shopping:
Ladies, listen hard… There is a town on the central coast of Vietnam, that is called “Hoi An”. This town is famous for their tailors. Basically, it like this: you walk into a cloths shop, you sit down, they give you a fashion magazine (with about 800 pages each), you pick what you want – whatever you want… And the next day you come back and it’s ready… measured especially for you.
You can make any piece of clothing possible, from g-strings and evening dresses to heavy coats, any kind of shoes, bags… you get the idea.
The prices are brilliant, it is possibly 10 times less than on the magazines themselves and maybe even more if you actually want to make it custom for you.
It’s a women’s paradise, they walk around(or should I say “hover around”) going “oh my god, oh my god, oh my god” every couple of seconds… Most of them look like their eyes are going to pop out even they get even slightly more excited.

Pictures from tourist attractions and other adventure from Hue and Hoi An:

A place called “The crazy house” in Dalat – it is inspired by Alice in Wonderland:

Vietnam is the only country in South-East Asia that is using Latin script, they had quite a few apostrofies and accents added to it. Like in any other group of languages that share the same script, you get funny things…. like this:

This was a long post…
and now it is time for our traditional ending, this sunset is from Dalat:

Sin Chao,
me.