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I’m in Hanoi now and just got back from a 2 day trip in Halong Bay. That was very beautiful, with 100s of little islands, one of which we stayed on last night. On Tuesday I went to see Ho Chi Mihn’s mausoleum, which I imagine is a lot like Lenin’s if you have seen that. There is a huge line of 10s of 1000s of people that they corral through the building so you can glimpse him for 30 seconds. He looked like he was either asleep, or a wax statue from Disneyland. I met a Vietnamese student there who is studying English to become a teacher. I gave him some of our local slang for an hour, then he invited me to his house for lunch. He lived in an area of the slums, with 2 other students and they paid about $55 a month total for a 1 room shack. He almost died when I told him how expensive SF housing is. We ate at a very local food stall and a huge lunch of rice noodle soup with these minced snake meat fritters was tasty and about $0.40. We ended up rapping for several hours, after which he took me back to the museum and gave me a private tour. It was an amazing experience and I was impressed by his progressive ideals about social situations, freedom of speech and press, education and government. He listens to Radio America all the time and reads Time and Newsweek and was quite knowledgeable for a 23 year old.

‘Nam is absolutely fantastic. It’s much better than I imagined. I wish I would have skipped Laos and spent that extra 6 days here. I’m running out of time here, so I fly to Hanoi tomorrow for 4-5 days there and around Hualang Bay.

In 1990 the Vitenamese govenment opened it’s borders to travel, lifted a large amount of restrictions on the people and adopted many privitization and capitalization practices in the economy in hopes of establishing new political ties to the West and especially America. It turns out that they are worried China wants to dominate them and are willing to take more democratization steps to gain and keep the support of the west and retain there independence in the years to come.

I just spent 2 days on the Mekong Delta on an organized tour with some fellow backpackers. I’m traveling with a very cool English guys for my few days here. Our guide was a translator for the US Army, then was evacuated to the US in ‘75. Because his family was still in Vietnam he decided to return in ‘76, but the government thought he was a spy because he worked for the US and he got put in a “re-education” labor camp for 6 years of hard labor. Most of the citizens are very pro-American and anti-communist, though only in private. They are also surprisingly anti-China, as the Chinese want to dominate their country.

I just got to Ho Chi Mihn city in Vietnam today and Charlie definitely don’t surf! [Apocalypse Now reference]
The people are really friendly to tourists, suprisingly so to Americans. I had heard this was the case but until I experienced it I had a tough time setting my expectations as such. I guess the key detail is that 55% of the population has been born since the war, so most people don’t remember it nor do they have any animosity towards Westerners and Americans specifically. Several people talked to me as I was coming in from the airport just to see where I was from. It’s way more friendly and clean than I expected. I will wait to see if the locals’ perception towards Tourists/Americans will be different in Hanoi. My room is the nicest I have had in the last 3 weeks, for $12 a night (a bit more expensive than most places but at least 5 times as clean and comforting). I’m trying to hook up with some of my friends I met on my trek in Chaing Mai here. They are supposedly here right now, so hopefully they check their email soon. Internet cafes are everywhere in Asia. What an amazing invention and convenient way to travel!!!!