Thomas Hager » Travels

Ho, Ho, Ho

TomHager — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:35:04 +0000

Here I am in Hanoi, standing in front of Ho Chi Minh’s tomb. Hanoi was grey, crowded, and the air was chokingly dirty on the day we visited (we spent most of our time up north in a lovely hill area called Thanh Hoa, visiting farmers and sharing one memorable meal with local Communist officials, who toasted us endlessly with tiny cups of coconut wine). The ride into Hanoi from the airport was fascinating — the entire route under construction, cars and buses sharing lanes with mobs of cyclists, and all the revolutionary slogans that once called defiance to the US from billboards along the way now replaced with big ads for banks, construction firms, and electronics.

Then to the tomb. There were more mobs, of Vietnamese tourists this time, visiting their version of Washington, DC, and paying tribute to the Father of their Country. Ho is revered in the Communist manner: His body carefully preserved and put on display every day. At night it’s lowered into a temperature-controlled crypt below the tomb.

Yes, fellow children of the Sixties, Uncle Ho is now a tourist attraction.

And the Vietnamese kept blaming the air pollution on the Chinese.

Cities of the Future

TomHager — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:38:37 +0000

Dhaka, officially the most crowded city on earth, is a hive: the streets are packed; traffic is jammed; airwaves are full of Bengali and Muslim news, soaps, and musicals; shops are tiny, and people are poor. Despite it all, the residents go about their business, the society somehow holds together, and I saw no one lose their temper. People are friendly and helpful. Other religions are tolerated(more than 10 percent of the population is Hindu) and treated with respect. There is a mistrust of Islamic fundamentalism (as well as American imperialism). In the US, there would have been multiple shootings just from road rage.

Cognitive dissonance

TomHager — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:40:06 +0000

It’s a mind-bender flying from Ho Chi Minh City, with its luxury hotels and swank restaurants, to Thanh Hoa, where I spent a day with small-time rice farmers up in the hills. In Thanh Hoa they still use water buffalo to pull their plows, and transplant rice seedlings the same way they did a thousand years ago. Only now the seedlings are hi-tech new breeds, and they’re using the latest techniques to fertilizer. The result: One lady who shared tea with us showed us, in her two-room hut, a new television set, paid for with the small profit she made on her acre of rice.

Ho Chi Minh City

TomHager — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:41:13 +0000

I arrived very late last night (or very early this morning, depending on how you look at it) in The City Once Known as Saigon. Walking around today — a tourist in full, complete with a brand new tropical shirt and camera around the neck — I am immediately targeted by every street person. Here in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam no one begs, but many people try to sell you things at comically inflated prices. This includes, I’ve found, workers in money exchange booths. The first person who offered me a taxi ride at the airport wanted $400 for a $6 ride into town. Once you get used to the fact that you have to know what you’re doing, it’s a lovely place, with warm people, warm temperatures, and some great food. Food is what I’m here to find out about — specifically, how did a people and a place ravaged by decades of modern warfare (including the application of thousands of tons of chemical defoliants) manage in a very short time to become the rice bowl of Asia?