We were both happy to be moving on from the Indian sub-continent to South East Asia and Vietnam. We had spent almost four months in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka and to be honest we didn't want to see another curry for a long, long time. We were up for about 30 hours straight due to the flight being at 1 am and a 3 hour stop-over in Singapore and were dreading the visa, which we had arranged over the internet, either not being valid or taking a long time. As we waited
patiently for the very communist uniformed immigration officers to sort through our forms and stamp our passports we were pleasantly surprised when all was completed within 30 minutes. We proceeded through the doors of the airport, made ourselves instant millionaires at the ATM(1,000,000 Vietnamese dong = £30) and hopped on a mini-bus to the centre of Hanoi.
What we were greeted with when we arrived was a sea of faces flying past on motorbikes and full of smiles. Everywhere we turned someone was smiling at us, saying hello or just having a wee giggle at our look of sheer terror at the potential crossing of the road!!! This turned out to be a universal constant throughout all the Vietnamese people we met and it seemed to reverberate through their whole personality. We went on a 2 day trek in the northern highlands near Sapa and our guide, a lovely lady called Sho, would talk as if her whole body was smiling. We would walk over the crest of a hill and she would shout 'Yes!!!' with arms spread out in starjump formation. We would all rush up to see what caused such a reaction and when nothing was evident we asked what it was, her reply 'a breeze'.
We both came here not knowing what to expect. Our limited knowledge of Vietnam and it's history was sourced from the guide book we were carrying and my (John's) watching of Vietnam war movies.
So it was a surprise to be in a very modern city with wifi in most cafe's and hotels, shiny new cars and scooters filling the roads and iPhones and iPads galore. We understand now that Vietnamese people are fiercely proud of their country, often talking of their traditions and particular customs. It is also one of the most open economies in the region and, something which I did not believe at first, is the second largest exporter of coffee behind Brazil??? I consider myself a bit of a coffee connoisseur and I have not once seen Vietnamese coffee for sale, it also is one of the largest exporters of pepper and various other things so the Vietnamese people really do have a lot to smile about. During our travels we visited the War Remnants Museum in Saigon and were struck by two things. One was the very blatant propaganda
approach by the Government, painting the Vietnamese as victims on all accounts with no mention of the atrocities that were committed against the POW's that have become infamous in our society through countless films and documentaries. The second was the viewpoint of the Vietnamese people. We saw a huge photographic display from photographers on both sides which, again very biased, showed some awful scenes and stories that were committed against the Vietnamese people. It makes you think about when we say that we are whiter than white how sometimes we have been stained red by the past. When you remember that a lot of people within Vietnam were affected by the war in the 60's and 70's you could completely understand if they would be resistant to us as westerners, yet we are received with a smile.
As we traveled south through Vietnam we knew we had definitely hit the tourist trail. We had been very much the minority in the sub-continent, quite often being the only white people on the bus. We were now traveling on tourist buses, although with some locals, we definitely were not the minority. This brought with it a few difficulties like being charged large amounts for water, food or just about anything. This left a bad taste in the mouth at times but to be
honest we could almost guarantee that within the same day something would happen to make us smile, and it quite often was the locals that made it happen. We were sitting waiting for breakfast one morning and had both ordered scrambled eggs on a baguette. We were enjoying some lovely iced coffee, well we were enjoying it for quite a while, when a guy drove up in a scooter, whipped a bag of fresh baguettes off the handle and sprinted past us with a big grin and a very cheerful 'hello!' Our eggs arrived promptly afterwards, we both turned to each other and said 'at least we know they are fresh'.
It has been the lasting impression we have had of Vietnam. Having traveled the length of the country and spoken to many locals we have found that even if they meet some awful tourists who treat them with such disrespect or rudeness they still have the ability to smile, something which we westerners really struggle to do. We were sitting in a cafe in Hanoi one day and two Spanish girls lent over the counter and with quite stern voices pointed and ordered the girl behind the counter to give them what they wanted. They also sent back a coffee to be re-heated by shoving it across the counter and shouting at the same girl. It was the first time I saw a Vietnamese person seem disheartened and not smiling. It made me very angry and told Louise what happened. When we were leaving she went over to the counter next to the Spaniards and said, with a slightly raised voice, said 'Thank you very much for the lovely food.' The girl behind the counter just burst into the most wonderful smile and gave us a cheerful wave as we left filling us with a sense of happiness. This is just one of the reasons we will remember Vietnam as the place that smiled.
