From Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City: Vietnam surprises and delights

HO CHI MINH CITY — Nguyen Vinh Phat has plenty of reasons to resent Americans. He has relatives who were bombed and sprayed with Agent Orange during the war, and he grew up wanting to be a soldier protecting his country. But as he grips a bus seat to keep balance while careening through Ho Chi Minh City traffic, he shows only a smile as he explains how he came to be a tour guide catering in part to Americans.

When Nguyen takes us through the Viet Cong tunnels, where some the ugliest war casualties occurred at the ends of bamboo spikes and chemical sprays, he takes several moments to remind us of the importance of Vietnamese and American people learning to be friends. “Friends forever,” he says.

Being warmly welcomed on a tour about the damages of the Vietnam war was just one of countless surprises Vietnam had in store for me on a two-week backpacking trip from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. I learned that the best parts about Vietnam are the ones you don’t see coming.

In many ways, the tourism industry in Vietnam is still finding its feet as the number of international visitors has doubled in the last decade. The pictures on posters, and descriptions in pamphlets generally do not match reality. Our ongoing slogan for the trip: Nothing is as it seems.

Taking a “direct” bus between cities? Don’t be surprised if you stop along the way for a full bus-washing with everyone on board. Catching a “sunrise tour” of temple ruins? Prepare for the sun to rise while you’re still on the surprise three-hour drive there. You might order frog legs and get whole baby frogs, or order dinner and not be told they’re out of your ingredients until the rest of the table has finished their meals.

But with the tourism industry now accounting for nearly a tenth of the country’s GDP, the scramble is on to capture the expanding market. Main streets are dotted with tourist information centers, double-decker buses, and hostesses handing out English menus.

Most helpfully, there is a well-worn backpackers’ trail from Hanoi (Vietnam’s capital on the north end of the country) to Ho Chi Minh City in the south. Tips from fellow travelers and hostel staff make it possible to navigate the otherwise nebulous tour information.

If you’re comfortable traveling with flexibility and spontaneity, you’ll stumble upon everything you could want and more in a vacation in Vietnam.

Food

Food is toward the top of the list of priorities for many travelers. Wherever you go in Vietnam, a top-notch $1 bowl of some variation on noodles, broth and meat can’t be far. Pho is ubiquitous. And every town seems to boast its own local specialty, from Hue’s bun bo Hue (noodles in a flavorful pork broth with beef and other toppings), to Hoi An’s Cao Lau (subtract the broth, change up the spices and add fresh greens). Banh mi sandwiches never disappoint for a quick lunch or bar-time snack. And there’s no shortage of mysterious street meats to try your luck at, if you’re into that.

History

In many countries, learning about history entails long periods of standing around reading plaques at museums. In Vietnam, it involves walking around bomb craters and through Hindu temple ruins at My Son, climbing into sanctuary caves in the Marble Mountains, and crawling though Viet Cong tunnels.

Even at the museums, I felt like I was experiencing history rather than just observing it, because even the methods of presenting artifacts were fascinating. At the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, history is written from a starkly different viewpoint than in American textbooks. Captions on graphic photos of birth defects detail the impacts of American spraying of Agent Orange, while photos of Vietnamese people fighting Americans feature captions like, “The USA staged the war between the Vietnamese people.”

Natural beauty

In this department, Vietnam really packs it in. On the far north end of the country, Sapa is home to terraced rice fields that can occasionally see snow in the coldest months. On the southern end, you can find sweltering tropical islands like the peaceful Phu Quoc.

In between, catch the majestic high-rising limestone islands of Halong Bay, rocky waterfalls of Dalat, hot springs and ziplines of Hue, and white sand dunes of Mui Ne.

City life

For travelers who love jumping into the bustle of big cities, Vietnam does not disappoint. Open-air markets offer the opportunity to test your bargaining skills and pick up clothing, jewelry, lanterns, artwork and other souvenirs for prices you can only find in secondhand stores in the U.S. In Hoi An, get an outfit tailored to your measurements with your choice of fabrics for as low as $20.

Long walks reward travelers with plenty of well-maintained public parks, delicious hole-in-the-wall restaurants and friendly family-run stores.

When the sun starts to go down, the hostels turn up. Many offer free beer in the evenings before shepherding their groups of tourists around on pub crawls. While these tours are somewhat limiting in sticking to tourist-dominated bars, it’s a chance to get to know travelers from all over the world. Americans are still a small minority at backpackers’ hostels.

Culture

With their tumultuous history, including a thousand years of Chinese rule and more than half a century as a French colony, the Vietnamese have fused many foreign influences with their own creations in architecture, art, food and beliefs.

The Caodaist Great Temple near Ho Chi Minh City is one of the most vibrant examples of how Vietnamese people have melded many cultures. The uniquely Vietnamese religion includes elements of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. A mural depicts three of its saints: Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, French writer Victor Hugo and Vietnamese poet Nguyen Binh Khiem.

Regardless of affiliation with Caodaoism, Buddhism, Catholicism or other another religion (sometimes multiple), many Vietnamese families have altars where they can pray to their ancestors.

“When I look on the sky, many stars seem to twinkle as if someone is smiling with me,” Nguyen wrote me in an email about his ancestors. “That makes me stronger and more optimistic when I have any troubles and difficulties in my life. We could not forget their sacrifices for the dream in Vietnam and for their children.”

Because of these strong family bonds that span generations, as well as the lingering evidence of destruction, the war is not easily forgotten here. But like Nguyen, many Vietnamese people choose to welcome Americans as friends and chart a different future.

“Vietnamese people did not keep the bad things in their mind because their hearts are not big enough to contain all of them,” Nguyen wrote. “In the past, we were enemy of each other but today we are friends. If we always keep the past, keep the wars, we never have any friends.”

Rory Linnane, Special for USA TODAY