Cold War Burning

This will be my final dispatch from Vietnam. Time to didi mau, I’m coming home Nancy…

Hanoi celebrates another holiday on May 1st, International Labor Day. Vietnam is also into spacing holidays into really long weekends. I’ll be holding off on my Hanoi city tour until Saturday, when more sights open up for visitors. I know I’m cutting things sort of tight, as my plane leaves at 5:45 p.m. but it will all work out. So far, I have had so many close calls, catching my China Airways flight will be the least of my worries, unless another typhoon shows up. Um, looks as if the swine flu will have us passing through temperature checks at the airports. So, barring a Vietnamese swine epidemic, I should not need to walk home.

I passed up the evening event at the Hoan Kiem Lake area, if, in fact there was a celebration. Now, I saw many programs on local cable with celebrations going on in various cities, so, don’t let me lead you to believe there is no celebrating this reunification day. The Party is not letting anyone forget its righteous struggle against the American’s.

For me, I’m feeling more uneasy walking around Hanoi during the day, let alone at night. Men and women are nearly stopping me on the street, hands on my arms to sell me something, or take me on a motor-bike ride. It has not been with smiles, but only a wish for money. I don’t need another one of those motor-rides for a decade or so. I was warned by two Burma/Myanmar businessmen on the flight over to be cautious of people getting too close to me, as some have the ability to knock a person out, with the slightest of holds. Am I getting paranoid?

Sadly, I have to agree with the Vietnamese from the south. To me, there is a distinct difference from people on the Hanoi streets towards Americans and other visitors as compared to down south. My observation of the people here in Hanoi has generally not been favorable. I have had few if any opportunities to chat with folks in Hanoi, only the one person at the hotel reception desk who made his “American” war comment.

Okay, I finalized my expensive, $89 USD, Hanoi city tour tomorrow by car, May 2nd, from 9-2 p.m.

** An additional note.** I had the most knowledgeable tour guide on my Hanoi city tour, and we had an interesting debate on “America’s War,” as well as Vietnam today. We learned together that we had disagreements, but, much in common. More on that subject in my book chapter. We took a city tour, and a big part was the Ho Chi Minh center. The visitor line going into the mausoleum was very long and jammed. My visit was over a long weekend. No pictures or water could be taken into Ho’s resting place.

The gray building in back of me in this below photo is where Uncle Ho’s body is viewed. The inside of the building is kept cold to preserve the body tissue. My guide told me an elevator takes the body down into a storage refrigerator each night, and only brought up for viewing during the day. Ho Chi Minh wanted to have his body burned and divided into three parts for three sections of the country, but when he died in 1969, leaders moved his body to Russia, and decided to preserve his body as Lenin and Mao are now preserved. Why not the third review be Uncle Ho, and so, Russia was brought in with their expertise in body preservation. Every three years Ho’s body is taken back to Russia for restoration.

The below house on stilts was Uncle Ho’s residence during much of the war with America. He refused to live in the Presidential Palace Building, instead expressing his union with the people by living and eating very simply. He never married, but has family members still living back at his place of birth village.

The below photo is Uncle Ho’s museum on the large government grounds with displays of his life and the war years with France and America. He traveled extensively before coming back to Vietnam to assume the National Communist leadership.

I’ll check-out from the Paradise Hotel before I leave on tour, then catch a ride to the Hanoi airport and wait for the first leg of my flight back to San Francisco. I fly from Hanoi to Taipei on a three hour flight, then an eleven hour polar flight to the beautiful sights of the Golden Gate Bridge. Catching that first sight of the Golden Gate was emotional back 39 years ago, as the pilot dipped his wing for a moment, so we all could see. I knew back then I had survived a year in hell, and made it back to the “World,” land of the “Big PX.” Nathan Matlock, It might sound corny, but my emotions are running similar today.

Let me pass a few tips to those wishing to visit Vietnam, and these tips come in no order of significance. I might have a few more.

(1) Bring along food from home when the local cuisine does not settle with your digestive system. I brought small light weight cans of tuna, salmon, packages of spam, granola bars, dried fruit, raisins, and a Gatorade supplement to mix with water for my electrolytes. Nothing was heavy or bulky but it sure got me through some days when I needed something to settle the old stomach. (2) Bring a bottle or more of a liquid hand sanitizer. (3) Most hotels offered a free breakfast, some with many options. I stayed with the French bread, black coffee, mighty strong joe, with juice and eggs and not much on the eggs. I found the bread fresh and good. (4) Bring lots of unused dollars, especially one dollar bills. A crisp one dollar bill made a great tip and a thank-you smile. Dollars are sometimes more welcome than Dongs. (5) Most all hotels had tourist shops, so all of your transportation and touring needs can be taken care of at the hotels. I found the folks very helpful, from getting stamps and mailing postcards, etc. Ask hotel folks to confirm your Internet bookings to the next hotel, or air transportation flights. They do this all for free, but a one dollar tip sure helps. (6) Liquid refreshment is cheap, bottled water, beer and soda, most around one dollar. (7) Bus transportation is cheap, but man, prepare yourself for a ride of your life. I would bring along a rosary and pray that the driver doesn’t have a death wise. (8) Everyone should take at least one motor-bike and rickshaw ride. The cost is inexpensive, but your heart and nerves might not think so. When walking, you will learn quickly to move by foot with the constant traffic. Only a few streets have green walk signs, and watch out for motor bikes, usually they do not stop. (9) A warning about the beds here, I found “all” of my beds very-very hard. My back has been hurting for days. (10) Visit your local doctor when making preparations, and get vaccinations he/she recommends. I had the first two of a three series Hepatitis A&B, and start a few months in advance. My doctor prescribed a life-saver prescription of Cipro for travelers diarrhea. I also had a daily Malaria prescription plus an antibacterial prescription, just in case.

And last but not least, I hope all of you readers and everyone you know, and everyone they know, include an extra gift under the old 2009 Christmas tree. What would that gift be, you ask? What else but a bestselling novel titled, “Cold War Burning.” If you contact me, I will arrange an autographed copy.

My email address is dsmudd@comcast.net.

I plan to be back on this site with a few pictures of today’s Vietnam inserted into my daily blogs. I hope to use this blog site to complete the research writing of Vietnam. Stay tuned…

Signing off for now, this is muddman, out…