Hello, Vietnam!

My images of Vietnam were largely from scenes that were implanted in me a long time ago, from watching TV news reports and movies like “Deer Hunter”, “Platoon”, and “Forest Gump”; the footages of war, jungle gun battles, and fleeing of innocent people and refugees. Since then I had many friends and colleagues from Vietnam who also showed me the side of hard working, competent, and striving individuals in pursuit of that illusive “American dream” – whatever it may be. With a single call into Hanoi from Hong Kong the night before, we were about to find out, first hand, the new images of Vietnam.

My first encounter with Hanoi's pho.  I was nervously waiting to see what would come out.


We landed in Hanoi and were promptly greeted by a driver holding up my name. Hanoi was to be our hub during our stay in Vietnam, which was to last 9 days. We chose Hanoi over Saigon (Ho Chi Min City, HCMC), because we read that culturally, there’s more to see around the northern side of Vietnam. Hanoi was also closer to Hong Kong and if we wanted to, later on, we could visit HCMC from Thailand. As soon as we got to the hotel, after learning to say “xin chao” – hello, how are you, “cam eun” – thank you, and “mot bat pho bo” – one bowl of beef pho, we dashed out to the streets of Hanoi and was able to order a bowl of Hanoi pho. While Joanne could not stomach the thought of eating in this seemingly unsanitary “hole in the wall” restaurant, I gulped down a bowl; good to the last drop. She later declared that I must have an iron stomach.


I didn’t know until we got to Vietnam that Pho is a local dish of the city of Hanoi. Needless to say, it was really good – the soup especially was excellent. In this birthplace of pho, I had them five times to my iron stomach’s content. With inflation, the price had gone up to 20,000 dong or $1.18. Joanne told me I could eat as many pho as I wanted.

The streets of Hanoi – they were filled with motorbikes, bicycles, honking cars, tri-cycle taxis, pedestrians, and lots of dust. There was not much space left on the sidewalks to walk on; so most of the time, we dangerously mingled with the rest of the vehicles on the road.

Once built as the French governor’s mansion, it was used as an official government building when Ho Chi Min was the president.

Ho Chi Min, fondly called “Uncle Ho” by many Vietnamese people, preferred this simple structure, next to the official building, as his living and working quarters. Born into a poor farmer’s family he connected with and won hearts and minds of the nation.