I head off to Vietnam for 5 days tomorrow. Surprisingly, Slate seems to know this and just published an article about Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). It describes the effects the war has left on the country: lots of bombs, disgruntled men vietnamese veterans who fought for the south, opportunities to shoot AK-47s, children effected by Agent Orange.

I think Vietnam will be very different for me. I find Saigon too daunting and will get out of there as fast as possible. I also have little interest in the dreary details of the war. I want to know about Vietnam’s more distant past, and more hopeful future.

After landing late and spending the first night in a hotel in Saigon, I will catch a midday plane to Dalat and from there spend a day getting a tour of the waterfalls and lakes from one of the highly recommended “Easy Riders”. Finish off the day touring the market, eating dinner and maybe even playing a round of golf. The next day I’m going to spend the day biking down the mountains and towards the beaches at Mui Ne. We will then spend the next couple days lounging on the beach, visiting a 13th century Tower and finally returning to Saigon and finally tour that city before catching my 11pm flight back to Japan.

With any luck things will all turn out and I will have a wonderful vacation. I’ll post pictures and the details of my journey when I return.

This entry was posted on 2005-4-28 at 22:49 and is filed under Life in Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.