US news website names Hanoi among 13 best places to visit in March

Vietnam plus ^ | VNA Wednesday, March 14, 2018 - 8:14:00

[To Hell With Poverty]

I question your tagline. Sorry.

[redcatcherb412]

Me too lol
it popped up there after I commented on a thread a while back and I haven’t found the place in profile edit to change it, so there it sits.

[McGruff]

I hope they don’t have a Hilton hotel.

[redcatcherb412]

thanks for headsup reply, finally cleared it. They popup forever even if you just typed in the box 6 months back on a different post. I don’t even remember the thread I was replying to when I typed it.

[To Hell With Poverty]

:D I couldn’t help myself, it was too perfect.

My mom’s cousin flew 2 tours there as a helicopter rescue pilot. Sadly he died in a crash back home just a few months before I was born in 72. If he was still around I’m sure he’d agree with you.

[ThanhPhero]

And it was Democrats who abandoned and betrayed them. Even northerners feel that way. I know a couple of old soldiers from the other side. What they have to say is enlightening.

[ThanhPhero]

Obama was really bad for Việt Nam. He hates the people and the place because the Vietnamese have tried hard to be an American ally in Asia and the government there responded well to Clinton and Bush leaning on them to lighten up on the people. They backslid under Obama because he sneered at them and did not press for reforms. Obama thought such reforms were betrayals of the socialist mission. Việt Nam responds to America because Việt Nam needs American protection from China even as America needs the Vietnamese bulwark against China and because of a Vietnamese affinity for Americans. They are a truly individualistic culture unlike most other Asians.

[ThanhPhero]

Buôn Ma Thuột or as I heard the troops say it Bummy Toot.

[ThanhPhero]

There are some who still speak French. If you try it on people, especially in the smaller towns one or two old men will seek you out to be able to speak French again with someone. Thee will probably invite you into their homes for tea.

[ThanhPhero]

I had it right in 68-69. I flew in the back end of a C-47. I was being shot as much as anyone else, I think, but I could not see the smoke or hear the guns from up there, just occasional small holes in the plane. I just heard an occasional PLINK. I know I got a whole different take on the country from that of the Marines and soldiers in the forest and the paddies. I stayed for several months with a Vietnamese family in Chợ Lơn where I saw very few soldiers of any sort. My commander didn't much care where I was so long as I showed up to fly three times a week.

[ThanhPhero]

I stay with a family when I am there. Have since '03. I do stay in mom and pop hotels when I travel sometimes. They can be really pleasant places for 3 to 10 dollars a night. When I first went back I stayed a couple of days in a really really nice small hotel for 16 dollars in Sài Gon. In the morning the guests who want to go downstairs and the hotelier's wife fixes breakfast phở and cà phê.

[ThanhPhero]

I have long been of the opinion that there are two varieties of Refugees of which we should have taken all we can get, the Viets and the Cubans (not the Mariels, that was a government emptying of the criminal prison cells). Both types have experienced lots of government and want little to do with it. Both stay off of welfare or get off as fast as they can. Both build businesses and hire people. Both produce scientists and doctors and mostly shun the modern version of “liberal arts” in college.

[ThanhPhero]

I am sure there are a couple of them. Staying in a Hilton or a big Japanese hotel is not worth the money or time it takes to get there. You can do that in Florida or California. Stay in a mom-n-pop hotel that is not near the city center in a big town. You can get a comfortable room with AC if that is what you need for 10 dollars a night or less.

[vooch]

we are in agreement on the result. My argument is if we never attacked, vietnam would be further along

[Cronos]

The US was suckered into supporting France’s colonial war

[kearnyirish2]

I know something of the area and people, though I’m far from an expert. I know Ho Chi Minh wanted the freedoms discussed at Versailles in 1919, and tried to get them there. North Vietnam and the Viet Minh turned to communist governments for help because the Western democracies wouldn’t cross France, but today they still have no use for democratic ideals.

[kearnyirish2]

I’m glad she enjoyed the visits; I’m not trying to hurt their tourism. People just need to visit these places with eyes wide open; they are not democracies, and individual rights mean nothing to them.

[ThanhPhero]

Too many clichés in your head. Americans are golden in Việt Nam. Go have a really pleasant vacation that is cheap. Just don't walk up and slap a bộ đội. I have had many interactions with police there. Some started with suspicion because a foreigner was in a place that foreigners never go. They always ended with the troop asking me to pose with him for pictures to show his family.

I met one such fellow for tea so that his wife could meet me and see that he had an American friend for real. It helps, I guess, that I speak the language. They do not expect that as I am obviously not a diplomat or a professor. Back in 84 had I come then it would have marked me as a SPY! but things have changed. The Communists carry the name and the form of organization but the government much more resembles a more rational Latino dictatorship. There are no more than a dozen believing Communists in the country, I think, and most of them are university professors teaching in specialized classes.

Back when the cảnh sáṭ (police) used to follow me around, whenever I was out walking a stone faced young uniform on a motorbike would drive past me repeatedly, looking neither left or right. One day I saw that day's escort taking a break in a quán cà phê and walked over and sat at his table. I ordered coffee and said I would pay for both of us. He said, with panic on his face,"NO, don't do that! he knows my sergeant and will tell him! I winked (they understand wink) and moved to another table.

[ThanhPhero]

Uncle Hô said a lot of things to impress the Americans while he was trying to get American guns and recognition. Hô was never really the head Red among the Communists. That would be Lê Duẩn and Lê Đức Thọ. Nguyễn Tất Thành/Hồ Chí Minh was a Party founder and its public face. He and Võ Nguyễn Giáp were less radical than the other two but Lê Duẩn and Thọ were the brains of the Party and the movers. They all wanted the US to support Independence but they wanted for it to be Independence, not freedom for the people.

Hô's desire for American friendship and sponsorship faded away, or rather, went into the closet while the Americans were the Enemy. By 1985 it re-emerged and after that the rulers in Hà Nội became more and more amenable to making adjustments to their rule to please the Americans. One prime minister in the late nineties(not the head guy like the PM in Britain or France) was openly pro American and tried to institute some form of local political choice and more formally recognized freedoms. He was not visibly successful but he served out his term and left office with ceremony.

[airdalechief]

"Sài Gòn is still Sài Gon to many of the locals and in fact, the city center is still Sài Gòn." And Billboards in Saigon relay that. This statement was approved by lovely wife - VoThiMuoi Presently helping in securing a student visa for a relative.