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Aloha again, Nut Cracker!

Rembrandt is out of the country but messaged me with some skinny.

Capitalism in Saigon is going very strong; shops all over the damn place. Thriving black market, of course.

There are plenty of pretty nice resort places. There’s a real pricy one in DaLat as well as some inexpensive ones. Driving East from Saigon (I wouldn’t recommend driving), there is an area called Vung Tau which is a weekend haven for the cowboys from Saigon - don’t go there on a weekend cause it’s a madcap, teenage Vietnamese outing. Anyone wanting to go, I’d recommend taking the hydrofoil which one can catch from right downtown in Saigon (~one hour, 15 minutes and they sell beer on board).

Much better is Nha Trang which is just miles to the South of Cam Rang. Nha Trang is very laid back although it also gets its share of Saigon cowboys on the weekends, not as bad as Vung Tau since it’s further away. Great beach.

There’s a crummy beach area 20 minutes East of Hai Phong (Do Son), hardly worth the trip. There is a casino out there but, obviously no VN people, since only foreigners are allowed to partake.

I never got to the DaNang beach area or Hoi An but that’s where the big growth has been; expensive but supposedly nice.

Hue has very little in the way of a beach. The perfume river is odiferous because it’s nothing more than an open sewer. Up the river though are all the mausoleums of the former emperors. I enjoyed touring the Forbidden City.

Viet Nam is a good place to visit if you have an attachment, like you and I do Jack. For someone who has no emotional attachment, I’d suggest Thailand.

Just my opinion.

Just another view of things, Nut Cracker. Although the Lao Dong have power, their control is tenuous.