Anne's blog travel 06-07

Saturday, January 20th 2007 - Hanoi

This is a photo of Lake Hoan Kiem in the old quarters not far from where I'm staying. A drizzly day today. Not really rainy but damp, cool and drizzly.

I'm sure many of you realise that Hanoi is the capital of the Socialist republic of Vietnam despite the fact that Ho Chi Ming City (the old Saigon) down south is a much bigger centre. So what does it mean to be in a socialist country.

When I was talking to Ha yesterday in the gallery I mentioned that I thought Vietnam had enormous potential with the world trade opening up. I told her I thought that Vietnam would do much better than Thailand. She seemed surprised and commented that Thailand was 50 years ahead of Vietnam for tourism. Well, yes there is that. Not so long ago perhaps around 1990 maybe even later, tourists coming to Hanoi were often and mostly arbitrarily turned back or deported. Of course now things seem to have changed. However, you get an automatic 28 day visa on arrival at any airport in Thailand. And if you leave the country even for a few hours you can get another 28 day visa up to 90 days of your first arrival. Easy. Laos, Cambodian and Myanmar visas can be purchased at the border but to get into Vietnam you must apply at the Embassy, and if you are in a hurry you pay more money. Often you have to tell them where you will enter and leave the country from and extentions are not often granted easily I hear. Although again things are getting easier.

However, and this I share with Ha, I think that Vietnamese people are much more ready and willing to change and expand and much more capable of thinking laterally. Even this conversation I'm having then with 20 year-old Ha is not something I could have with a Thai person or certainly not with many.

So a few things which are noticeable in comparison with Thailand. First of all there seems to be a important number of policemen around. When I run around the Lake in the morning, I see them in various posts right around. They are also noticeable around big intersection or important roads. But not so much in the streets where I live. Also food shops are small and only hold limited goods. You may for example find 3 flavors of yogurt and only one brand or maybe that day there will be none at all. There are a few foreign imported goods like cereal and chocolate but the prices are obviously high for those goods. Goods made in the country are basic and don't have much variety.

Thailand is the take-away society. Everyone is buying food on the street to reheat at home or wherever and it seems everyone is selling food. Plastic bottles, bags, spoons, straws are given in amazing supply and there seems to be no conscious conservation or recycling effort. Vietnam is not a take-away country. Most people either eat on the sidewalk (as they do often in Thailand too) or they eat at home. Markets selling fresh seafood, fruits, nuts and other goods exist in various places around the neighborhood and I suspect this is where most people buy their goods.

Life is a bit harder for a tourist in Vietnam of course. You need to find your way, where you can eat or do what you need to do and many people do not speak English although in Hotels (small or big) and tourist areas you will find people who can speak English very well.

Other than that I haven't experienced more of what it means to be in a socialist country. I do get solicited a lot from everyone mostly taxis or motorcycle drivers but also shop keepers, children and in that you have a real feeling that the livelyhood of many people depend on the money they can make out of tourists around. Despite the poverty in some areas of Thailand, you don't ever really feel that people are going hungry because the Thai really love their food. I would say you feel the poverty more in Vietnam.

A few days ago when I ventured in a clinic to have my second "Japanese Encephalitis" vaccination, I saw a few American couples with Vietnamese children. From the conversation they were having they were from a group of five couples from the USA who had come out to Vietnam to collect their adoptive children. Another American couple there, not with this group had also come to do this and it seems all the children had fallen ill. So I guess as in China there are a lot of children from Vietnam, probably orphans who get adopted by foreigners.

Bye for now