Ho Chi Minh city-Impressions

The people here(in Vietnam) have a mind of their own, about their destiny, their identity, freedom and they fought a long war for their sovereignty.
‘Hearts of Atlantis’ was my prelude to our Vietnam trip- the book mirrors the 70’s disillusionment with the Vietnam War in US. The trip to HCMC provided a more vivid perspective of the naked American aggression and the psychological warfare tactics of the Viet Cong and the Guerillas in the Vietnam War.

For every conflict there are two sides to the truth; the truth vs. optics and the truth vs. propaganda. The line between the two is blurred in war times but the truth is universal and becomes apparent with the passage of time. It was an ugly war just as each one of the other fought by mankind; losses on both sides, deplorable acts of brutality, misguided motives, conceited rationalization and money for someone.
The War remnants Museum in HCMC and the Cu chi tunnels are powerful reminders of the mistakes of past and a looking glass for the current plight in Iraq and Syria. However it is easy to reduce the wars of yesterdays to tourist attraction in the present and the message gets lost..

The city has a quintessential East meets West charm which is evident in the architecture, culinary and café culture. Case in point, the locals took the essentially French import- Baguette and transformed it into the tongue tantalizing Banh-mi(sandwich) and made it its ‘own’.
When the entire world has essentially surrendered to the Starbucks dominion, the coffee here holds its ground- it is robust and mean. It has an authentic well roasted coffee bean flavor and not the bitter slightly acidic flavor that masquerades as black coffee.

There are always two ways to explore a new place-the convenient off-the-shelf approach and the more immersive DIY approach. Our HCMC trip was overall more the former and less the latter, we opted for group day trips with tour operators which was informative but less about self discovery. 

We did the Mekong river delta group tour and got a glimpse of rural life and cottage industries(bee keeping/coconut candies). It was a well-planned trip and provided a glimpse into the everyday life/livelihood & culture. Also it is a good concept to funnel tourist money to rural locations and reduce migration pressure to big cities.
This trip brought back memories of the eventful Nagarjuna Sagar and Krishna river trip with a bunch of Deloitte colleague back in Hyderabad some 5 years before. This was one of my first trips in Hyderabad and an introduction to some of my greatest friends in the city. The memories of last minute arrangement for a 7 seater vehicle, ‘Shutter island’ like experience and a surprise invitation from a local Hyderabadi friend for dinner at his home are just as fresh and so is the friendship..
It is quite natural for me to compare my travel experience in Asian countries with India given the geographical proximity and broad similarity in the social-economic parameters. My perception is that a lot of these small south asian countries have done a much better job than us at building the travel logistics and service mindset to capitalize on cultural tourism(agree my version of India may be slightly outdated).

Moving on to matters of the stomach, I will have to give a shout out to this Vietnamese restaurant-Com Chay Mani (Comchaymani) for an authentic local food experience. We went in looking for a hearty vegetarian meal and stepped out a happy bunch. We tried the Mani special noodles, dumpling and a hot pot dish and were bowled over by the distinctively vibrant flavors in each of the dishes.
We had a meal at Hum restaurant(good ambience, extensive menu with lots of choices and ok food) & were lucky to get our hands on some tofu banh-mi at Mybanhmi, the spicy garlic version was our absolute favorite- repeated the order and gobbled up the sandwich with some healthy veggie soup... yum!

The current day Vietnam has come a long way since the end of the war in 1975 to become one of the world’s fastest growing economies and has set its sights on becoming a modern and industrialized nation by 2020. Politics aside, there is definitely something steely and gritty about the gentle natured people here and I would like to see their vision come true..