The plane touched down in Hanoi last night at 11:30. It was the end of a 30 hour trip from Columbia to Hanoi, including the 14 hour flight from Chicago to Seoul, South Korea. I watched five movies during the trip, in the process using up about two months of my movie watching capacity. The best movie was The Visitor which I would highly recommend.
It seems very ironic that I would be in Vietnam. Forty years ago, one of the last things I wanted to do was to come here. Facing that possibility of going to war led to an exploration of my own spirituality and to conscientious objector status, which was not, is not, a popular position. The Vietnam War was such a divisive issue in our country and in many ways it seems that we still haven't recovered from it. Socially it seems to have echoed into the "culture wars" of the last 20 years. Politically, we still seem to get caught in viewing military interventions through the "sides" we were on forty years ago. History; it's not just what happened, but also how we relate, even now, to what happened. I wonder how the war still affects the Vietnamese?
My first impression of Vietnam is the humidity. It was so thick last night that moisture was condensing on and running off of the wings of the plane as it was landing. Gail had mentioned earlier in the week that the humidity was lower than when she arrived and that it was more comfortable. So I had to ask "This is less humid?" She said that it actually was. ... Amazing.
--- Phil
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Oh, I'm so excited to be reading Phil's impressions of Vietnam! Yes, Phil, you've got it - the contrast between our memories and pictures of Vietnam from the war year and actually BEING there now is just incredible and is part of what makes it such an amazing place to visit.
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