Present & the Past - by Phil & Gail

It seems that for those of us who were young during the 60's and 70's, a visit to Vietnam will always carry memories from those times. This was particularly true for Gail and me when we spent the weekend touring in central Vietnam.

Our first stop was Hué. The imperial city of the Nguyen dynasty during the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was also the site of the month-long Battle of Hué during the 1968 Tet offensive which led to a lot of disillusionment with the American war effort. After a trip down the rain-swollen Song Huong (Perfume River) on a family-owned boat,



we stopped at the Thien Mu Pagoda.



We were surprised to find a reminder of our earliest exposure to Vietnam, the shocking image of a Buddhist monk immolating himself to protest against the policy of the South Vietnamese government.





We then went on to visit The Citadel in Hué, site of the very impressive Imperial Enclosure.



After so much history, and wet weather, we enjoyed a lunch of Hué versions of banh cuon (rice-flour crepes filled with duck rather than ground pork and other mysterious but delicious ingredients) and bun cha (grilled pork in a dipping sauce with rice noodles and herbs.)



We visited one of the Imperial tombs in the afternoon and then the sky opened up, so we had to check-in at our hotel for a lazy afternoon nap and a wonderful dinner of a banana flower salad with shrimp, fried Spring rolls, and caramelized fish. Sorry, no photos of the fish; we ate it too quickly!



The next morning we headed over the mountains surrounding Hué. At the summit of the Hai Van Pass we again found reminders of the American War: bunkers with gun turrets and signs of resistance.




We spent the next two days exploring the area south and west of Da Nang:

We took the new cable car to the top of Ba Na Mountain for views of the coast.



Before a sumptious traditional Vietnamese meal at the mountain top resort, Gail and Tien, our guide, needed a break.



Our "home base" during these days was Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage site. We enjoyed touring the centuries old buildings, such as the Japanese bridge, a wooden covered bridge with a temple in the center, that was first constructed in 1596 by Japanese merchants.



And also enjoyed exploring the local Vietnamese culture:







We took a side trip to My Son, where temples of the Champa kingdom (4th-13th centuries) still survive. Their Hindu-influenced culture was a rival to, and similar to, that of the Khmers of Angkor Wat.



This area was bombed during the war, destroying a number of the temples and leaving signs of bomb craters near others. As we walked through the jungle around the site and observed the rice paddies on the drive there and back, each of us were imagining how difficult it must have been for both Americans and Vietnamese fighting in this environment.

We flew back to Hanoi from the Da Nang airport. Sitting in the lobby of the 1960's era terminal building our minds once again returned to the many young men and women who spent their youth fighting, dying and surviving to go home. What a difference 40 years has made.