I've been having a bit of a Viet Nam fling over on The Velvet Cushion. So it seemed an appropriate time to document our very first foray into this history-filled and lovely country.

It took place in April 2003. Which wasn't an auspicious year for travel. The previous month the US had invaded Iraq. The month before that, an outbreak of SARS had been detected in several countries, including Viet Nam.

As I note in my diary on 24 March: "There still seems a great deal to do for this trip, backgrounded as it seems to be by the majority of the horsemen of the apocalypse. No such thing as departing cheerily and lightheartedly these days. You scan websites for SARS updates, scan headlines for news of anti-war protests (while dreading news of terror strikes), scan chemists' shelves for immune system boosters, run over in your head what you're going to leave behind as your living will... Unless specifically advised not to go, we'll go, but it hardly feels jolly."

On 1 April, the New Zealand government upgraded its health warnings with regard to SARS, saying that travellers "should postpone" their trips to Hanoi, which was to have been one of our destinations. That meant that our travel insurance would no longer cover us in that area. They would compensate us for losses incurred by rearranging the itinerary to avoid Hanoi, but not for cancelling the whole thing. Not that we really wanted to cancel the whole thing. I had been looking forward to going to Viet Nam for ages, and assiduously reading up on Vietnamese history and politics. The trip was also tied in with some business travel for Nigel, and a family trip for me. Rearranging the Viet Nam segment entirely would have been logistically very awkward.

So we pressed on, liaising with our local travel agent (yes, we still used one in those days) and with the company in Viet Nam that was going to provide us with car, driver, guide, sundry other bits of transport, accommodation, a few prearranged excursions, and a reasonable amount of time to explore for ourselves. We finally agreed that the days we would have spent in Hanoi we would now spend at a beach resort in Pham Thiet. Not quite the same... But beggars couldn't be choosers.

The whole thing was a little stressful. At one point there were rumours that Thailand might quarantine whole planeloads of passengers if anyone appeared to be suffering from SARS. We lived in fear that there would be another government alert that would lop off another bit of the trip.

Of course, from the vantage-point of 2021, with a real travel-bomb of a year behind us, this looks like very minor stress indeed. But at the time...

In those days, Nigel's copious business travel gave us access to airline lounges. It's now a long time since we've had such privileges, but they were great while they lasted. On Saturday 12 April, nothing could have enhanced the feeling of relief that we were finally on our way more than a glass of wine in the lounge, looking out on the beauty of the Manukau Harbour on a fine autumn day. After a plane change in Sydney, we'd be heading for Bangkok, where we'd overnight.

In those days, central movie screens were what you got for short hops like Auckland-Sydney. This movie proved unwatchable. But not as unwatchable as Donald Rumsfeld on TV in the Gold Lounge in Sydney, talking about how awful it was of the media to focus on looting and chaos in Iraq when the real story was that these people had been liberated...

In Bangkok the following day we discovered we'd arrived in the midst of Songkran, when the custom is to spray water around as liberally as possible. During our exploration of the hotel's pleasant residential neighbourhood, we got watered a couple of times by bands of kids with buckets, hoses, and various other liquid-distributing devices. All very good-natured, though.

By the time we got to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), many more face-masks were in evidence, and we had a whacking great form to fill in about our possible SARS exposure. Immigration was quite slow. But finally we were out into the hot night to meet the guide and the driver, and launch ourselves into the swarming traffic.

We were overnighting in the Grand Hotel, which dates back to the 1930s, and our room faced in two directions over the roofs of central Saigon and the teeming traffic. It turned out that they did excellent breakfasts. Hot Vietnamese dishes to start with, then croissants, with grape jelly, and very good coffee. Then fruit -- water melon, pink and yellow, and pineapple. And the Vietnam News available to read. Perfect.

And by the end of that day, Monday, we were sitting on the beach, a brightly painted fishing boat -- blue, red, white, yellow, and blue -- bobbing in front of us, a few coracles heading out to sea.

We'd had an interesting road journey. The traffic was bewildering, but not anarchic. In town it moves to its own rules. You weave in and out, but you don't make sudden movements. You don't bother too much about red lights, but you don't go too fast either.

Once out of town there was lots to look at. Bear in mind this was our first time in this country. Up to then, we'd had experience of Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. This was very different. Some villages seemed stuffed with churches, and many of the richer houses sported large religious statues, usually of Mary. Much of the land looked dry, but we did pass rubber plantations, paddy fields, and prickly bushes bearing dragon fruit (which we tried for the first time in Viet Nam). There was a lot of building under way.

Phan Thiet was a nice-looking place, with several river areas picturesquely crowded with fishing boats.



We had a pleasant few days there, free to amuse ourselves, which we did by strolling the beach (there was a massive amount of resort-building going on here too, and I hoped the time wouldn't come when the fishermen would be driven away), strolling the lanes, reading in the shade of big straw umbrellas, eating excellent seafood, downing the odd cold beer, and discovering what I then called "fudge-fruit", and only later learnt to identify as sapodilla.

Times were obviously not good in this little town, what with the war and SARS. Our resort was very quiet.

One day we did a little sight-seeing trip, which took us to the famous dunes near Mui Ne, which the wind ripples into very photogenic shapes.





We stopped off at Mui Ne market, which was a nice little experience because it was so normal. A few people said hello, but basically nobody was really interested in us. It was full of ordinary Vietnamese women -- in matching tops and pants, and conical hats -- going about the business of buying food and household items. The other thing about the market was that it made me feel really tall... I was definitely taller than most of those women, and the first thing I did was run into the overhead canopy, which is something that rarely happens to me. I managed to buy some skin lotion to fix my legs which I'd already managed to sunburn. We paid up, I ran my head into a hanging display, the old lady at the front laughed, and we went on our way.

We also explored the Red River, accessed via a pungent fish-sauce-creating establishment. The river runs through a kind of valley of white and red sand sculptures. Combine the shapes and patterns this creates with the green of the vegetation and the bright blue of the sky, and you have a very striking composition.





Friday 18 saw us heading back, very bright and early, to HCMC. Bright and early is obviously a popular time for travelling, and I amused myself by conveyance-spotting. At that point, I was still amazed by how much you can load onto a little motorbike (that has long since ceased to provide any amazement whatsoever). There were also bullock carts, handcarts, and brightly coloured funeral vehicles. And it was a day when all the pigs in Vietnam were on the move, it seemed. Each lay prone in its own little basket, the baskets piled on top of one another, with the little piggy tails and bottoms showing through the slats at the back.

We stopped for coffee and bread at a roadside restaurant just outside HCMC, and then headed for the airport and our flight to Hue, where we were to pick up our original itinerary. I was impressed by domestic Vietnamese airlines, and we had a trouble-free ride to the hotel, where my fruit discovery du jour was longans.

I loved Hue. The streets were generally tree-lined, and lots of the trees bore flowers. The traffic was quieter than in HCMC, mostly bicycles, cyclos, and motorbikes. Cyclos seemed as much purveyors of freight as of passengers, and carried a variety of loads. Standard motorbiking gear for women seemed to consist of a hat, a scarf tied across the face, and a pair of over-the-elbow gloves, presumably to keep the sun off the arms.

We crossed the river via one of the bridges -- the arched, northern one -- and then crossed the moat. We went in through the thick curtain wall, within which there is another wall. We saw the Flag Tower, with its three levels, the Nine Holy Cannons, and the Ngo Mon Gate leading to the imperial enclosure. Pretty tired by now, we walked back across the other bridge, and stopped for a while at a riverside cafe to perch on the dinky little chairs that are de rigueur in Viet Nam, and drink our first Huda beers. You can't beat watching the sun lowering itself behind the flag pole, while different kinds of craft putter up and down the wide Perfume River.





Our guide took us to a little stall selling a Hue speciality: little snacks made with rice flour, rice, or tapioca. (I think some of these are featured here.) You are served with a pile of banana-leaf packages, inside which you find the little "cakes" complete with a shrimp or some shrimp paste. You either dip them into, or sprinkle them with, fish sauce. The rice ones are more solid pancake-style things, with no need for banana-leaf support. All delicious, and again we ate them squatting on miniature chairs in front of primary-school-sized tables, feeling like circus elephants.

The next day we visited Thien Mu Pagoda. As always, the sights of everyday life were as interesting as the more celebrated offerings, and it was fascinating to watch the dredger boats digging up sand with hand- and foot-driven winches, and then transporting it to sell at building sites. Various canoes punted past with vegetables, and a few other tourist boats were also up and about. The families apparently had their home on board, as well as their business.







The pagoda is a lovely structure, set off by the river, the distant misty hills, and the pretty gardens, with bonsai trees and a vegetable patch. There is a working monastery there, and we listened to the chanting for a while, accompanied by a bell and a drum.

You can also view the little 1960s car that carried to Saigon Thich Quang Duc, the monk who would famously set himself on fire in protest against the treatment of Buddhists... Catholic President Diem was assassinated not long afterwards, but our guide said his successor was "even more cruel".

Nearby is the royal tomb of Khai Dinh. Another lovely setting, amid rolling, wooded hills.















We've reached Sunday 20 by now, so we'd been travelling for just over a week.

Walking to the Imperial Museum on our "free day" was probably a mistake, as it was 36 degrees, and that is really hot. But it was interesting.

After a drink and a rest, we ambled on, and sat down for another rest in a little park. A couple of minutes later, we were joined by a cyclo-man, and it did suddenly seem like a good idea to be propelled home for 20,000 dong. Probably a high price, but then it was hot, and the two of us were heavy. I found it quite interesting having a cyclo-passenger-view of the traffic. Cyclos were very definitely not just for the tourists. Locals rode them, usually older people, and they also carted a vast amount of stuff around.

After lunch we tackled Dong Ba market. The clouds were gathering, and although it was cooler outside than this morning, the market felt hot and oppressive. We did a few rows of stalls -- vegetables, tinned and packet food, silk paintings, hats -- and then moved on up the Dong Ba canal to the Dieu De pagoda. By this time the lightning was forking, and the thunder was rolling, and plops of rain were beginning to hit the ground.

You turn into the pagoda grounds, and hit an oasis of peace. It was not a big tall structure like the previous day's pagoda, but it was a pleasure to sit on the top step watching the rain fall. Eventually, a monk opened the doors behind us, and started to chant prayers, accompanied again by drums and bells. It was almost like a movie scene -- the monk intoning the sacred words in the dimly lit temple, the rain falling outside, the thunder resonating in the distance.



From Hue we headed to Hoi An, via the dramatic Hai Van pass, the Cham Museum in Da Nang, and a marble-sculpting village.

Whereas Hue had been an ordinary town with a few tourists, Hoi An was the equivalent of a Cotswold village. Consequently, whereas Hue had been bustling with locals, Hoi An was noticeably quiet. This continued to be the situation for the rest of the trip. Normally, we'd have been travelling as part of a small group, but here we were, just the two of us. Nice for us, of course. Not so good for the guide and driver, the level of whose accommodation depended on the number of guests they were bringing to any given hotel (and who would also get less in tips at the end, although we did try to be generous).

Hoi An has -- in no particular order -- cao lau (a Hoi An speciality consisting of lettuce, noodles, beansprouts, crispy wonton flakes and pork); bahn bao vac, or white rose dumplings; a tradition of tailoring; and loads of old and exquisite buildings (even ordinary activities, like ordering clothes or having a drink, are carried out in magnificent old buildings that are running in history.

On Tuesday, we opted for a trip to My Son, a complex of tower temples built between the 4th and 13th centuries. A pleasant ride: rice in all stages of cultivation, from growing in the paddy fields to drying on big sheets by the side of the road; lotus ponds; graves; maize and chilies drying; lots of roadworks and bridge reconstruction; and the usual melee of vehicles.

The ruins emerge from greenery, with a backdrop of wooded hills. And the remains, though heavily impacted by US bombing, have sufficient coherence to be awe-inspiring.





We'd decided to take the boat back, so the bus dropped us off at the river on the way home. Lunch -- spring rolls, peanuts mixed with sugar and salt, sticky rice and green bean puree, and a banana -- was served in a little box as we puttered down yet another vast Asian river.

Thursday 24, and we were taking the plane from Da Nang to Nha Trang, which struck me as Viet Nam's Weymouth: a beautiful setting -- turquoise sea, golden beaches, and a backdrop of misty hills -- plus all the fun of the fair -- bouncy castles, big wheels, night markets, and a palm-lined promenade.

Nha Trang is also home to an Oceanographic Institute, and a large Buddha (beware the fake monk).









Included on our tour was a really wacky boat trip. I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this, as our three bright and chirpy hosts exuberantly introduced themselves, karaoked us out from port, and highlighted an action-packed day of noise and booze ahead of us. But it turned out very well, vastly exceeding my expectations.

You visit various islands, you swim, you eat amazing seafood, you listen to the entertainment provided by the hosts whose enthusiasm made up for the endearingly makeshift equipment; and you drink punch at a floating bar (where the barman, ensconced in a contraption made up of lifebuoys and floats, dispenses fruit wine, while we punted our own lifebuoys out to join up with him).





On the evening of Saturday 26, we left Nha Trang on the overnight train. We had bought some basic supplies, but we were also provided with water and coconut custard slices, courtesy of the railway company.

Five o'clock the following morning saw us coasting through the hinterland of HCMC. Big, broad rivers were visible, and houses coming right up to the track.

This part of the programme was earmarked for finally seeing something of HCMC, which we'd up to then just flitted in and out of.

We found the city a bit frantic (and a bit expensive compared with the other places we visited), but it was also a really stimulating place to be. There were many attractive buildings, among them faded, colonial-style remnants. Alongside the big-ticket items, like the old town hall, the restored theatre, and the unrestored but lovely former Palais de Justice, there are also a myriad other, smaller, reminders of a bygone era.

I recall Ben Thanh market; the Ho Chi Minh City Museum (which was running in bridal couples keen to be photographed in memorable and historic localities, but none the less fascinating for that); the Fine Arts Museum, housed in a colonial-style building with impressive Art Nouveau windows; the Jade Emperor Pagoda...

One day we visited the Cu Chi tunnels. You start with a map, a diarama (showing the three levels; the "bottlenecks", through which even Vietnamese had to crawl; the emergency underwater exits; the trapdoors for unwary American "tunnel rats" -- all the stuff of claustrophobic nightmares), and a documentary made in 1967, showing how this quiet, pastoral people had been torn from its farms and orchards by the aggression of the Americans, and how beautiful Vietnamese girls had been forced to take up arms to avenge their people, and then honoured with medals for their courage.

Then the guides take you past bomb craters to the kind of entrance-way that gave access to the tunnels. Totally invisible, because camouflaged, it measured about 30 cm by 15 cm. One of the staff demonstrated how a guerrilla could easily insert himself through this opening. After seeing a fearsome array of "self-made weapons", you get to the tunnels themselves. I only did the first one, but banged my head at least twice, made enough noise to alert 10 American armies, and got badly worried by the huge spider on one of the ceilings. I did about 50 metres -- and emerged sweaty, cramped, and breathless. I copped out of the "longer, deeper, narrower" one, but Nigel gamely went in -- and came out sweating like a waterspout. The idea of being stuck long-term in such confined spaces is pretty horrendous.

In the midst of this war memorabilia, there were pacific displays of people preparing tapioca and making rice paper, and after our tunnel experience we were given tea and cassava sticks, with the deliciously ubiquitous peanut/sugar/salt mix to dip them in.

It's all a tremendous tribute to the resilience, courage, and ingenuity of the resisters. An amazing story. Just so sad it had to happen at all.

Then the Reunification Palace. The basement had housed the South Vietnamese war command. Again, there was a strong feeling of the pathos of a doomed enterprise. The whole palace had somehow been frozen in time, and the ghosts of the 1960s and 1970s seemed to hang around the period-piece bar (geometrically decorated in orange and yellow), and the old movie theatre, and the helicopter pad adjacent to the dance hall.



From there we went to the War Remnants Museum. We didn't really have enough time to take in all the photographs and texts (many by Westerners), but maybe it's not good to spend too long in there. You can't help but be overwhelmed by the horror of war, and the sheer sadness and waste of it all. GIs slogging up beaches, laden down with kit, in temperatures that must have been similar to what we were then experiencing; GIs bogged down in oceans of mud and gore; GIs holding the severed heads of their Vietnamese enemy; a rare woman journalist, who had changed her name to go off and report on wars -- dead; a group of women and children photographed before being shot -- dead; a resistance fighter who carried a picture of his sweetheart with him -- dead.

Mutilation, defoliation, immolation. Cruelty, barbarity, hatred.

We couldn't help but wonder at the amount this land had lived through, and had had to recover from. How quickly can you lay such ghosts?

We drove through ever crazier traffic to Cholon, Saigon's Chinatown. Here are more beautiful, if crumbling, vestiges of French colonial architecture, and also some classic Chinese shophouses, such as we had seen in Georgetown and Singapore.

We visited the Thien Hou Pagoda, a very active temple. The goddess has her own bed in a little alcove, the curtains of which are drawn at 5 pm.



On our first evening back in HCMC, we fortuitously happened upon a beer-purveying establishment selling Saigon beer for less than a Saigon price. It was a funny, vast place, with dreadful music, shielded from onlookers by a sort of trellis, but it became our regular evening spot. We had guessed from the attire of the waitresses that this was chiefly a male preserve, although occasionally a pair of young women or a family would show up. We would order beer, and choose a couple of light dishes -- crab and asparagus soup, or pumpkin flowers fried with garlic, for example. We could have had many a curious thing off this menu -- goat's udder, pigeon, turtle, cobra...

On Wednesday 30 April, we set off for our Mekong trip. It was a public holiday (Reunification Day), and the next day would be May Day, so the roads were awash with public holiday traffic.

It was slow going. We passed several Cao Dai temples -- characterized by twin Catholic-style towers and Buddhist symbols and stupas. I like the idea that this religion draws on Christian, Buddhist, and Muslim elements, and is thus eclectic in the extreme.

At Cai Be, we met our local guide, Mr T, and our boat driver. Our little boat was very typical, featuring a raised prow with eyes, a narrow body, and a put-put engine. What was different was the motorbike handlebars used to steer it.

We made various tourist-oriented stops -- at a confectioner's (where you could buy a kind of light cake made of rice, peanuts, and coconut; or there was peanut brittle); and a floating market (families may spend half their week on these boats, mostly equipped with long-tail motors and super-tall TV aerials, until they've sold their produce).

Lunch, at an orchard-cum-bonsai-garden, was really memorable. Elephant-ear fish, which you bundle up with lettuce, cucumber, and mint, wrap in rice paper, and then dunk in the tasty dip; huge river prawns; and tasty little spring rolls. Copious, we thought -- but then came the second course. Chicken legs, chicken salad, soup, and rice. We had to leave a lot. Then fruit, including our first experience of jackfruit, which we named vanilla custard fruit. How little we knew back then...

After a post-lunch spell in the hammock (very quiet and pleasant: just the heat of the day, the sprawled dogs, the ambling chickens, the occasional put-put of a boat from the river), we strolled around the orchard. More and more people wanted to grow fruit, we were told, because it was profitable, and the government was trying to stop too many people giving up rice cultivation.

Then we sailed onward. As always, chugging along, with a cool breeze meeting you, and the banks slipping past, felt like a very pleasant thing to be doing.



Our accommodation was a homestay by the river. Interestingly, our guide and our host hailed from different ends of the wartime political spectrum. The proprietor of this orchard/tourist venture was a long-time member of the "Viet Cong" (the inverted commas are there because that is a troubled term), and had an impressive scar that he'd acquired from the American War. Mr T had fought for the South Vietnamese, and subsequently spent two and a half years in a reeducation camp.

The next day, the car was due to pick us up in Vinh Long, and on the way there we visited a village located down a side-stream. Refreshingly untouristy, with people going about their daily activities -- tile-making (an impressively efficient procedure carried out with a hand press), tofu-making, and roofing using water-palm fronds. We also ambled past the ironmonger's and the coffin maker's. Everyone had flags flying in honour of the day.

Hosts of May Day kites greeted us on our arrival back in the HCMC suburbs. And the next day brought our final noodle soup breakfast, and our final view of the Saigon River...

The next stage of the journey took us to Cambodia and Thailand, and then off to our subsequent destinations, in Europe and the US respectively. But those places (and the weirdness of being on SARS-era long-haul flights with only about 10 other people) are the subject of another story.

So that was our first experience of Viet Nam. Looking back, I'm conscious that we followed a very stereotypical itinerary. And the constraints of the semi-organized tour (the type of thing we often resorted to when we were working, because our time was so limited) meant we never quite had as much time as we wanted to just wander, and be, and absorb.

But despite those limitations, we enjoyed the experience immensely; and the trip gave us a desire to go back, which we did.

But we've not been there for a long time, and it's a country I would particularly love to return to. Let's hope -- one day -- that it will be possible to do that.