According to my sons, Vietnam’s french fries are the best in the world. In the fall of 2005, our family moved to Hanoi for a year and the boys—Jesse, 8, and Sam, 5—made this culinary discovery quite early. It wasn’t until relatives arrived for a visit in December, however, that they got a chance to demonstrate what they’d learned.
"Trust me," said Jesse, leading the way to his favorite fries spot, a restaurant a few blocks from the balconied town house we were renting in a quiet neighborhood within walking distance of the city’s Old Quarter.
Jesse’s cousins, Maya, 10, and Noa, 8, merely nodded. They’d just flown in from Brooklyn with their parents—my sister, Lynne, and her husband, Mark. Shuffling along the crowded sidewalks, the girls stared at the wandering fruit sellers carrying baskets of mandarin oranges on poles balanced across their shoulders, at the old ladies dishing up noodles from sidewalk stands, at the motorbikes roaring by on the narrow street. The smells of ripe fruit, grilling pork, and engine exhaust were so substantial that you could almost reach into the air and grab them. How could thoughts of french fries compete with all this?
When we reached our destination, the grown-ups ordered spring rolls and a whole grilled fish. The children chose bit tek—"beefsteak"—topped with a mound of sautéed garlic and served with the blue-ribbon spuds. As Jesse had predicted, Maya and Noa loved the fries, but it was the sautéed water morning glory that they devoured. They couldn’t get enough.
Which is the way I feel about Vietnam. I fell in love with this country in 1990, and I’ve been returning to and writing about it ever since. My memoir, The House on Dream Street, describes my life in Hanoi for part of the 1990’s, and half my new novel takes place in Vietnam. When my husband, Todd, an associate professor of film studies at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and I were offered Fulbrights here, we felt we’d hit the year-abroad jackpot. I would conduct research for a book on Operation Babylift, the evacuation of displaced children from Vietnam at the end of the war, and Todd would teach at Hanoi’s University of Theater and Cinema. Jesse and Sam, whom we enrolled at the United Nations International School, would study Vietnamese—and start becoming citizens of the world.
Vietnam itself is in the midst of a big leap. Long associated with war and deprivation, the country currently has the second-fastest-growing economy in Asia. The nation’s poverty rate is also declining—between 1993 and 2003 it went from 58 to 29 percent, and is expected to drop to 17 percent by 2010. Not only are the rich getting richer, many of the poor are finally making headway, too.
We found ourselves living in Vietnam at the perfect moment—which also made it an ideal time for my sister and her family, as well as my brother, Ira, from New York, to visit. Over the next two weeks, the nine of us would follow a route mapped out by the outfitter Trails of Indochina, traveling from Hanoi and the Red River Delta in the North to Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta in the South. Jesse and Sam could show off their adopted home. And I’d be able to demonstrate why I’d been making such a fuss over Vietnam all these years.
Hanoi: Welcome to the Land of Paper Cell Phones
Vietnam’s capital is 1,000 years old and has four million residents, but it feels more like a cluster of distinct villages. Among them is the Hai Ba Trung area, with its century-old European-style villas, and Hoan Kiem, given over to crowded outdoor markets (fresh tofu! live snakes!) and dark, incense-filled pagodas. Armed with a map and guidebook, you can navigate the more central neighborhoods on foot, and if you get lost, you just flag a passing cab and flash your hotel’s business card to return to home base.
We, of course, had our own guides in the family. One afternoon, my boys hailed a fleet of cyclos, Vietnam’s three-wheeled pedicabs, to take us to the Thang Long Water Puppet Theater. The puppets—foot-high dragons, phoenixes, fairies, and foxes—danced and scampered across a stage of waist-deep water, manipulated by puppeteers hidden behind a screen. (Imagine Esther Williams as a marionette). Another day, we wandered through the Old Quarter, a circus of anarchic traffic and mazelike streets that have traditionally specialized in particular crafts, trades, or products. We strolled down Hang Than (Charcoal-Sellers’ Street), which is famous today for Vietnamese candy, and sampled banh com, a rice field-green sweet cake, and banh dau xanh, a yellow, halvah-like mung-bean treat that foreigners love or hate (we split down the middle).
I’d worried that the noise and congestion of the Old Quarter might be too much for the girls, but Maya, who’d brought along a camera, shot pictures the whole time, and Noa, who loves animals, kept pausing to look at one more impossibly cute thing—a porcelain poodle, a Snoopy pillow, a Chihuahua barking in a store doorway. On Hang Ma (Votive Paper-Sellers’ Street), vendors specialize in vang ma, the paper facsimiles of money, cell phones, eyeglasses, and other worldly goods that Vietnamese burn as offerings to their ancestors in the netherworld. The shops and sidewalks were so full of bright tinsel streamers that it looked as though the entire block was gearing up for a party. We had our own fest at the Metropole, Hanoi’s century-old premier hotel, where we dove into the chocolate buffet (chocolate fondue, chocolate pastries, chocolate truffles, hot chocolate). As Maya recorded in her journal, "there was even chocolate-covered fish (which, disgustingly, one of us mistook for something else and took a huge bite of!)"
Mekong Delta: The Canoe Caper
In Hanoi, we knew our way around. But once we took the short early-morning flight south to Ho Chi Minh City, even my family became tourists. Our Trails of Indochina guide, Linh, met us at the airport with a roomy van, and we immediately headed southwest for the three-hour drive into the Mekong Delta, where we would spend the next two days. Known to the Vietnamese as the Song Cuu Long, or River of Nine Dragons, the Mekong ends its nearly 2,600-mile journey from China here, creating an agriculturally fertile region with a water-based society that’s unlike any other in Vietnam.
At our first stop, the sleepy river town of Vinh Long, we were joined by Hai, a thoughtful local guide who had learned his English working for the U.S. military during the war. We took off by motorboat, first crossing the river itself, then traveling down smaller tributaries lined with pomelo trees and coconut palms. We saw a woman standing knee-deep in the shallows, washing her hair. A blue and yellow kingfisher watched us from a tree. I had heard that these waterways serve as the major commercial thoroughfares of the delta, but I didn’t fully understand their importance until I saw the narrow sampans sliding through, one entire boat weighed down with coconuts, another with grape-sized longan fruit, a delicacy known in Vietnam as "dragon’s eyes."
The value of boats was, at that moment, especially pertinent. When we first began to plan our trip, we decided to participate in a charitable program that Trails of Indochina sponsors in rural areas. For $400, we could donate a sampan to a poor family. Despite the fact that the percentage of people living in poverty has declined substantially, many Vietnamese remain destitute, and a profound economic disparity has developed between city dwellers and people in the countryside. (The woman washing her hair probably had no running water.) Giving away a single boat would, of course, do little to remedy the situation, but it would ease one family’s suffering. And we liked the idea that our children would meet the people we hoped to help.
When our motorboat pulled up at the village of Hoa Phuoc, a group of children ran outside to watch us step ashore, then trailed along as we followed Hai to a one-room shed looking out on the waterway. Holes in the door had been patched with empty rice sacks. Our kids, who’d been laughing with the village kids a minute before, suddenly grew silent. A tall, thin man with ruddy skin and few teeth stepped outside. Hai introduced him as Mr. Kim, the 66-year-old father of the family we had come to meet.
I knew that Mr. Kim and his wife had six children, so I’d expected a house full of people. Their strained financial circumstances, however, meant that only Mr. Kim, his daughter, and a single grandchild remained at home. The rest of the family—the older children and mother as well—were working as day laborers in nearby towns. We sat on the porch with Mr. Kim while Hai explained to our children that the family could hire out their new boat or fish with it and sell their catch.
"Do you have any questions for Mr. Kim?" he asked.
The kids hesitated. Then Sam raised his hand and asked, "Do you like your house?"
Hai translated. Mr. Kim smiled at Sam, then nodded. "I do."
We walked down to the water to see the boat. Built of wood from the dau tree, it was brand new, deep red, still sticky with resin. Long and thin like a canoe, it would move easily through these waters, as such boats have done for generations. Mr. Kim stood next to me, gazing toward the bank. "When can you begin fishing?" I asked. Mr. Kim looked up toward the sky, judging the light, the weather, the wind. The sun had just begun to set. After a moment, he said, "I’ll start tomorrow."
The Mekong on Two Wheels
Traveling by van along the roads of the Mekong Delta felt a bit like eating rice without salt. It wasn’t bad, exactly, but we sensed we were missing something. So everyone was excited when, the morning after our visit to Mr. Kim, Linh and our driver pulled out mountain bikes and helmets from the back of the van. Linh would ride with us while the driver followed, ready to load us back into the van if we ran out of steam.
We got off to a wobbly start. Jesse, who hadn’t been on a bike in months, nearly careened into a flooded rice field. But the road was flat and wonderfully empty, and soon we formed a neat single-file line. Our route wound past rice fields and over mangrove-lined canals. We glided by prim little houses glowing with fresh coats of pink, green, and orange paint, and one-room shops selling Vietnam’s national dish, the noodle soup called pho (pronounced "fuh" as if you’re asking a question: "Fuh?"). The day was hot and bright, but also breezy.
The night before, we’d stayed in the town of Can Tho, at the palm-shaded, colonial-style Victoria Resort. After hamburgers at the Victoria’s restaurant, the kids swam in the pool until 10:00. Watching the fun they had simply playing in the water, I’d wondered whether they would have been just as happy to spend this vacation in Orlando, at a Holiday Inn. But this morning’s bike ride taught me otherwise. The kids clearly found it challenging, but they were also having a blast. And there was something more, as well. Every couple of minutes, a young child or two would appear in the doorway of a house, dash out to the side of the road, and call as we passed, "Hello!" I responded at first, but eventually got tired. Noa, however, riding just ahead, kept at it the entire ride—calling back greetings 50, maybe 60 times. Later, when I asked her how she had maintained such enthusiasm, she said, "It didn’t take much to say hello." Clearly, you don’t have to be a grown-up throwing around terms like "cross- cultural understanding" to recognize the value of spreading goodwill.
War and Peace in Ho Chi Minh City
If Hanoi is Vietnam’s Washington, D.C., brash and flamboyant Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) is the nation’s L.A. In 1975, after Communist forces overran the onetime capital of South Vietnam, they renamed the city in honor of the former president, closed the nightclubs and boutiques, and instituted a 10-year period of draconian, and nearly ruinous, economic reform. Thirty years later, however, the old Saigon is back. The neighborhood around Dong Khoi Street is lined with shops selling silk couture and salons specializing in facials. Skyscrapers are replacing Communist-era housing blocks, and the year-old Park Hyatt Saigon (yes, Saigon) is one of the best new hotels in Asia.
The key for visiting families is finding ways to enjoy the city’s charms without becoming overwhelmed by its size, the crowds, and temperatures that regularly soar into the nineties year-round. We stayed at the Caravelle Hotel, which is so central that we could duck back in for a midday break. One morning, for example, we explored Cho Lon, the city’s Chinatown, and the children lit incense at the fantastically elaborate Quan Am Pagoda. But the heat and the smog made all of us crabby. The only "exploring" we did that afternoon was playing Marco Polo in the Caravelle’s pool.
We started our days with French toast and pho at the breakfast buffet—and then kept eating. During a cooking class that Trails of Indochina arranged for us with TV chef Nguyen Dzoan Cam Van, the Julia Child of Vietnam, the children made fresh spring rolls and banh xeo, a shrimp-, pork-, and beansprout-filled "sizzling cake." One night, we took a dinner cruise along the Saigon River, feasting on green-papaya salad and prawns while looking out at cityscapes dense with tall buildings and flashing neon. At the legendary Bo Tung Xeo, a barnlike restaurant, we grilled beef cubes on tabletop braziers. And at Nam Giao, tucked down an alleyway behind the famous Ben Thanh Market, we sampled noodle dishes from Central Vietnam. The restaurant’s dappled light, traditional blue-and-white dishware, and worn tile floor reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of Saigon in the 1970’s. In those days, U.S. soldiers would gravitate to noodle shops like this one, which offered down-home food and a feeling of normalcy in a nation torn by war.
In Vietnam, you constantly come upon reminders of the war. We found them in Vinh Long at a restaurant built on an old U.S. military helipad. We found them in Hanoi’s Unification Park, one of our boys’ favorite hangouts, where the airplanes on the kiddie ride look like Russian-built MiG’s. We even found them at the Caravelle, where, in 1964, a bomb ripped through the fifth floor. Nothing about the renovated hotel hints at the incident, but guests get to read all about it in a special brochure.
One day, Ira slipped away to visit the War Remnants Museum. Housed in the former U.S. Information Service building, the museum has reconstructions of the torture chambers that the French colonial government used against Vietnamese patriots and, from another era, displays demonstrating the horrendous effects of the U.S. military’s use of Agent Orange—definitely too disturbing for children under 10. Even with our young children, though, we ended up talking about the war quite often. Once, in Hanoi, Jesse tried on one of the green army helmets that middle-aged Vietnamese men still often use as hats. "Would this helmet have protected a soldier’s head if someone shot at him?" he asked. I had no precise answer. "Yes," I said. "No. Well, maybe."
Ha Long Bay: The Emerald Isands
From Ho Chi Minh City, we flew back to Hanoi for a couple of nights, then took off on the three-hour drive to Ha Long Bay, Vietnam’s great natural wonder, a series of 1,600 limestone islands spread across nearly 600 square miles of the Gulf of Tonkin. The islands, many nothing more than rocky outcroppings covered with emerald-green vegetation, jut dramatically from the turquoise water, creating a setting so eerily beautiful that Vietnamese writers and artists have memorialized it for centuries. As part of our tour, organized this time through Handspan Adventure Travel, we cruised on a wooden junk, indulging in a many-course lunch that included the never-fail fries and prawns so fresh they might have just been scooped from the water.
At dusk, we arrived at Cat Ba Island and checked into the Holiday View Hotel, well situated downtown, and well-priced at $50 for a two-room family suite (though our rooms were pretty basic). The main commercial area borders a bay filled with brightly painted fishing boats; twisting roads climb hillsides rising above the waterfront. On the central pier that evening, children chased each other, teenagers flirted, and families sat snacking on roasted dried squid (a Vietnamese equivalent of beef jerky) at makeshift stalls. Near the market we found a karaoke establishment that was entirely blue (blue walls, blue curtains, blue leather sectional sofas) and doubled as somebody’s living room. As Sam belted out "Hound Dog," a group of passing young men clapped with the kind of big-brotherly affection that we’d all come to expect in Vietnam.
The next morning, the day before our visitors were scheduled to fly back to the States, we hiked a mountain in Cat Ba National Park. The kids raced up like monkeys, calling back to us every so often, "It is so, so, so steep," their voices full of fake fear and real delight. In the afternoon, as we boarded a hydrofoil for a bumpy ride to Hai Phong (one leg of a shortcut to Hanoi), the children swaggered like adventurers who’d explored some far-off land and lived to talk about it.
And they had. We could have chosen a less challenging way to spend the vacation, but I don’t think we would have been as happy. My brother-in-law reported that Maya cried on the plane going home. She had fallen in love with Vietnam, she told him. Of course, I could relate.
Dana Sachs is the author of The House on Dream Street: Memoir of an American Woman in Vietnam. Her novel, If You Lived Here, will be published by William Morrow in March.
