It’s 6am and I’m sat in an Internet cafe in an eerily quiet Hanoi.
We’ve just got off the night train from Lao Chi (nr Sapa) and I’m not too sure which way is up!
We shared a cabin with a Vietnamese couple and I got talking to Mr Hien Duy Le. I was drilling Hien for more facts (we’ve done the museum circuit in Hanoi already) and his opinion on the past 100 years or so of Vietnamese history. All very interesting, and disturbing. They’ve had a tough century or so (the French, the Japanese, the French again, the Americans, the Kamher Rouge), but as my man told me it was nothing compared to the 1000 year war with the Chinese.
Hien said that Vietnam, especially Hanoi, is changing daily. It really started to change in 1990 and has been changing with pace ever since.
(The girl next to me at the Internet cafe is listening to Hotel California – what is it with that song in Vietnam!!)
Hien was interested on the book Laura is reading – River of Time – about a journalist posted in Vietnam during the war with America. I have his address and will send it him when I’ve read it. The least I could do in exchange for my private history lesson!
Righto, dawn is breaking and my stomach is grumbling.
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You forget the British…
My tutor at university (the second time) told me how the British were responsible for the partition of vietnam, the subsequent war and the ensuing american involvement.
Bastards, we are.
Comment by jimmybob February 13, 2009 @ 12:20 pm[...] just got off the over night train from Sapa we camped out in a cafe for a few hours before being picked up by our mini-bus. We were both [...]
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