This time by the 2 million vacationers who descend on the communist country every year. Ten percent are Americans, many of them men who fought there and are returning to see the changes or heal their wounds. The couple of dozen men from the Midwest whom I met on my recent trip were looking forward to having dinner with the Viet Cong unit they battled 30 years ago.
Time changes everything.
While its cities are rapidly modernizing, the Vietnamese countryside seems pleasantly trapped in a time warp. The first stop on my trip to the southern end of the S-shaped country was the resort city of Nha Trang. The understated and elegant Ana Mandara, one of four luxury resorts in the country, washed away any fears of being disconnected from the world. A big surprise came the next day when I found the crescent beach filled with hundreds of people playing badminton and doing tai chi as the sun rose. A 5 a.m. wake-up blasted through the streets from a loudspeaker, urging everyone to keep fit, work hard and be a solid citizen.