Page 155 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL FALL 2020 South Africa

LOOKING FORWARD gift shops, documentaries with jaunty sound-
tracks, booby trap displays, a shooting range and
Dear Ron,
outdoor restaurants for the attention of tourists.
In our last postcard, we didn’t mention that the
When we visited the place was packed. People
Vietnamese New Year holiday is called Tet.
sticking their heads out of a tunnel entrance was
We didn’t forget. But to many Americans the the main photo op.
word “Tet” is synonymous with “Vietnam War.”
Even our Cu Chi guide, “Mr. Chi,” was ultimately
The Tet Offensive was a country-wide surprise at-
dismissive of it all. “We can’t be Hobbits all our
tack during the 1968 Lunar New lives,” he said as we left for our boat
Year holiday. It was the war’s big-
ride back to the city.
gest battle -- more than 1,000 GIs
Then there’s HCMC’s war museum.
died.
It’s grim. The third floor “agent or-
But Tet casts no such shadow
ange” exhibit has gut-wrenching pho-
here. In Vietnam it’s just a time for
tos. But even here the Vietnamese
joy and celebration. Grudge
downplay the past. An earlier version
doesn’t seem to be a Vietnamese of the museum, opened in 1975, was
concept. War? What war? During
called “The Exhibition House for US
our trip we must have brought up
and Puppet Crimes.” In 1990 the
the subject a dozen times. Each name was changed to “Exhibition
time – in the north, south, coast,
House for Crimes of War and Ag-
inland -- the answer was the same:
gression.”
“That’s the past, we look ahead.”
When diplomatic relations with
That’s Vietnam in a single sen-
the U.S. were resumed in 1995, the
tence. The people we met were industrious, opti-
name was changed again. Now it’s called the “War
mistic and happy. Laughter was everywhere.
Remnants Museum.”
A boat dock gate didn’t open – the gate man At our hotel in Da Lat we kept asking Huynh
struggled with it, laughed, struggled some more,
Nghia, the friendly guy who welcomed us, what his
laughed, then let us around another side. A fruit
job title was. Each day he’d laugh and give us a dif-
seller thought it hilarious when we asked her to ferent title.
write out the Vietnamese name for dragon fruit
Finally, on our last day, as we were leaving, he
(“thranh long”). When our tour Jeep stalled in a
said, “I’m manager, door man, waiter, bellhop,
busy highway outside Hanoi, the pretty young tour
guide just shrugged, laughed and sat back, putting president! There are no titles here, we’re now just
family.” And then he laughed and gave us both a
her feet up on the dash.
hug.
ven the Cu Chi tunnels, a war site outside
Love,
HCMC, felt more like a theme park than a memo-
rial. The extensive tunnels, used by the Viet Cong John and Jody
to evade U.S. troops and napalm attacks, vie with

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