April 6, 2006
As we’re flying high above over Saigon, I’m trying hard to imagine what’s become of the city since I was last there. A place I once could most closely parallel with Cambodia has shot way ahead in its urban development, and I had been warned. Vietnam is changing with a rapid and magnificent trajectory, but would it still have the same charm I experienced when I first set foot on southeast Asia six years ago when I did Semester at Sea? Trying hard to envision what it was even like then proved difficult, and I normally have a photographic memory. Vietnam was a black hole of amazing memories that I could no longer bring forth in my head. This doesn’t bode well for the lifespan of the memories I’ve captured in Cambodia these past nine months.
Sitting next to me, my father, was probably thinking the same thing. Probably very nervous, scared, excited, overwhelmed. The last time he was flying high over Saigon, he was wearing fatigues, a buzz cut, and it was 1968. I had warned him how much the city had change since I had even been there last, but I don’t think he could quite envision it in his head. If you take any city and compare it before and after a span of forty years, I’m sure there will always be drastic differences in architecture style, dress, and urban development. But I think somewhere in his head, he was hoping to find some of the same familiarity of the 1960s and the Vietnam war. But with a country that is young and vibrant, and eager to move forward and write a new history for itself, Saigon is far removed from the war, and other than a few touristy spots that house military memorabilia and chronicle the war crimes of the United States. The new Saigon is concealing its military history with fancy shopping malls, 5 Star hotels and restaurants, French-style colonial architecture, and all the conveniences of the west [including ubiquitous wifi].
Six years ago there wasn’t an ATM to be found, nor an Internet café in plain site. Now like Bangkok, Saigon has bank machines on nearly every street corner and fancy modern cafes advertising free wifi everywhere you go – indicating that public laptops are abundant. This town is wired. The motorbike is still the primary mode of transportation, but unlike Cambodia’s retro 80s style Daelim, fancy Honda “Dream’s” have taken over the streets of downtown. There is less side-saddle riding, and women are much more cozy with their male riding companions than they ever were in the late 90s, wrapping their thin arms around the waists of fashionably dressed boyfriends. The Ao Dai has been replaced with blue jeans and heels, yet women’s faces still sport a pale-colored bandana, wrapped like a renegade cowboy over their mouths and noses – to keep out unwanted fumes and dirt.
Nothing and everything is familiar about Saigon to me. The sights and smells have a vague memory to them, but nothing concrete stands out in my mind. I don’t even have old pictures to examine because the US Embassy official who greeted our ship warned us that we should feel comfortable physically parting with anything we decided to take off the ship – Saigon was “dangerous” for tourists. The intense fear of pickpockets and touts, and the occasional moto flying by to swipe any bags or cameras resting innocently on shoulders, had me keep my camera tucked away. The only pictures I can look back at are from the Mekong Delta canals, and I imagine life there is still very much the same as before. Maybe this was a good thing as I had several friends get robbed back then.
Despite the multiple warnings in guidebooks today, that street thievery is still very commonplace and significant care should be taken, I’m lugging around my even-bigger camera hoping to physically and mentally capture some of this remarkable city. Then in six years – maybe forty years – from now, Vietnam won’t be a black hole to me, it will be captured as one of the liveliest and most beautiful Southeast Asian countries around.
