Sunday NY Times on Vietnam
Apr. 24th, 2005 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lsandersonGOING TO
Ho Chi Minh City
hy Go Now
Because 30 years after the end of the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly
Saigon) is finally growing up. With a prettified, gentrifying downtown, an array
of international hotels and now direct flights from the United States via
United, it has never been easier to visit. What's more - and this may shock
anyone who was mobbed by postcard vendors or stalked by optimistic cyclo drivers
back in the mid-90's - there has been an overall relaxing of the city's
aggressively capitalist nature.
A Former Enemy Rolls Out the Welcome Mat
N the upper deck of our dinner boat on the Saigon
River, Dang Ngoc Co, our dinner companion, called for a bucket of iced Heinekens
and ordered prodigiously from the menu: steamed jumbo shrimp flecked with minced
garlic, shaved shreds of beef sautéed in lemon grass and chili pepper, a hot pot
of seafood thick with white fish and squid.
