Modern Vietnam is a nice place to visit.. and you wouldn't mind staying there for a while.Being an American and growing up during
Vietnam War era, I always wanted to see what post war Vietnam was like now a days. During Vietnam war I was to young to be drafted but I clearly remember all hype in USA over Vietnam and war. I can even remember my older brother actually joined in anti-war protests and burned his draft card.
As luck would have it, one of companies that I often free lance worked for secured a submarine cable laying project in Vietnam and asked me if I was interested to go there. Most definitely I wanted to go there.
As our plane touched down in now Ho Chi Minh City, I tried somehow relate back to how soldiers would have felt when they had landed there in Saigon back during war. I can tell you this, feelings they would have had wouldn’t have been good at all knowing there’s a chance that they could be killed there.
While driving from airport to our hotel I even saw several of those old concrete machinegun bunkers. Even though war had ended over 20 years ago, it was still clear that Vietnam still had many reminisces of it’s war era days.
Traffic was chaotic at best. Many intersections didn’t have traffic lights and it also seemed that some people drove on whatever side of street they pleased. Definitely, anyone from any western country wouldn’t want to even attempt to drive a vehicle on streets of Vietnam.
The architecture in Ho Chi Min City is a major reflection of French design with a mixture of Asian influence. The government buildings and churches were all beautifully designed and up kept quite well throughout city center.
Vung Tau
The following morning we headed down south to port town of Vung Tau. Vung Tau is at entrance to Saigon river. It is about a 6 hour drive from Ho Chi Min City to Vung Tau. During Vietnam war American soldiers used Vung Tau as an R&R area (Rest & Recreation).
Since war ended Russians have turned Vung Tau into an Offshore Oilfield supply base. They even have a large compound there where all Russian’s oilfield workers and their families reside.
There’s also a few bars along street directly opposite this huge Russian compound. The Russian’s visit these bars for drinking, socializing and shooting pool, etc. I would shoot pool there also and I happened to meet a few nice Russians there. They were oilfield workers on their time off.
Back to bars.. there were several bars on main strip there [which runs along beach]. Most of bars also served good western food and had pool tables in them also. Of course there were some beautiful and sexy Vietnam ladies there also.
I can’t exactly put my finger on it but there’s something about Vietnam girls that makes them extra sexy. Almost all of them have typical long black hair (very long, in fact) and that alone makes any woman sexy in my opinion.
But, Vietnamese ladies have their own special dress, Vietnamese Long Dress, known locally as Ao Dai. It is a one piece dress and color is usually white. What’s really sexy about this dress is extremely high slit up both sides of it. Wow.. it seems like slit is going all way up to and even pass their asses and it makes ladies look so very sexy when you see them walking or riding their bicycles down street.
To top off their sexiness, they are usually dawning a typical straw coned hat on their pretty little heads while outdoors to protect them from sun also. Great combo and when you personally witness it, it would bring average horny man down to his knees in no time.
Jam Packed Beaches
Our project was not on same beach with rows of bars, but on other windward side beach. We couldn’t work there during day time on weekends cause beach was always jam packed with people sunbathing, swimming and having a great time..
Unlike so many other Asian countries I’ve visited where hardly any of locals seemed to sunbath or even swim at beach, it seems that Vietnamese people really do love beach and sun. On weekends it would get so crowded that you could barely even find a space to sit.
