Word: viet
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...intrepid voyagers usually includes returning U.S. veterans and naturalized American citizens, born in Viet Nam. "It's nice, flying into Saigon, not having to sit on a flak jacket," says Bob Handy, 55, of Santa Barbara, Calif., who served a year in Chu Lai with the Marines. "I'm going back because it's a beautiful country." Like most of her fellow Vietnamese- born travelers, Tran Thi Thuc, 49, a health-care worker from Kalamazoo, Mich., was hoping to visit relatives. "I have not seen my mother since 1975," she says, recalling a hasty departure with her husband...
...hour northwest of Saigon, government tour guides fire their only major barrage of propaganda. In a lecture complete with pointer and diagrams, Nguyen Viet Hai, 33, details how ingenious Viet Cong escaped detection by U.S. soldiers by hiding out in a network of narrow, subterranean tunnels. Next, visitors are invited to go below ground and taste the claustrophobic flavor of tunnel life for themselves. The guides hasten to point out that the passageways have been enlarged to accommodate Caucasian visitors. Before the group descends, Hai recites the tunnel dwellers' motto: "When you walk without footmarks, when you talk without...
...Saigon's heat is broken by a pause in Bao Loc to buy the renowned local tea and an unscheduled pit stop in a teak grove. The van with the small U.S. flag on the windshield startles villagers and city folk alike. Americans are a rare species in Viet Nam, and most are mistakenly greeted in Russian by children and adults. But when the reply is "Nyet Lien- So, Mee" (Russian-Vietnamese pidgin for "Not Soviets, Americans"), Vietnamese, especially in the South, do happy double takes. This is in part due to an economy that once benefited mightily from...
...does not officially recognize the regime in Hanoi, and the Treasury Department enforces rules that hobble travelers and prevent tour operators from advertising. Members of the Vietnamese community in the U.S. may feel further discouraged from making a visit: supporters of Nguyen Cao Ky, former Vice President of South Viet Nam now in exile in California, insist that a trip to the homeland abets the enemy...
...those who are not discouraged by all this, there are other caveats. The wait for a visa to visit Viet Nam can be exasperatingly long, and doctors recommend an arm-numbing array of shots against typhoid, cholera, tetanus and diphtheria, as well as the weekly malaria pill while in-country. A few other words of advice are in order. Leave your preconceptions at home; pack instead medical supplies for most intestinal contingencies (don't drink the water, peel all the fruit) and a healthy tolerance for inconvenience (no toilet paper or light bulbs). Credit cards and traveler's checks...