We are near the American logistics center during the war with North Vietnam. 550,000 American Troupes here at the peak. One of our guides answers all my usual questions but then tells me that I haven’t asked the most common question that all tourists, regardless of where they are from, ask. He tells me the question and then provides his answer. “What do the Vietnamese think of America and Americans now the war is over?” He tells me that it really depends on the generation of the Vietnamese answering the question. For him (he’s looks about 30) he tells me that they really have no feelings based on the war period but that his parents and particularly his Grandparents still hold the pain of the war. Hardly surprising since the US dropped the equivalent of 550lbs of munitions for every living person in Laos and Vietnam.
Hoi An is a very pleasant place to visit and stay, we rent bicycles and drift around town and through rice paddies to the beaches of the South China Sea. It’s Full Moon and we watch as the townsfolk put candles into small paper boats and set them adrift on the river at night.
I finish reading Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American” but it’s a pirated copy and starts on page 17 even though no pages are missing. Also there seems to be some clumsy attempts at censorship which I will check against my own copy back home.
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