THERE SHOULD BE SOMETHING WRONG with this picture, I thought: I was inside a cabin on the Reunification Train, freezing under three layers of clothes (my pocket thermometer pegged the temperature at 15 degrees Celsius, minus wind chill), and I was sharing a breakfast of bahn bao with a train guard who was trying to decipher the music of Tanya Donnelly from my Walkman. My train ticket warned, "passengers are prohibited to carry on board dangerous items such as explosives, inflammable, radioactive or dead body, nauseatingitems, live stock, or other commodities not alllowed to be transported by government regulations." We were drinking bottled water proudly branded "La Vile." Definitely not what I expected, but this was it: this was Vietnam.
      What the rest of the world knows, or thinks that it does, of Vietnam is shaped by pop culture: Apocalypse Now or China Beach, Good Morning, Vietnam and Miss Saigon, or even The Adventures of Tintin. When we think of Vietnam, we either have romantic visions of the old Indochine, an Oriental empire of mixed Chinese and Indian heritage, with its ancient citadels and gentle people; or we borrow the American perspective on the Vietnam War of the 60s and 70s, the bloody war that was among the most poignant and divisive issues of its generation. But any visitor to Vietnam today, whatever preconceptions he may bring to the place, will find himself surprised at every turn. Vietnam has only recently emerged from its self-imposed solitude, and if Vietnam is no good at hiding its surprise and bewilderment at the rest of the world, then the rest of the world cannot expect to avoid bewilderment.
      It is impossible to anticipate the faces and moods of Vietnam, one soon learns, because no other country is so unshy about its extremes. Traveling from north to south, one witnesses drastic changes: in weather, from freezing to temperate to sweltering; in political sentiment, from languid apathy to strong socialist nationalism to frenetic capitalism; and in the way of life, as slowgoing Hanoi provides a stark contrast to fast-track Saigon. And then there is also a varying sense of history: Cities like Hué and Dalat have long memories that remember emperors and French colonialists; forward-looking Ho Chi Minh City seems anxious to forget everything that happened in the past.
      Most visitors choose to land in Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) and make their way north to Hanoi. Luckily, circumstances forced me to travel the other way. Instead of arriving in the middle of the famous hustle and bustle of Saigon first, I was first acquainted with gentle Hanoi and with the quaint towns of the midlands, before bringing all that to give perspective to cosmopolitan Saigon.
      It was Hanoi that won the divisive civil war that ran its bitter course over 20 years; because of that victory, it remains the seat of Vietnamese government. But far from being the seat of modernity that one would expect, its tree-lined streets, peaceful lakes, and slow pace belie the wheeling and dealing that goes on in the government buildings of the administrative capital. It is in Hanoi where the venerable Ho Chi Minh himself--Uncle Ho to his people--lies in a mausoleum to rival Lenin's tomb. In the city proper, the flood of cyclos and motorbikes go down both sides of the street, a companionable chaos to the quiet bustle of the sidewalks. A walk through Hanoi's Old Quarter (there's one in most every town) will reveal the remains of French colonial architecture: houses and buildings, their bright colors and distinctive facades now faded with age and scarred by war. Although new buildings, hotels, commercial establishments and foreign franchises sprout daily, Hanoi remains for the most part a charmingly reserved city with the best of its Eurasian descent.
      Everything is slower in Hanoi. Even the accent of the southern speech, drastically different from the north, is gentler to the ears. Almost as a natural consequence, the people of Hanoi are quiet and reserved. Although foreign visitors are fast becoming commonplace, the hospitality that greets travelers in Hanoi was of the kind reserved for new guests--graciousness mixed with a healthy dose of curiosity and wariness.
      Everything closes by 11pm--no cars, no shops, hardly any people, even the lights around the park shut off. There is no curfew, but the desolate nighttime streets don't make it easy to forget that Vietnam is a Communist government, a Marxist-Leninist long after its time.
      The constant reminders begin as soon as our plane landed in Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City: I was detained for a few minutes as customs officials vigilant for what the forms labeled "culturally damaging materials" took away my reading materials and CDs for inspection. They were given back intact, although I later learned that my guidebook had escaped narrowly: that particular line was banned, I learned later; fortunately, it had been carried through by a friend who was smart enough not to declare anything at Immigration.

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