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Though Vietnam lacks the cold futuristic setting one imagines of Communist governments, Big Brother does make its presence felt. Foreigners are required to register with the local police wherever they go, accomplished by leaving their passports or a registration form with the hotel desk. "Freedom, Peace, Happiness," reads the ubiquitous slogan which appears on most official documents and receipts. Sometimes you could almost believe it, hearing some of the more zealous patriots talk, that Communism can create a workers' paradise. Everyone who's gone to Vietnam, after all, takes note of the extraordinary (and perhaps ironic) peacefulness of the country. But the truth is that Vietnam's version of the Communist ideal is far from utopian, or indeed, even dystopian-- sometimes, it's just comic. Vietnam is a place where you can dodge a BMW on the street one moment, only to be nearly run over by a wave of rickety bicycles the next. It's where a free and thriving enterprise means a noodle or bread stall on every corner, albeit that the products come from one central source, rendering the products indistinguishable from each other. Vietnam is also where schoolchildren in the north will insist that you abide by proper historical nomenclature, and call Saigon "Ho Chi Minh City," while businessmen in the south will gently correct you and tell you that it's "Saigon," after all.
      There's that temptation to treat a trip to Vietnam as if it were a trip to a Communist circus. Indeed, there's often that feeling that there's something going on behind your back that you're not seeing. Travelers agree that Vietnam is one of the easier countries to go around in. It's mostly peaceful, clean, cheap, convenient—but only if you stay on the officially approved path. For a few dollars, you can buy yourself passage between the best tourist-trap cities of the country: Hanoi, Hué, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the Central Highlands, Da Nang, Dalat, Nha Trang, Saigon. Travel to anywhere outside that route, however, l can be very expensive. Train and plane tickets, let alone private car rentals, are made exhorbitant for foreigners. Domestic airfare cost twice as much for foreigners as it does for Vietnamese nationals; train tickets up to four times as much. Later on in my stay, trying to find a way from Saigon to Ca Na, the English-accented representative of the government tourist office ("We Know the Country") coolly informed me that, since there are no buses going my way and since foreigners were not allowed to drive cars at all, I would have to rent a car and a driver for US$250.

IT IS EASY TO FORGET that most of the people you meet had seen the bloody 20-year war, or at least horrors of the aftermath, firsthand. Physical reminders abound—scars, missing limbs, ruins of buildings, innumerable graveyards. But there is a marked lack of bitterness among its people, and a surprising capacity for hospitality. There is some irony, I suppose, from the fact that the director of the hostel where we stayed in, an elderly gentleman named Mr. Do Thi Vinh, had seen (and perhaps fought) the French and the Americans, but now welcomed them all to his hearth.
      No, neither Vietnam nor its people are completely healed of their scars. Everywhere the hopeful signs of rebuilding serve also to recall the destruction of the past, but it's hard not to come away from any of the cities without a measure of optimism. Think of the tragedies of its history, and then look at Vietnam now.
      Serene Hué, for example. Hué is the emperor's city, its centerpiece the magnificent Citadel that encloses several palaces, monuments and the so-called Forbidden Purple City. Whether roaring through the city's streets on a motorbike, or walking by the banks of the Perfume River, it is still easy to find the kind of calm in Hué that must have soothed the 13 Nguyen dynsasty emperors who called it home. Who can remember without prodding the fact that Hué was also the site of one of the most massive massacres of the war? In three short, terrible weeks, Hué lost 3,000 civilians who were summarily executed by the Viet Cong in the brief time that the city was under their command; the casualties mounted to 10,000 during the Tet offensive, when the Americans tried to take back control.
      Twenty years later, and Hué still has its scars: although currently undergoing extensive restoration, much of the magnificence of the Citadel was destroyed by warfare. Entire palaces were leveled, vegetable gardens now growing in their place. Outside the city, too many civilian and military graveyards dot the countryside.
      But Hué survived that, and it is now a thriving city. It's still not the place to find highrises and buildings, but in many respects, Hué is doing far better than urbanized Hanoi and Saigon. Transformation has visited Hué, too, in the shape of modern businesses and building on the uprise, but its pleasures remain simple and unpretentious, as do its people.
      One of the greatest attractions in Hué isn't a historical marker at all. A rave review in my guidebook directed us to a small restaurant just off the main street: the Lac Thanh restaurant. In a country famed for its food, in the city singled out for its cuisine, Lac Thanh's well-earned reputation as one of the best places to eat in Hué is enough to give the place a thriving business. And yet, it remains little more than a small family-operated diner open to the sidewalk. Mr. Lac, the family patriarch, banters with the diners, while the rest of the family man the tables. It's the sort of place where, having no cash register or even official receipts, bills are paid by the honor system. "What did you have?" Mr. Lac's daughter, Lan Anh, asked after we finished a meal; and after we ticked off the dishes we'd stuffed ourselves with, she nods, "Not much today, huh?" (She recalled the previous night, when we had ordered enough to feed ourselves into a state of stupor, and had enough left over to share with a couple of fellow diners curious about our food, and with some children outside who gladly erased the evidence of our gluttony.) Asking to use the washroom, I found myself in the family's living quarters—somebody was sleeping on the bed, and was roused by my efforts to get the door unstuck. When I came back out to the dining area, the grandmother who sat in the corner waved at me with a smile, "Oh, Philippin, Phillipin," and came over to the table soon after I'd sat down. She made a move to touch my face, and said something in Vietnamese that made everybody in the restaurant smile; one of the girls manning the tables translated for me, "She said you are very pretty. You remind her of her granddaughter."
      People still stare at you, if you're a foreigner in Hué. It is a place where people will keep respect your private space, but will watch you from across the street. Cyclo drivers now have enough street savvy to quote you a price especially inflated for tourists—but you won't mind, because the next day, you might bump into the same cyclo driver and he will wave to you and treat you like a friend.
      Hué exemplifies what is most charming about present-day Vietnam: the charming naiveté of a locale only beginning to adjust to its role as a tourist draw, like a girl only beginning to find out how beautiful she is. It's a precious time, when the place and the people have just enough experience to be good hosts to the visiting crowds, but not enough to make this graciousness cold and automatic; in a word, Hué and its people are still sincere. However, this time is short, and is probably drawing to a close: a couple of large and luxurious hotels were about to open when I was there, a sign of things to come.
      Other places have already succumbed. Dalat, for example, is fast becoming a kitsch-ridden mountain retreat, while Cu Chi is nothing but a wartime Disneyland, a theme park with an unlikely theme. Hoi An, which was a largely untrodden stop on the backpacker trail a few years ago, had turned into a tourist trap in the worst way by the time I got there. It was impossible to take a few steps without someone new coming up to repeat the exact same spiel: "Hello, where do you come from, would you come take a look inside my shop?" It was nothing short of heartbreaking, too, to see an ugly fight between two groups of boatmen who were vying for our business.

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