My dream journey part 2 - Vietnam

Welcome back.

Last time I told you a little about first part of the journey that I'm planning to take next year. Now it's the time to use a plane from Thailand to Vietnam and check what's interesting there.

Maybe it's a thing that I should be ashamed of, but nonetheless I'll tell you this. For me, Vietnam was like in all those movies showing Vietnam War. I knew that this probably isn't true nowadays, but I wasn't aware of the fact that it's such a developed country now. With the end of Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Vietnam attracted many foreign investors. It's a situation little like in Poland where there was a rapid economical and social change because of sudden opening to the world. The two biggest cities have totally above 13 million residents. Vietnam is 13th most populated country and probably moving up. What's astounding is that 65% of population is below the age of 30. Those young people move to big cities leaving their plains to elders

What's interesting, is that Vietnam is one big governmental paradox in which communist government mixes with capitalist economy. There's only one party and organisations that aren't connected with it, aren't permitted to take part in elections. Press and TV is controlled by government by licenses. That's more or less like in China, where communism seems like just the long-lasting word that means just one party with all the power thanks to huge amounts of money pumped by big companies. Moreover, US Department of State has desribed Vietnam as a place of seroious abuses of human rights. This doesn't seem to change rapidly and it's really hard to tell what's there ahead of them.

But that's not everything that Vietnam is. Geography is what makes it such a great place. Especially the coastline seems like it was designed for tourism. It's 3400 long with sweeping beaches, towering cliffs, marvelous dunes and countless uninhabited islands along its length. Most part of the country is covered with hills or mountains. What's especially interesting for me, is the karst formation which generally creates underground rivers, caves and all other things that may be formed by erosion. What's sad is that environmental awareness in Vietnam is very low and more and more wildlife is declining. Deforestration is probably the biggest problem connected with nature. It is estimated that there's less than half of forests that were there 50 years ago.

Maybe it's not a thing that many people think about when going somewhere, but I'm much into national cuisines everytime I go somewhere. Vietnam is not an exception. What seems great is the culture of eating that may be described in one of the proverbs which is 'learn to eat before learning to speak.' There are plenty of things in Vietnamese dish, but as the land gives rice and the sea brings fish, they both form the bedrock of local menu. Rice is a basis of wine, noodles, wrappers and probably everything you can imagine. It's not surprising that Vietnam competes with Thailand for being the biggest rice producer in the world. It's also not so hard to imagine that such a long coastline brings a great variety of fish and similar things.

For me, Vietnam seems interesting because of all those things described above. This paradox of capitalised communism combined with astonishing geographical and cultural environment makes me interested in visiting Vietnam.

Thanks for your patience ;)

1. Did you know that Vietnam is such a communist country nowadays?

2. Do you know of any interesting places there?

3. Do you wish to see a country that offers above-mentioned things?