Thoughts on Vietnam.
Hanoi is a really busy, frenetic place, with lots of big name shops, like Cartier; there's even a Mont Blanc pen shop! But 2 or 3 k outside the city, the people live in a fair amount of poverty. I saw farmers using water buffalo to plough the fields, and there were gangs of workers resurfacing the roads by hand. I mean they were actually breaking up the old surface with hammers!. Amazing. Not sure if this is what Uncle Ho had in mind when he set the people free in 1947.