I stayed a couple of nights in a MOTEL. There are a bunch of them along the old Rue Sans Joie and they cater to traveling motorbikes though there are usually a couple of cars there, too. About $4.20 a night- no A/C but the fans are sufficient and the place was clean and has modern plumbing. Having coffee with the proprietors and some of the other guests and at least one bo doi before going to bed was nice.
I found my name on the wall in a convent I have sent money to these four years. That was nice.
The highway bus station I stopped at last time had been pretty primitive with open trough type facilities for the men and a low wall around the bombsights in the Women's area. Now there are large modern tiled rest rooms and good ventilation with modern plumbing and multiple stations.
The numbers show that there has been inflation but the prices outside of Sai Gon don't seem to reflect that at all.
The changes are coming fast enough now that the people who live there day to day can see them happening and are much more optimistic than four years ago. People are starting to feel they can improve their lives by the fruits of their labor now. The corruption is still endemic but individuals' capital is building despite it.
The roads are much improved and work that seemed terminally stalled in '03 has been completed and the roads are much better with fewer and much less precarious detours. There are probably 60 miles of limited access four-lane running NE out of Sai Gon now and there is a fine four lane tourist highway running up to Nha Trang with landscaping maintained by herds of goats.
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Thank you for sharing your trip to Communist Vietnam with us, ThanhPhero.
As the people there need to be even more careful with their speech there...
...did you recieve any feed back on what happens to the people who aren’t after the Secret Police comes and gets them out of thier homes in the dead of night..?
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