Ho Chi Minh 2002 / 2011

It's been 10 years since my first visit to Ho Chi Minh. Needless to say, much has changed, just like the women.

10 years ago, the ladies were very beautiful, with sweet innocent faces marred only by bad teeth indicative of poor nutrition and dental hygiene. They hardly spoke any English. The au dais were plain and the people were thin, but there was a palpable sense of determination to work hard.

I can home from that trip sensing that this was indeed a country on the incline, and started searching for avenues to invest in it. Unfortunately, there were no instruments for private investors.

Now, the ladies seem to have lost that look of sweet innocence, although the teeth are straighter, the bodies curvier and the clothes and makeup are much more colourful. Those on hotel staff speak excellent English. And the hunger to succeed at all costs seems to have diminished.

Now there are several Vietnam mutual funds available, but I'm not so sure anymore. Perhaps this is the curse of development - with comfort and stability there is less drive to work hard. If I can see a change here in just 10 years, I wonder what a foreigner visiting Singapore comparing our parents' generation to our own would observe.

A few memories are still distinct from 10 years ago when I arrived with two friends, without any plans and just looking for adventure. There were no tours then but we found our way to the Mekong delta and the Chu Ci Tunnels; I had the most delicious coconut ever, fired a shotgun (my choice from a wide range of WWII vintage weapons) and had all sorts of interesting food like 90% alcohol rice wine, fried scorpions (crunches like cockroach) and boiled snake (chewy like rubber). The nightclubs were brand new and rather empty. And the roads were swarming with motorcycles.

I remember how we passed a shop one day selling local foodstuffs in the open. The next day we walked by again, and miraculously the same food items were now dressed in attractive packaging. We were thoroughly impressed by the entrepreneurship drive of the shopkeepers. I also remember how the taxi driver cheated us with some simple sleight of hand when returning the change, and how my companion recalled in retrospect the look of guilt and regret in his eyes, as if this was a desperate act of survival.

10 years later, we were cheated by a taxi driver again. But this time, it was entirely planned and deliberate, when he took us for a merry-go-round of the city, all the time pretending not to understand a word of English. That man looked and acted like a crook, and he probably did this all the time. And while there are still a lot motorcycles, many have been replaced by cars.

Of course in 10 years, I have changed too. I still have 2 companions, but instead of boys fresh out of NS and raring for adventure, we are now father, mother and toddler. No more adventures for us, we are just here to enjoy the food. And not street food either, the restaurant scene has improved tremendously, still at incredibly affordable prices. A basic 3-star hotel no longer suffices, we had to move to a 5-star on the edge of the city because toddler can't sleep with all the traffic noise. And although now I carry a DSLR, I take much fewer photos since my hands are full with him.

Seeing how one of my favourite cities has changed, I do miss the good old days.