A girl with flames of napalm sprouting from her back. The My Lai massacre. Bitter fighting among the imperial palaces at Hue during the Tet Offensive. Beleaguered American troops at Khe Sanh. Agent Orange and defoliation of the forests. Desperate games of Russian Roulette in The Deerhunter. Frantic attempts by abandoned Vietnamese to climb onto the last American helicopters leaving Saigon .
The images of the War make Vietnam seem an unlikely tourist destination. Yet the French used to call Cochinchina, as the South was known during the colonial era, "la plus belle colonie de la France ". Since economic liberalisation ("doi moi") started to open up Vietnam to foreigners, the French have been among the few Europeans to rediscover the surprising beauty of Vietnam .
Hoi An, a peaceful and friendly town 30 kilometres south of Danang, is one example of that beauty. There could be no greater contrast with the images of the war torn country during the 1960s and 70s. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it was known as Faifo, Hoi An was Vietnam 's most important sea port. Then Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, British and French traders crossed the South China Sea to buy silk, porcelain, tea, sugar, molasses, mother of pearl and lacquer from Faifo's merchants. But the estuary silted up during the nineteenth century; Danang became the leading port in the area; and Hoi An was preserved much as it was then, giving an impression of what Saigon ( Ho Chi Minh City ) must have been like at the turn of the century.
The road along one side of the Thu Bon River forms a jetty which is the heart of the town. There are hardly any cars. The river is still the most important thoroughfare. Women, standing in the stern of their sampans, row or punt people and their bicycles towards the coconut palms on the far side of the estuary. Other women wade waist deep picking reeds, or fishing with nets. Some sampans, with arched coverings of wicker and palm fronds, are moored in mid-stream, homes to families who live, cook and sleep on board. Teenage girls with seductive smiles try to induce the few tourists into paying two dollars for boat rides up river. There are fishing vessels and wooden boats which chug up and down carrying grey sand for building or coal for the brick kilns upstream.
On the jetty, men unload a boat full of water melons, which are then carried off by women with wicker baskets suspended from poles carried on their shoulders. Women wearing pyjamas and limpet shaped hats walk by, going to and from market, their shoulders carrying panniers of crabs with claws bound with palm fronds, shrimps and shell fish. Further along, a man is mending a small wicker boat shaped like a Celtic coracle. Children play football, and another game which is a cross between football and badminton, kicking an object like a shuttlecock with long brightly coloured feathers. A girl sits combing through her sister's hair. There are hens and an occasional pig.
Hoi An's architecture bears witness to the different nationalities who lived in the town during its heyday. There are nineteenth century houses which could only have been built by the French. More interesting though are the legacies of Hoi An's Japanese and Chinese communities. The Japanese Bridge was built over a small tributary in the seventeenth century and has silhouettes of dragons on its roof. Its arched timber roadway is guarded by stone dogs at one end and stone monkeys at the other. In the middle, behind sturdy doors, there is a Chinese temple with a red and gold altar.
Hoi An has half a dozen Assembly Halls belonging to the various Chinese Congregations. Each has a courtyard, some with large ceramic sea dragons, and an open fronted temple, with more dragons and serpents on the pitched roofs. The temples have altars with red and gold hangings and brass joss-stick holders and candlesticks. All have statues of Buddha, some in brass, some made of painted papier mache. They are fat, rich, well fed Buddhas, reflecting the prosperity of the Chinese community, and contrast sharply with the ascetic Buddhas of the Indian subcontinent with their emaciated bodies and protruding ribs. In some temples, Chinese lanterns swing gently in the breeze. In the Cantonese Hall, there are paintings with Chinese figures representing happiness (a man with children) longevity and material wealth. In the Fujian Hall, a goddess is depicted going to the aid of sailors in a fierce storm. In the Hainan Hall there is a fine gilt tableau showing court life.