Traveling in Vietnam reminds me of the unfettered urban expansion days of our own American 1960s and '70s.  That is poetic because that is the time of course that we fought a war there in Vietnam.  There is something weird about the juxtaposition.  There is construction every where in Vietnam it seems.  When I went in January 2005 I found a neat little soup café in Saigon.  It was an old building from who knows how long ago.  When I went back in August it was raised to make room for a fast food joint complete with counter workers (kids) with neat little red uniforms.  The Vietnamese seemed to embrace the new Western construct.  But it was the "old" that originally drew me, the consummate Westerner there.  
   I read somewhere once in the midst of all the war literature, that Vietnam was a beautiful country.  The green of the jungle and rice paddies was said to be of no green you could find anywhere else.  So stunning it is that one should never forget once you have seen it.  I wish I could remember where I read that.  After I saw it for myself I put a gritty angle on the observation.  The green in Vietnam looks like the stunning  wet green of a fresh, bloody tattoo.  All you tattoo enthusiasts should get the meaning.  I use the analogy to hammer home the point of the unique yet, dangerous beauty.