by JORDAN POUILLE
Expat Russian entrepreneurs, budget Russian tourists, and a government hoping the post-Vietnam war exiles will come back home rich to retire: Vietnam is a demonstration model for change.
The driver, his eyes red from opiate addiction, is polishing his jeep, which shakes as it pumps out deafening electronic music. He has hurtled here from the “fairy stream”, a channel of muddy water that snakes through an ochre canyon, where enterprising locals demand payment from tourists. His clients, three young Russian women in skimpy clothing, are getting ready to try a new attraction, the ostrich rides advertised on multilingual signs. For a small payment, kids will lead them to the top of an imposing sand dune, the “Asiatic Sahara” mentioned in the brochures. Just before 6pm the sun sets on Cam Ranh Bay, streaking a cobalt sky with pink. For an extra fee, the tourists can sledge down the dunes back to the Jeep.
At dusk the fishermen of Mui Ne and Phan Thiet set off in small fibreglass-hulled boats from which they haul up nets and hand lines full of anchovies and squid. Their children wander along the beach with bin bags, collecting plastic bottles to sell by the kilo at the recycling centre.
This coastline of fishing villages is a long way from the Vietnamese attractions offered by western travel agents — terraced paddy fields, the picturesque Mekong delta, Ha Long Bay and the colonial architecture of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Yet Russian tour operators and holidaymakers flock here. Russian workers get 40 days of paid leave a year and come here to relax and escape the rigours of the Russian winter. (Moscow has snow from November until early April.)
Le Monde Diplomatique for more