We had been wanting to go for a while, ever since I became a Canadian citizen. (It is easier for Americans to go to Cuba than most realize, but not as easy as it is when you can travel with a different passport.)

I didn’t really know what to expect, of the country or of the people. What we saw very quickly was how friendly Cubans are, especially to each other. (Some who had to deal with tourists were a little jaded.) Sometimes it seemed like everyone knew everyone else all over the country. They don’t, but they act like they do. It is really nice.

More than one person said to us, Cuba has some problems but Cubans are good people, which is the most important thing. It didn’t take long to see evidence of both things.

My hopes were mostly about old American cars and music. I am happy to say my expectations were exceeded on both accounts. 

In Havana particularly, classic cars—mostly from the early 50s, but also the 40s and even a few from the 30s and 20s—were thicker than Yellow Cabs in New York City. Some were gorgeous. It was amazing to realize what it took to keep these machines going in spite of not being able to get any original parts since the US embargo began in 1960. (I’ve got a few opinions about that—just ask.) 

Some were the kind of machines Dr. Frankenstein would build if he were a mechanic. Many original engines have been replaced with motors from Asia, including diesel engines. It is odd seeing something that looks like a 53 Ford Fairlane, but sounds like a tractor. 

A few cars do have original engines, but most, if not all, moving parts have been replaced with individually machined parts, sometimes superior to the original. These cars can be worth as much as a house.

The other thing was music. In old Havana, where we spent a week, and Trinidad, where we spent just a couple of days, in the afternoons and evenings it seemed we were never out of earshot of a live band playing salsa, rhumba, trova, and other Latin rhythms.  We listened to a lot of great music while sipping mediocre mojitos.

So what about the politics, the economy, and all that? Two weeks in Cuba doesn’t qualify me to say much. I left with more questions than I came with. But I’ll make a few observations.

Cuba is celebrating 60 years of Socialist  Revolution. (Yes, it is capitalized  in Cuba, and yes, the Revolution is not just an event that happened 60 years ago—officially it is a way of life. Unofficially… let’s just say some see room for improvement.)

A lot of Cubans have next to no money. For public sector workers such as teachers, police, healthcare staff, etc.—anyone who works for the government—the average salary is about $35 a month. Highly trained medical professionals earn more, but not a lot more. A heart surgeon who lived next to the family we stayed with in Havana makes $80 a month. 

On the other hand a lot of stuff is really cheap. (Not for tourists, just for Cubans.) It’s not Club Med, but a Cuban can survive without much money. Healthcare is free, widely available and high quality. There is no charge for education up through advanced degrees. A city bus ride costs 4 cents. A loaf of white bread costs 20 cents (when it is available.) 

Basically, though Cubans have lived with decades of austerity—in large part because of the US embargo, but not entirely—there is a safety net.

Doing more than survive is a challenge, but clearly a lot are earning more than the average government salary. We saw about as many smartphones as anyplace else; there are plenty of fairly new cars. 

Judging by what we saw as we traveled around the island, Cuba is doing at least as well as most parts of Mexico and Central America. Rural areas in particular looked in better shape than similar areas in these other countries. 

One source of extra income is family members working in other countries who send money back. And tourism is a major source of revenue, not just for the government but for individuals such as homowners renting out a room or two to foreign travelers and owners of classic cars working as taxis. A taxi driver can probably make more than the average salary in a day or two, even though the government gets more than half his earnings (free education and healthcare, remember.)

Though the economic legacy of the Revolution has been mixed, one part is a surprising success and, in the end, perhaps more important.

Cuba is a Creole culture, a mixture of descendants of Spanish colonists, African slaves and migrants from other parts of the world who came to Cuba for their own reasons. Cubans come in all colors, black to blond and every shade in between. But they all think of themselves primarily as Cubans. There seems to be no racial friction or tension among any of them. Social interactions, dating, marriage, whatever, seem to take no notice whatsoever of racial antecedents. This was/is a part of the egalitarian ideal of the Revolution.

If the trip to Cuba has taught me anything, or changed me in any way, it is seeing what a truly post-racial culture looks like. On a wall in Havana we saw some graffiti that said “You can’t explain water to a fish.” For those of us who come from countries that still struggle with racial tensions, it is like that. There is no better lesson than being somewhere without those tensions. It really is an amazing experience. 

In the US and Canada, the two countries I am familiar with, there is plenty of overt racism. No one can deny that. But most of us do not think we are racist. I don’t…or didn’t anyway. But latent racism is simply a part of our culture. We don’t understand it any more than a fish understands water. I don’t think we need to feel guilty about it, but we do need to acknowledge it. And we need to end it. Cuba is proof it can be done.

In the end the best part of travel is meeting people and making friends. (One of the ways you know you’ve made a friend is when they offer to take you shopping so you can get Cuban prices.) There are at least two or three people in Cuba I expect to stay in touch with. And, with a little luck, I’ll see them again.

The war years were formative for me, and to a large degree, American culture. Fault lines cracked open between old and young, those who went to war and those who didn’t, the establishment and rebels, between what we now easily identify as conservatives and liberals.

At the time it seemed like everyone was either for the war or against it. I was against it, even in my early teens. I was the 16-year-old farm boy wearing the “Peace Now” button, while a lot of my neighbours had “America-Love it or Leave it” bumper stickers on their pickup trucks.

I didn’t fight in Vietnam–I fought to stay out of a war I didn’t believe in. But the war was a part of my life, nonetheless. For years footage from the front lines was featured on the nightly news hour (before cable news, remember.) It was something many American families consumed with their dinner. Eventually anti-war protests across the US, and around the world, were also covered.

For myself, and a lot of other Americans I’m sure, Vietnam, the war, has remained a partially unhealed wound, like a bone that broke badly and mended poorly. This trip to Vietnam, the country, was an exorcism of sorts. It was an opportunity to overwrite what was essentially a symbol for me with impressions of a real place, with real people.

Today there is remarkably little evidence of the war in Vietnam, either physically, or in the attitudes of the people. The physical scars have mostly been erased–intentionally or by time–and people seem much more intent on looking forward rather than back. One man we spoke with, who was 12 years old when the war ended and had seen people blown open said, “Back then, us and the Americans were enemies. Now we are friends,” and made a gesture indicating not just friends, but close friends.

American fighter jet displayed at the War Remnants Museum in Saigon.

However a visit to Saigon’s War Remnants Museum is a sobering reminder that even if they may forgive, those who lived through the war can never forget. Neither can the second- and third-generation victims of the defoliant, Agent Orange, who live with birth defects, or those who, to this day, stumble across unexploded bombs dropped during the war.

The young seem to have little idea of or interest in the war. I chatted with a 20-something student in Hanoi. He wanted to practice his rudimentary English, and we covered the usual “Where are you from?” “How do you like Vietnam?” type questions. I took the opportunity to ask him what he knew about the war. He seemed a little bewildered by the question. I asked, “Are you taught anything about it?” He finally said simply, “America tried to conquer us, but it could not prevail.”

It is reassuring to see that communist Vietnam is doing reasonably well and that its people are warm and welcoming to everyone, even Americans. It has its problems, similar to most countries in this region, but if this is what 60,000 American soldiers died fighting to prevent (along with probably 20 times more Vietnamese on both sides), it was a tragic waste of life indeed.

I think the effects of losing the war in Vietnam are still being felt in the US; there are those who remember the sting of defeat. A lot of people want to “make America great again” and get back to a time when we were “winners.” They want a do-over, if not in Vietnam, then some other foreign country. And if they can find some foreigners closer to home to kick around, that will do in the meantime.

I wonder how many of those people have ever traveled to another country. I’m not saying you come back feeling warm and fuzzy about everyone you meet (I have a short list of tourists from certain countries I’d rather not be around) but something you learn is people everywhere are pretty decent, trying to get by like everyone else.

I can’t say I’ve come to understand Vietnam or its people in the month we’ve been here. But at least now it is something apart from the war that took place here…the war that in Vietnam is known as “the American War.”

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A narrow alley in Hanoi’s Old Quarter.

The Vietnamese New Year, called Tet, makes all other New Year’s celebrations look like just a lame excuse to get drunk, with a day off to recover. Tet is celebrated for several days on either side of the actual day, which is based on the Vietnamese lunar calendar. It is a time of new beginnings, with much ceremonial solicitation of good luck in the coming year. Such rituals seem a sign of optimism to me.

There is a pretty little lake in the middle of Hanoi, ringed by trees and flower beds. On New Year’s Day families and young couples dressed in fancy new clothes, as is the tradition, posed for photos at scenic spots all around the lake. As a first introduction not only to Hanoi, but to Vietnam and its people, nothing could have been better.

Hanoi was not what I expected. Last I heard the US was sending B-52s to bomb it. But you wouldn’t know it today. A thriving modern city has grown up around a historic centre. It has a population of 8 million (and 4.7 million motorbikes). Even during Tet, when most businesses were closed and many residents had left the city to spend time with their families in the country, sidewalks in front of countless little coffee shops and restaurants were crowded with people sitting at little tables on low stools.

Street party in Hanoi during Tet.

Statistically Vietnam’s demographics are similar to other Southeast Asian countries–almost half of its population is under 30. But in Hanoi it seemed like there were a disproportionate number of young people, many in fashionable outfits, which gave the city a progressive feel–an interesting contrast against the historic backdrop.

From Hanoi we visited a couple of “must see” places to the north, then headed south to check off a few more places on the same list. None of them were as enchanting as Hanoi. Here are my brief travel notes:

Halong Bay- almost 2000 small, limestone islands and more than 500 tour boats.

Sapa- surrounded by terraced hillsides and filled with tourists.

Hoi An- an 18th-century Indochinese theme park with small streets crowded with tourists, clumps of them following their tour guides like bewildered ducklings.

Nha Trang- mega-beach with rows of basking Russians, scores of high-rise hotels.

Da Lat-a moderately attractive small city in the mountains north of Ho Chi Minh City. It is a little harder to get to, so it has a more reasonable concentration of tourists. It is surrounded by more greenhouses than I’ve ever seen in one place–growing flowers and strawberries–and vast mountainsides of coffee plants. Vietnam is the second largest exporter of (mostly mediocre) coffee, after Brazil.

I’m not doing these places justice, of course. They are “must sees” for a reason. But the hoards of vacationing tourists just get to me after a while. I had to restrain myself from seizing selfie sticks and beating their owners senseless.

Tour boats and tiny islands in Halong Bay, vietnam.

For the past 20 years or so, Vietnam has enthusiastically embraced tourism. It has done a remarkable job creating the infrastructure and services for handling the millions of visitors that come every year. (More than 10 million last year). At any hotel you can choose from a menu of tours, destinations and modes of transportation.

It is ridiculously easy to get from place to place, in any degree of comfort you can afford. But following the path of least resistance means sharing the exact same experience with hundreds, if not thousands of fellow tourists. Getting off the beaten path to the kinds of places we find more interesting would take more work than we put into it this time. But now that we have moved the “must sees” into the “been there, done that” column we can do a better job planning an itinerary for our next visit.

We have one more stop, Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.