Vietnam's Next Invader: The Trump Organization

 

by Pa Rock

World Traveler

A friend and I toured Vietnam during the (American) holiday season a dozen or so years ago.  We were there eight days traveling by car with two Vietnamese guides, from the Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in the south, up through the old capital of Hue in the central part of the country, and on to Hanoi in the north, with numerous other stops along the way.  Of the many sights that we witnessed and visited over the entire trip, it was the Old Quarter of Hanoi that I found to be most interesting with its narrow streets and unique architecture, alive with the bustle of street vendors and local merchants anxiously selling their wares to their nation's most recent invaders:  tourists.  

The Old Quarter of Hanoi has been in existence more than a thousand years.

Within that area or very close by was the lake home of the North Vietnamese leader, Ho Chi Minh, where the wizened old man would relax from the rigors of conducting war by walking along the lake's edge and feeding the ducks, as well as the mausoleum where Ho's stuffed body lies in repose under glass with armed guards standing at-the-ready.  Also in the immediate vicinity is the remaining portion of the "Hanoi Hilton" - the infamous prison where John McCain and many other American POWs were held captive during the Vietnam War, some, including McCain, for years.  That portion of Hanoi, the one that draws today's tourists, was the absolute epicenter of the Vietnamese peoples' struggle against the French and later against the Americans.

My friend and I had rooms at a nice, but relatively small hotel within the ancient Quarter, and there was a bustling youth hostel next door where many young people were able to stay on-the-cheap.  Both were older buildings that fit the historic and cultural landscape.  

Even with the tourists sweeping across the older parts of the city like hordes of hungry ants, Old Hanoi still has vestiges of what life there was like over the centuries.  One of my clearer Hanoi memories is of a young woman squatting on the curb of a busy street in the Quarter scrubbing the carcass of a chicken in a pan of very dirty water.   Old Hanoi is far more akin to the New Orleans French Quarter than it is the Vegas Strip.

But time marches on, and for those who prefer their vacation entertainments with more comfort and opulence, the Trump Organization has already broken ground on a new $1.5 billion golf course resort and residential estate on the Red River just outside of Hanoi.  The project will be located on a 990 hectares (nearly 2,500 acres) of prime riverside land.

So now tourists, as well as the people washing poultry along the streets, will have the "Trump" name in big, glitzy lettering that they can focus on instead of all that boring history and cultural stuff.

Two additional golf properties bearing the "Trump" name are also being planned for Indonesia.

Donald Trump may be elderly, but he still has the ability to focus on things that are important - at least to him.