This is a report touching on the highlights of a recent two-week trip to Vietnam. We traveled with the Overseas Adventure Travel Group which offered a low fare and dedicated English-speaking guides. My wife and I found the Vietnamese to be sweet people, demon entrepreneurs, not at all unfriendly to us. The country was a fascinating mixure of the old, old and the hustle, bustle new.

We went with a bias, a sense that we as a nation owed these people for the damage the United States inflicted upon them in a war we objected to from the very beginning. Several times in the midst of the good feeling and warmth that was mutual between them and us my wife and I reflected, "And to think that we bombed these people." Nevertheless it was a bit of a jolt to hear them refer to the conflict as "the American war."

These are some of the moments and experiences that stand out.

The Revolutionary Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, displays a definitive exhibit on the Vietnam/American war. There is a showcase displaying the American Declaration of Independence because Ho Chi Minh, their George Washington, was a great admirer of our system of government and aided the U.S. against the Japanese in World War II. There is also a display of former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s book admitting that we were wrong to fight that war.

There are stark photos of the mangled bodies of the victims of our use of Agent Orange. And displays on three Americans who immolated themselves to death to protest our involvement in the war; this along with a letter of condolence by Ho Chi Minh to their families honoring them for their sacrifice. There are photos of world-wide protests in support of the Vietnamese and against the U.S. for fighting that war.

It is an exhibit that would be best shown in the United States.

A lecture by a professor at Hanoi U. informed us that Vietnam has been invaded 13 times in its history -- by France, Japan, the United States -- and most times by China.

In Hanoi, the capital in the north, there is a constant quiet stream of motor bikes and bicycles -- very few cars -- moving along wave upon wave. There are almost no traffic lights and not many rules as cyclists cut in all directions. Yet there is a kind of order and though there are close shaves, we saw no accidents and saw nary one instance of rage when there were close calls.

For a rough approximation of the shape of Vietnam imagine a telephone receiver with the earpiece on the top and mouthpiece on the bottom facing to the left, and a narrow strip adjoining the China Sea in the middle. On the coastal road between Hoi An and Hue in the middle of the country, where some of the worst battles were fought, we saw a woman making rice paper for the ubiquitous spring rolls served at almost every meal we ate. She worked over a brazier and peeled each sheet off the heat like a crepe.

The prison in Hanoi where Americans, including now Senator John McCain, were kept is now a museum. It focuses on the French cruelty to Vietnamese when the French ruled the country through most of the 20^th century. The prison was called the Hanoi Hilton. A hotel has been built on part of the grounds of the prison and it looms over the museum; it is, in fact, the Hanoi Hilton.

A professor and his family entertained and fed us a festive meal at his home outside of Hue. His property included a lake half the size of a football field surrounded by gardens. One of his daughters who acted as a waitress was studying English at the local university. She said she was reading O’Henry, Hemingway and Mark Twain. She said Shakespeare’s sonnets, though "very hard", were her favorites.

Hoi An has become a town with a glut of expert tailors who make suits and such on the spot. I went in for a fitting, had a suit made of cotton and silk. It was ready for adjustments the next morning. It fit me better than my suits at home. Its cost: $25.

In the south, some 20 miles outside of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, we saw the complex of underground tunnels from which the Vietcong hid during the day and came out at night to bedevil Americans. Experiencing the narrowness of the tunnels, we squatted to make our way through (we are a larger people than the slight Viets). Viewing the sophisticated booby traps devised by the clever Viets, we could grasp the psychological terror American soldiers must have experienced trying to fight on their enemy’s home turf. The Americans had to contend with booby traps not unlike the ones in "Tarzan" movies in which they fell into traps and were impaled on spikes that stuck up from the ground. We found out later that one of the 100-miles-long network of tunnels, built over 10 years, reached underneath the multi-storied Caravelle Hotel in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, across from the famous Continental Hotel where we stayed and which was mentioned prominently in Graham Greene’s "The Quiet American."

We rode on cyclo-rickshaws through Hanoi, a snakelike line of 15 bicycle-driver rickshaws. We did it again one night through the streets of Hoi An during a magical lantern-lit celebration of the full moon.

We cut away from the group one of the days in Ho Chi Minh City and had a serendipitous walk around town. I got an excellent haircut from a young woman while my wife watched appeciatively. Cost $2.

We saw a water puppet show in Hanoi. Puppeteers stood in stomach-deep water behind a screen manipulating puppets who skipped and skimmed on the surface of the water upstage.

In Hue, we visited a grade school. A young girl sang a song for us and we took pictures of the kids in class and in the courtyard outside the classrooms. One of our group, Rich Koenen, had a digital camera which showed instantly what he was filming. The kids were dazzled by it; they clambered to get in camera range for a view of themselves.

After visiting a woman making conical hats out of banana leaves in a small village, I hopped onto a porch to watch some youths playing fussball. Invited to play, I joined in and allowed a few goals while not scoring any myself.

In the country were rice paddies worked by peasants with water buffalo. In the cities were one-hour photo-developing shops, photocopying stores and internet cafes. I opened a Yahoo e-mail account and was able to send messages to daughters at home and one sojourning in Australia. I got return messages from Australia.

Outside Ho Chi Minh City we witnessed a spectacular, colorful prayer ceremony of the Cao Dais, a religion stemming from a clerk’s attempt in the 1920s to bring together the Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist religions.

In Ho Chi Minh City we went to the Phu Tho race course that was in operation even while war raged in Saigon. Admission was seven cents, the turf club cost another 66 cents and bets were in denominations of 33 cents or $1.33. I lost 33 cents on the day.

I brought home half-a-dozen T-shirts of the George Washington of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh.