Luxury Vietnam Tours

Baby boomers probably look instinctively askance at the idea of luxury Vietnam tours. Vietnam, after all, was only recently a war zone. After the initial shock, the reality of the intervening 30 years returns. More than half of Vietnam's population wasn't even alive in the 1960s. A narrow S-shaped country, Vietnam is bordered to the east by the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea, to the north by China, and to the west by Laos and Cambodia and the Gulf of Thailand.

Luxury Vietnam Tours: A Difficult Past

For nearly 70 years, from 1884 to 1954, Vietnam was occupied and ruled by the French. This colonial imprint lingered for a long time, and it was not altogether good. Even French statistics for 1939 revealed two shocking numbers. In that era, 80 percent of the population was illiterate and for every 100,000 people there were only two doctors.

Civil liberties were lacking, the middle class conspicuous by its absence, and capitalism perceived as a product of foreign rule. Resistance to colonial rule at first sought a return to Vietnam's old imperial order, but by the early 20th century this morphed understandably into admiration for communism. In this light, the struggles of the following decades fall easily into place.

Luxury Vietnam Tours: Today

The sublime natural beauties of Vietnam overwhelmed even the soldiers of the 1960s. In today's considerably more peaceful era, they are even more striking. From the beguiling shaded streets of Hanoi (City Between Two Rivers) and its enchanting Old Quarter, to the south central highlands city of Dalat and its cafes and Summer Palace, to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam is an amazingly rich and ancient country with much to offer those visiting on luxury Vietnam tours.