Vietnam in 1997: British tourist recalls a nation healing from war and opening to the world

At her home in South London, the 68-year-old Linda Tobey flips through a bundle of keepsakes from 1997. Holding a black-and-white tour brochure, she remembers Vietnam at a time when it was still unfamiliar to most foreigners, known mainly from images of war on television.

She and her husband had already traveled widely by that time, from Europe to Central America and Asia. But they wanted something different.

"We didn't want a beach holiday, we wanted adventure and culture," Tobey said.

When they spotted a U.K. travel company's advertisement of a cross-Vietnam tour, they booked without hesitation. The 21-day journey began in Hanoi and ended in Ho Chi Minh City. Their Australian guide spoke both English and Vietnamese, leading a group of 12 travelers from the U.K., U.S., Belgium, and France. Among them was a man in his twenties on his first trip abroad and a couple in their fifties who quickly became friends.

There were no direct flights from London to Vietnam at the time, so the group connected via Bangkok. The tour stitched together buses, trains, and small hotels, covering most of Vietnam's highlights: Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Hue, Da Nang, Hoi An, and finally Ho Chi Minh City.

Their only train journey, a 20-hour overnight ride from Hoa Lu Station to Dong Ha Station, was memorable not for comfort but for timing: it coincided with Typhoon Linda, one of Vietnam's deadliest storms.

"We were the only foreigners on the train, but staff locked the doors between carriages, so we couldn't mix with local passengers," Tobey remembers.

A soft-sleeper ticket cost VND437,000 (US$17), included in the tour price. The cabins were neat, with fold-down bunks. Staff brought tea in the morning, but no meals. Outside, rain lashed the windows as the train pushed through the night.

"The real adventure came on the road," Tobey said.

Four people in the group eventually abandoned the trip and flew directly to Ho Chi Minh City, unable to handle the tough conditions. Floods and landslides in Quy Nhon City and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in central Vietnam made travel exhausting.

At one point their bus skidded off the road and had to be hauled back by villagers. The village's chief agreed to help after their guide offered $50 as thanks.

"No one complained. Everyone was grateful for the help," Tobey recalled.

Travel in Vietnam at the time posed many challenges: gas stations doubled as restroom stops, amenities were sparse, and dirt roads turned to mud in the rain.

Despite the hardships, Tobey insists the difficulties were never the point. Every stop brought something new and fascinating. Traveling by road meant stopping at markets, walking through villages, and talking with locals in places that had rarely seen tourists.

"At a market in Quy Nhon, an elderly woman even lifted my skirt to check if I was white all over. The whole group burst out laughing when she realized I really was," Tobey said.

In Hoa Binh, a woman invited them to drink homemade liquor and proudly showed off the coffin she had prepared for her son, stored beneath her stilt house. On Cat Ba Island, the group had to sleep on a boat deck when the island's only hotel was full.

When they traveled in Da Nang, one traveler lost his teeth to the surf while a couple posed for wedding photos nearby. And in Hanoi, Tobey learned the essential rule for crossing the street - walk straight, steady, and never stop.

But the memory that moves her most took place in Ha Long Bay. The group found a family-run eatery inside a garage, with no menu, just home-cooked dishes. As they ate, a man selling postcards stopped by. Instead of buying, they invited him to join. He ordered a Coke but asked to take it home, explaining his son had never tasted one.

"I often think of that man and hope his family is doing well," Tobey said.

Back then, Vietnam was still a novelty for foreign travelers. Outside major cities, they rarely saw other foreigners. Locals were sometimes shy but quickly became warm and welcoming, with some speaking a little English. The country was also at a turning point: in 1997, the Internet had just arrived. Tobey remembers seeing trenches dug along southern roads for new cables, a glimpse of modernization ahead.

"Three weeks on the road left us exhausted, but everything we saw was extraordinary," she said.

The couple returned to Ho Chi Minh City in 2003, just after the SARS outbreak, when the city was almost empty of visitors. Over the past two decades, they have traveled widely but never made it back to Vietnam.

"Friends tell me the country has changed so much I might not even recognize it. But I still hold on to those beautiful memories of my first trip," Tobey said.