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Few countries have changed so much over such a short time as Vietnam. Less than forty years since the savagery and slaughter of the American War, this resilient nation is buoyant with hope. It is a country on the move: access is now easier than over, roads are being upgraded, hotels are spring up and Vietnam’s raucous entrepreneurial spirit is once again alive and well as the old – style communist system gives way to a socialist market economy. As the number of tourists finding their way here soars, the word is out that this is a land not of bomb crater and army ordnance but of shimmering paddy fields and sugar-white beaches, full-tilt cities and venerable pagodas – often overwhelming in its sheer beauty.

The Speed with which Vietnam’s population has been able to put the bitter events of its recent past behind it, and focus its gaze so steadfastly on the future, often surprises visitors expecting of the West. It wasn’t always like this, however. The reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1975, ending twenty years of bloody civil war, was followed by a decade or so of hardliner centralist economic rule from which only the shake –up of Doi Moi – Vietnam’s equivalent of perestroika – beginning in 1986, could awaken the country. This signaled a renaissance for Vietnam, and today a high fever of commerce grips the nation: from the flash new shopping malls and designer boutiques to the hustle and bustle of street markets and the booming cross – border trade with China. From a tourist’s point of view, this is a great time to visit – not only to soak up the intoxicating sense of vitality and optimism, but also the chance to witness a country in profound flux. Inevitably, that’s not the whole story. Doi moi is an economic policy, not a magic spell, and life, for much of the population, remains hard. Indeed, the move towards a market economic has predictably polarized the gap between rich and poor. Average monthly incomes for city – dwellers are around US$60, while in the poorest provinces workers may scrape by on as little as US$20 a month – a difference that gulf between urban and rural Vietnam.

There is an equally marked difference between north and south, a deep psychological divide that was around long before that American War, and is engrained in Vietnamese culture. Northerners are considered reticent, thrifty, law – abiding and lacking the dynamism and entrepreneurial know – wise southern compatriots. Not surprisingly, this is mirrored in the boats economy: the south is Vietnam’s growth engine, it boasts lower unemployment and higher average, and the increasingly glitzy Ho Chi Minh City looks more to Bangkok and Singapore than Hanoi.

Many visitors find more than enough to intrigue and excite them in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the other major centre; but despite the cities’ allure, it’s the country’s striking landscape that most impresses. Vietnam occupies a narrow strip of land that hugs the eastern borders of Cambodia and Laos, hennaed in by rugged mountains to the west, and by the South China Sea – or the East Sea, as the Vietnamese call it. To the north and south of its narrow waist, it’s in these regions that you’ll encounter the paddy fields, dragonflies, buffaloes and conical – hated farmers that constitute the classic image of Vietnam.

In stark contrast to the pancake- flat rice – land of the deltas, Halong Bay’s labyrinthine network of limestone outcrops loom dramatically out of the Gulft of Tonkin – a magical spectacle in the early morning mist. Any trip to the remote upland regions of central and northern Vietnam is likely to focus upon he ethnic minorities who reside there.

Elaborate tribal costars game enough to trek into the sticks. As for wildlife, the discovery in recent years of several previously unknown species of plants, birds and animals speaks volumes for the wealth of Vietnam’s biodiversity and makes the improving access to the country’s several national parks all the more gratifying