Several people in the tour bus laughed. Not so much at the Americans’ misfortune, I hoped, but more at the indomitable spirit of the Vietnamese, whose fierce pride and skills have helped them fend off their country’s invaders throughout history.

On this our first night in North Vietnam, I wondered what else my husband Anthony and I would experience in the remaining four days of our trip.

Although its recent history loomed large for us visitors, the country was in a hurry to move on from the memories of the Vietnam War—or as the Vietnamese called it, “the American War”. Hung told us each village was allowed to have only one war monument.

Having fought in the war when he was 17, Hung spoke proudly of helping to shoot down a US fighter plane and described, in semi-fluent English, how the Vietcong were adept at hiding in the foliage and dirty ditches, surprising the “tall Americans” who could be spotted from far away.

I was impressed. Looking out from my bus window out to a landscape of yellow paddy fields and dark-green mountains, I also had some inkling of the Vietnamese pride in their homeland and way of life.

Perhaps that is why Catholicism—seen as an intrusive “foreign” religion—was so viciously persecuted in the past. Prior to my trip, I read the book Asian Saints, which recounted the lives of the Vietnam martyrs.

It had seemed so remote, the suffering they went through. Yet there I was, in the very land where they so bravely gave up their bodies for Christ. The suffering of the people continues, albeit in a different way—as recently as 1990, the government had banned the celebration of Masses in churches.

A Surprise in the Bay

As our tour stretched over the weekend, we were initally worried about missing Sunday Mass until Hung told us that our hotel in Haiphong was just down the road from a Catholic church.

With that reassurance, we settled down to enjoy the sights and sounds of the country. Among them, the much vaunted Halong Bay, with its thousands of picturesque small islands. We stopped at one island and climbed to the entrance of a strangely named “Cave of Surprise” (Sung Sot) high up on the hill.

After what seemed like a million steps, we reached the entrance of a cave. That’s it? I wondered. But then, after walking through a narrow tunnel, we emerged into an awesome cavern about the size of the Indoor Stadium. Visitors walked along a path that winded within the cavern to gawk at massive rock formations, each lit subtly to enhance its mystery. I marvelled at how the cave must have been carved out by water and wind over the millennia, acknowledging the Creator’s might and power to have allowed such beautiful things to be formed.