Vietnam's women (by Laura)

I'm a bit concerned that this could be read as a wee bit sexist, which is not its intention; however, the most striking memory I have of Vietnam is of the women who I encountered there and their charm and energy.

I barely had to deal with men at all and encountered very few, except those lounging on street corners, making pitiful attempts to entice tourists on a ludicrously expensive tour of the city sites, then falling back, presumably exhausted from their efforts, into the comfort of their cyclos.

Our guide in the Mekong Delta commented, 'You may wonder why all the men are sitting in cafes; this is because they are waiting for the harvest to start'.

The women ran hotels, restaurants and shops, worked in the ricefields, tailored clothes, repaved the roads, led tours and dominated the street markets. In Vietnam, more than in any South East Asian country we have visited, the women were holding all the cards.

They were impressive in their dealings with tourists:

The women of the Mekong Delta were warm and smiling.

In HCMC, they were smart, business like and straightforward.

In Hoi An, they were persuasive. I went into the tailor's to have a cotton shirt made and left with two winter coats, three shirts and a suit. Everyone has a similar tale, the most extreme being one American gap year student who emerged with six suits and wild eyes: "I've never had one before; once I got one, I couldn't stop".

In the north, they seemed at first to be tougher, harder-nosed. But they were just playing games - if you met them square on, they would give you a wry grin and concede some ground with a beautiful wide smile. Perhaps most memorably and consistently, they they were vocal and noisy - a continual barrage of chat coming at you whenever you engaged with them.

It may all be part and parcel of Vietnam's long-term business plan that the women are the tourist face of the country, perhaps being more adept at persuading the tourists to part with their cash to feed the country's very rapid economic progress. But it works: industriousness coupled with innate charm.

Let's hope the harvest is just as impressive.

Laura