Luxury brands beach-heading VN

It started with Gucci and LV. More will be coming to test the warers, from McDonald to KFC , from Starbucks to Burger King.   Everybody is into location, location, location. I look at the city as if it were a big fairground, where interested parties are staking out their prime real estate. Flag and flip.

Both AE and Abercrombie are selling well among the youth segment (XS size).

And Hollister also (if they only knew what cow country the place was in No Cal).

Floating dinners on the Saigon River facing an Japanese alley.

In the backpacker’s section,  Lonely Planet guides are sold and read like bibles: “don’t drink from tab water”, “make sure you visit the Cu Chi Tunnel” etc..

And “The Sorrow of War” by Bao Ninh, available as cigarettes sold in open boxes.

Westerners love Vietnam. It presents a challenge to their categorical living: Vietnam doesn’t fit neatly into their frame of reference. Now with Gucci and LV facing Hotel Caravelle, and Sheraton/Hyatt, with beggars and lottery peddlers lounging out front, the scene begs for an asterisk (*) in an otherwise neatly classified tour. I saw a tourist almost tripped over an uneven pavement.

You want to tour Vietnam, you ‘d better drop your preconception and expectation. Tourists can ride cyclo tour or Cu Chi tour, peddling and crawling around, but  you will come away never forgetting those indelible smiles:, crooked teeth but definitely no Mona Lisa‘s . Post-war hardship has given birth to an insatiable demands for goods.  Luxury brands are welcome! And coming they are.