The last person to shout at me to take my hands out of my pockets was a cantankerous English teacher. I was 15 and deeply embarrassed. I thought those days were past, but a guard at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum in Hanoi had other ideas.
As the queue shuffled past the mummified corpse of modern Vietnam's founding father, the guard quacked and pointed at the thumb lodged in the pocket of my jeans. There was that feeling again - embarrassment and boiling rage. Worse, the child in front had both hands wedged deep in the pockets of his school trousers and yet was spared the ignominy. One rule for the patriotic Vietnamese, another for the western infidels.
Vietnam is at a remarkable stage in its development, but what the tour brochures don't tell you is that, for westerners, it is one of the most frustrating countries to travel in. Not a holiday so much as a trek through the quirks of communism, a test of patience and keeping cool.
The war between the north and south ended a quarter of a century ago on April 30, 1975, when tanks of the communist North Vietnamese Army crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). A much hyped liberalisation and reunification programme ( doi moi ) has only slightly eased the suspicion of westerners.
Hardly surprising in one way as the Americans flattened much of Vietnam during the war and the French before them ruled at times with an iron fist. It will take time for the Vietnamese to forgive all this, so western visitors will continue to take the flak for foreign governments and soldiers who have been here before them.
Best leave all logic and pride in a storage locker at Singapore's Changi airport while transferring on to the three-hour flight to Hanoi. And pack extra supplies of diplomacy with your malaria tablets. Prepare to pay twice the local price for everything from a bus ticket to a loaf of bread, and expect everyone from train conductors to silk shop assistants to try a scam.
Vietnam is ill-equipped to handle the hoards of tourists that are predicted to descend on the country soon, but it is still worth the time and effort to explore.
Hanoi
The mausoleum to Ho Chi Minh is ice-cold and silent. The founder of the Vietnamese Communist Party and former president of North Vietnam, now 110 years old, lies in a glass casket dressed in a black suit and wispy goatee. He is flanked by stock-still soldiers.
It is a venerable if rather public tomb, but the opposite of what the old man wanted. Ho Chi Minh requested cremation; instead, he is trapped in a temperature- and humidity-controlled box, gawped at all day and once a year carted off to Russia to be re-stuffed.
Outside the sterile hush of the mausoleum, Hanoi teems. Driving here is appalling, yet mastery of the horn is consummate. The best way to beat the traffic is to hire a bicycle. The Vietnamese will think you mad for taking such a primitive form of transport - if they had the cash, they wouldn't be seen dead on anything less than a Honda Dream moped.
One of the perks of staying at the De Syloia hotel are the free bikes made of bamboo wrapped around a steel frame. When cycling, follow everybody else. If your shoal of riders decides to run a red light, go with them. Breaking the law here is nigh on impossible, so such displays of mass disobedience are exhilarating.
The best cycling is in the Old Quarter, a jumble of 36 narrow streets each with a speciality trade. Thirteenth-century Hanoians were judged on their address. That must have been fine for folks in Cotton Street or String Instrument Alley, but I felt for those who had to admit to living in Pickled Fish or Clamworm Streets.
Silk Street is a shopper's paradise with embroidered shirts, scarves and velvet jackets hanging by the hundred and at criminally low prices. Street stalls are laden with brightly-coloured lacquerware - trinket boxes, plates and bowls of shimmering gold and cerulean blue.
Central to Hanoi, both geographically and spiritually is Hoàn Kiém Lake. At dawn, people come here to do t'ai chi, watching their reflections in the glass-like waters. As I strolled among them one morning, I witnessed the Hoàn Kiém turtle put in an appearance - the first for six years and auspicious as this is Hanoi's anniversary year.
Stay at: De Syloia (from £68 for a double, 00 844 824 5346, desyloia@hn.vnn.vn), Metropole (from £140 double, 00 844 826 6919, sofmet@netnam.org.vn).
Eat at: Little Hanoi in the Old Quarter (from £2), Hoa Sua (from £4).
Hué and Hoi An
The ancient capital city of Hué has some restful pagodas and the remains of the mighty Citadel - the former presidential palace. It is a pit-stop for travellers wanting to tour the DMZ - the demilitarised zone created when Vietnam was split in half after the second world war. Given its name, it is ironic that this region saw some of the worst battles of the American war.
Hoi An is the quieter and less explored of the two. It is famous as a haven for artists and for the wooden architecture of its waterfront houses, which were mercifully preserved as the maelstrom of war swept past a few miles away.
Stay at: L'Indochine in Hué (from £15 double), Hoi An in Hoi An (from £16 double).
Eat at: Lac Thanh in Hué (from £1.50), Yellow River in Hoi An (from £3).
Nha Trang
If you are going to take one train journey in Vietnam, do the stretch from Hué to Nha Trang (£30 one-way). The countryside is spectacularly verdant. I had read about the intense colours of Vietnam's rice fields and the descriptions are no exaggeration. Flashes of bright scarlet and violet break a sea of lime-green - the shirts of farmers broadcasting seed or bent double harvesting their crops.
The train idles across iron bridges over rivers where boys break off from fishing to wave frantically at the carriages. Closer to Nha Trang, it traces the coastline at walking pace, sometimes right on the cliff edge, affording wonderful views of rocky offshore islands.
Nha Trang is a laid-back beach town with neither glitz nor glamour and makes a welcome break from the rumble of the tracks.
For a couple of nights of tropical luxury and a stretch of virtually empty beach, check in to the sumptuous Ana Mandara resort. Ornate cabins open on to gardens fragrant with frangipani and hibiscus, and beyond them lie the snow-white sands and tepid waters of the South China Sea.
If lazing on a beach lounger is simply too energetic and you crave sustenance but can't quite make it the 200 yards to the restaurant, raising the yellow flag on top of your wicker parasol will summon a waiter, a cocktail and a fresh tuna sandwich. This is one of south-east Asia's secret beauty spots and a fraction of the price of similar resorts in Thailand or Malaysia.
Stay at: Ana Mandara resort (from £80 for a double, 00 8458 829829, resvana@dng.vnn.vn), Seaside (from £14 double).
Eat at: Ana Mandara (from £8), Little Italy (from £2).
Ho Chi Minh City
As Saigon, the city was on everyone's lips in the mid-1970s. This was where the southern Republic of Vietnam and its supportive American and Allied troops lost the war.
Through the gates of the presidential palace (now Independence Palace) stormed the North Vietnamese in tanks emblazoned with the communist gold star. One sits proudly in the grounds today, its gun barrel still pointing towards the building.
Parts of the palace are stately but there are anomalies such as the bar-casino, which is all 1960s space-age kitsch. In the basement is a network of escape tunnels. On the roof is a dance floor, where dignitaries waltzed away the hours and where, on April 30, 1975, a North Vietnamese soldier raised the flag of communism that has fluttered over the city ever since.
The helpful staff at the Grand Plaza hotel pointed out that Ho Chi Minh City is more decadent than Hanoi, "more like West, more friendly". There are, however, a few pockets of anti-West resistance, like the War Remnants Museum, which shows off captured US tanks and planes and the preserved bodies of babies hideously deformed by Agent Orange defoliant.
After two weeks on the roads and rails of Vietnam, drinks are in order at the open balcony bar of the Rex Hotel. Here, with a hawk's view across the city centre, the war correspondents sat, drank and argued on the phone with their editors back in London and New York as the final days of the conflict were fought out in the streets below. Today, it is full of tourists chattering about silk bargains, prices paid for cyclos (rickshaws) and how many millions of dong you get to the dollar.
Stay at: Garden Plaza Parkroyal (from £50 double, 00 848 842 1111, gphotel12@saigonnet.vn), Rex (from £49 for a double).
Eat at: Lemongrass Restaurant (from £4), Moonfish Café (from £5).
Top tips
• Get visas and jabs well in advance. Be prepared to fill in lots of forms and then to be told at immigration most are not needed. Guard the blue departure form with your life.
• Take inoculation forms, spare passport photos and photocopies of your passport's photo page and Vietnam visa page (to offer hotels that demand passports be left at reception).
• Trains are picturesque but slow. With buses, stick to safer Sinh Café tourist ones. Tie bags to overhead luggage racks and take food and water. Vietnam Airlines is shaking off a shocking safety record; internal flights are only slightly more pricey than trains.
• Don't argue with officials - many are looking for excuses to make life unsettling for westerners.
• Respect customs and traditions, especially in Buddhist temples.
• Always be cautious when taking pictures. Never snap anyone or anything official.
• Take US dollars in cash and travellers cheques but not crisp new bills.
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