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–> You may have heard the buzz, and from a source that nobody saw coming: “Vietnam legalized same-sex marriage!”
This isn’t exactly the case; LGBTQ weddings are still unrecognized. In legalese, “decriminalizing” something does not make it legal; it is just decriminalized. It has to be legally legalized to be legal (commence headache). But the powerbrokers in Hanoi decriminalized having a gay wedding ceremony, and bestowed certain rights, such as property and child-raising, to gay couples.
Legally legalized gay marriage or not, this is a huge step in the right direction on a continent that, from Israel to Japan, doesn’t recognize same-sex relationships. With that, it’s time to look at Vietnam.
Long a darling in the more hoity-toity travel mags, Vietnam, or to be more proper, “Viet Nam,” has some of the most striking landscapes on Earth, from the eerie geology of Ha Long Bay to the surreal mountains of Ninh Binh. You will most likely start in either the capital of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City (historical Saigon). The two cities are on either ends of the country, Hanoi in the far north, “HCMc” in the deep south, so if you do both over land, voila! You see the whole country, plus finds like the imperial capital of Hue and glittery up-and-coming Da Nang.
But of them all, Ho Chi Minh City (whose tongue-twister of a name is often shortened to just “the city”) is probably the gayest one, having the most clubs and bars and genuine gay scene. For a little M4M nightlife, Centro is the best club in town, and lets everybody know it with ear-splittingly loud music that can be heard a block away.
You might be surprised to see how European HCMc is, thanks to the invading French made what was then Saigon the capital of the French Indochina colony. As the capital of the former South Vietnam, it is inevitable in you’ll run into some sort of monument to the Vietnam War in HCMc. The War Remnants Museum is the best.
War memorials and Second Empire architecture aside, sites to see include a quartet of pagodas: the Jade Emperor Pagoda (built by the Chinese), Thien Hau Pagoda (dedicated to a sea goddess), Quan Am Pagoda (the oldest in town), and Phung Son Tu Pagoda (for the god of happiness) Finish off with a tour through the Mekong River delta and a swing through the Museum of Vietnamese History, whose gardens alone are worth the admission, and you can say you’ve done the city.
