Chapter 35Our three-car caravan drove north through the sweltering Vietnamese countryside, dodging wooden carts pulled by water buffalo and people on bicycles. On either side of the dirt and gravel road, men, women, and children wearing conical hats crouched in wet rice fields, weeding and inspecting freshly planted seedlings.
The surface of the fields shone like vast mirrors in the hot May sun, reflecting the reddish-brown soil, the bright blue of the sky, and the green of surrounding forests.
We passed through one hamlet after another, and all appeared the same: deprived, impoverished, and undeveloped.
At one point, Manfred groused, “I sure don’t see much progress, civilization, prosperity, or brotherhood like that poster said.”
We made the one-hundred-ten-kilometer trip to the town
