As soon as our flight from Delhi touches down in Bangkok there is pandemonium. Virtually all the Indian passengers are up, taking down their luggage and jostling to get to the door. In the Olympics, India wins no medals; our economy trails far behind that of most other nations; but when it comes to disembarking from aeroplanes, Indians have no peer. It is a pity that the International Olympic Association does not recognize this as a sport.

From Bangkok a short flight takes me and my family to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). It may be a manifestation of my geographic infidelity, but Vietnam seems more fascinating than any other place I have seen.

The basic facts about Vietnam I knew well before my journey—that it has a per capita income of $370 per annum (significantly less than India's 450); that its economy is controlled by a large, Communist government; that it fought a devastating war with the world's most powerful nation from 1964 to 1975; that it won the war but at the terrible cost of 4 million civilian lives (10 per cent of its population).

But what we see refuses to square up with these facts. Nowhere in HCM City does one see the kind of poverty one encounters in Indian cities. There are beggars but they are better dressed and better nourished than their Indian counterparts.