Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

Do you smell that?

Motorbike exhaust, fish sauce, incense...

The faraway smell of something... is... is that pork

grilling over charcoal?

Vietnam, it could be no place else.

Listen to me.

Listen to me.

There is no other way to see this city, Hanoi,

than from a motorbike or a scooter.

To do otherwise would be to miss it all.

Whoa!

It is one of the great pleasures of my life

to join the river of people

rushing through the streets.

Vietnam, it grabs you and doesn't let you go.

Once you love it, you love it forever.

I've been coming here since 2000,

the first time I'd been in this part of the world,

and it's held a special place in my heart

and my imagination since.

I keep coming back.

I have to.

Vietnam has changed since last time I was here.

It's changing every minute.

But some things, for now anyway, remain the same.

Important things like this stuff.

That's gonna be good.

Bun oc, first meal in Hanoi,

and it's something they do here

better than anywhere else.

Okay, I'm officially in Hanoi now.

Mmm, magic.

A spicy, wonderful broth with tomatoes and herb

and noodles and fresh snails.

Plump and delicious.

Look at those beauties.

Come to me, plump, little love muscle.

Mmm.

Hanoi, capital city of Vietnam.

Seven and a half million people live here.

In the winter, it's chilly and damp.

In the summer, hot, humid, subtropical.

The boulevards and many of the buildings are French.

But its heart and soul is always, always Vietnamese.

Americans coming here as tourists for the first time,

especially veterans of the war,

are shocked by how friendly the place is.

People are genuinely happy to see you.

This is Hanoi's Old Quarter, but it's looking less

and less old these days.

Man, this area's changed though.

I mean, the Irish/Czech- themed pub next door?

Vietnam is a young country.

Almost half of Vietnamese are under the age of 30.

Fewer every year even remember what they call here

the American War.

Those years were a defining time

for just about everyone, Vietnamese or American,

who lived through them.

And though there are still a lot

of conflicted feelings back home, for most Vietnamese

these days, the war has become an abstraction,

not even a memory.

Vietnam is still a poor nation,

but the standard of living has improved a lot

with the relaxing of hardline

communist economic policies.

More and more foreign tourists every year.

Western chains inevitable are everywhere.

And President Obama is visiting for the first time,

taking another step on the long path

toward normalizing relations

between the two countries.

That is good.

Ooh, hot.

Ooh, I hit that chili hard.

- Nice to meet you. - Yes.

It's such a pleasure.

- Oh, and we have -a beer ready to go, great.

Yes.

So we're doing by bottle, or we're going to pour it

in a glass?

How would you do it if I wasn't here?

- I would pour it in the glass. - Okay.

In Vietnam, particularly in the North, it would be

very improper for a woman to drink

- straight from the bottle. - Oh, really? Oh, really?

- Yeah. - Okay, well, I'm glad I know this now.

Cheers.

Thao is an Eisenhower Fellow and a Fulbright scholar.

She's devoted her career to help strengthen the bonds

between Vietnam and the US.

Today, we drove to the outskirts of Hanoi.

Uh-hmm?

Cranes, tall buildings.

People moving from the country to the city?

Uh-hmm?

- Marc Jacobs, Prada, I mean, this is

a very young country now.

Oh, very much a young nation.

They like to eat the Kentucky Fried Chicken.

They like to spend a lot

of their time on the internet.

The history of our country is a history of war.

We had a thousand years under the Chinese,

and then we had eighty years under the French,

and then the Japanese came in,

and when the American left finally in 1975,

we got involved with Cambodia, so we only have peace

since 1989.

Just in the matter of a few decades,

the entire population will be those

without any war experience.

And that's a great thing.

And what are we eating today?

Well, we are going to have a banh cuon.

And that means?

Rice roll, very thin.

Like a crepe?

Yes, it's like a crepe.

And inside, ground, minced pork and wood ear mushroom.

Ah.

And you dip it in, and there you go.

Mmm.

Oh, that's very good.

Everything we do internationally, someone refers back

to the Vietnam experience.

You know, "Let's not do that again," or...

Let's not repeat Vietnam.

- But I find it interesting that the people

who had perhaps the most painful experience

were among the first to reach out.

- I think the John McCain story... - Yes.

Is particularly interesting because here's a guy

who had an atrocious experience here in prison,

and yet he has been among the most vocal supporters

of normalizing relations.

It took several trips to Vietnam,

and so he could see Vietnam in a different light.

It's no longer a war.

It's a country with people.

Have you been out with returning veterans from...

Oh, yes, all the time.

Do they often want to go to the area

that they served?

Oh, yes.

- Do they often even meet with the people they fought?

Yes.

B-52 pilots come to the areas

they unloaded their bombs?

Yes.

What is that experience like?

What do you see when they come?

Extremely emotional, extremely emotional.

People burst into tears.

"The memory I kept of you 45 years ago was an enemy."

"I did anything and everything to protect my life

and to protect the people in my platoon."

"But today, when I see you again

not as an enemy, as a person."

Everything just disappear.

All the bad feeling disappear, and now

"Oh, are you married?"

You know, "How many children do you have?"

You know, "What are you up to?"

Their life turn into a new chapter, and this chapter

is a good chapter.

[woman speaking Vietnamese over PA]

Hanoi in the morning, the usual high-pitched whine

of thousands of motorbikes.

People and the things they carry coming out to work,

to set up shop, the sound of commerce...

Of a wildly free market economy in a system

that's decidedly not.

Ohh!

Hey!

Whoo!

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Hey! Hey!

- [woman sings in native language]

When I first came here, it was Tai Chi at dawn,

and that's still here.

But there's also this.

Good to see you.

It's nice to see you too.

- This is An, my friend. - Nice to meet you.

She's also my Zumba instructor.

Ah.

No Zumba for me.

Breakfast, though, sounds good.

How often a week do you think

the average person cooks, and how often

do they eat out?