Candidate of Economic Sciences
Retired Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
You can't recognize Vietnam now, it's different! " - a familiar owner of a Vietnamese restaurant proudly admonished me, where before leaving I wrapped up to taste pho soup, rich with homemade noodles and beef, to my taste, the best in our capital. Speaking to me in enthusiastic terms, not without nostalgic notes in his voice, about his recent vacation trip to his homeland, he, however, admitted that "it is still better to earn money in Moscow."
"AND LONG DISTANCES ARE SHORTENED..."
So, as I settled into the comfortable seat of a brand - new Vietnam Airlines Boeing 777-200 bound for Ho Chi Minh City, I began to look forward to seeing Vietnam, where I hadn't been in years.
There are more than 9 hours of non-stop flight ahead. I remembered how in the 60s it was possible to get to Vietnam from Moscow in only two days: first on a TU-104 to Beijing via Irkutsk, and then the next day on a low-speed TU-14 of a Chinese airline with two landings-to Hanoi. (Since 1969, our citizens have been flying to Hanoi and back, bypassing China via Tashkent and India.) I won't forget my first trip to Vietnam back in August 1961. I got to Hanoi by train (an expensive flight by plane was at that time the privilege of only the ambassador, trade representative and head of the representative office of the USSR State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations (SCEC). The entire trip by rail then took 12 days, including 5 and a half (via Chita) to the border with China, plus more than a day and a half to Beijing. Moreover, the next day, three and a half days through Chinese territory to Hanoi, and with the replacement of wheel pairs of railway cars twice on the border with China and Vietnam.
The business class service of the aircraft was generally a pleasant surprise, although it does not reach Singapore Airlines and the airlines of some of its other Asean counterparts.
IN THE SOUTH OF VIETNAM
Tansong Nhat Internat ...
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