Bentleys ain't squat in Vietnam nomore!

Move over boyz. Da Rolls Phantoms iz here in Vietnam and they're taking over from the Bentleys .

No longer a centrally planned government with it's feet in Stalinism, Vietnam has now embraced the worst of western society - making its countrymen look like total peons while the chosen drive around in the economic equivalent of the Space Shuttle. I'm absolutely sure that Ho Chi Minh, the President and holistic leader of his people, who refused to live in the Presidential mansion and had a far more simple home built on the grounds, would approve. Bollocks. Just take a look at the photos of Rolls Royce Phantoms, all shot right here in Vietnam, and notice particularly, the spare environs that surround them. Bollocks is right. I saw this same phenomena in Mongolia years ago when I went there to produce a TV show about the 2004 Olympics. In Mongolia, one of the poorest and most sparsely populated countries on the planet, there was no shortage of jet-black Hummers trolling the Gur infested countryside (pictured on the right), courtesy of the local gold and silver mining companies -- the only people in Mongolia who were making any money at all. And here in Vietnam, things seem to be catching up with America, Europe, Japan and Korea. I started counting Bentleys just this year. Looks like in no time the Commies will be pitching themselves off high-rise buildings and getting their government to bailout their bad business deals once the Rolls needs an oil change. And who pays? The people always pay. And hasn't it always been that way? The current fact that 10% of the world's population holds 80% of the wealth doesn't seem at all shocking once you remember that Louis XIV had the entire, largely unpaid, French court living in the Palace of Versailles, in what amounted to impeccably decorated dormitories, while the common people starved. (Cue: Beatles, "Revolution") Vietnam can certainly thank France for that legacy. But as George Washington never lived in the White House and Ho Chi Minh never owned more than a Pugeot 440, (pictured on the left) maybe it's time for our leaders to set an example for their people again. George W. Bush has certainly assured that as history advances, his photo will hold no match for that of Che Guavera adorning t-shirts of yet another generation to grow and challenge the status quo. In Vietnam we can also rest assured that no Bentley or Rolls owner will ever have to compete with Ho Chi Minh for those same t-shirt honours.

My thanks to DJGJ for the Rolls info and make sure to give them some grief about having a blog with nothing in it!