But the dollar rules. Stop off to buy pancakes at a roadside stall served by a woman in a conical bamboo hat and she yells: "One daa-laar!" Stroll along an art gallery to look at watercolours and the owner shouts: "Five daa-laar!" Hail a cyclo (rickshaw) to drive into town and the driver shouts: "Two daa-laar!"
Does this frail peasant country which beat back the most advanced military power in the world and sacrificed millions of its youth for independence, now risk conquest by Heinz and Coca-Cola? David Tomasi from Seattle, a war veteran who now runs a travel agency, doesn't think so. "The only reason they're doing business is because the Party's instructed them to amass wealth. If the party tells them to stop, they'll stop." 'Uncle' Ho's face with his characteristic fu man chu beard and quizzical eyes grins out from the dong (the currency note). At millions of dong to a dollar, Uncle Ho is almost valueless. But he's ubiquitous.