The graves stretch on, line after line. The red and yellow stars look sombre here. The Dien Bien Phu cemetry shows the great sacrifice the Viet Minh made to overthrow the French.

And outside? On the grass in front of the cemetry the young people of Dien Bien Phu are learning to ride motorbikes. Older women shout and point at them as they skid all over the place in the rain.

Everywhere in Vietnam things are moving on. When I first arrived here someone asked me "What is the first thing people in England think of when they think of Vietnam?" and I had to answer, the Vietnam War. (He first thought of tennis when he thought of England, a surprising change from football).

But the Vietnamese are careering towards the future, at breakneck, if uneven speed. And many see the future as the West. Some parts of Hanoi could be London or Paris, and even in the countryside the wooden huts are populated with satellite dishes.

Sometimes it is hard to remember how poor people here are, and when I find myself slipping into health and safety mode - lamenting the massively overcrowded buses (I'm talking three to a seat) or the lift where I live which has to be pulled up by hand whenever it breaks down, I try to remember that I don't want to paint the West as paved with gold.

Because its not, and if it was, why would I be here?