As a name to fire the imagination of golfers with thoughts of exotic sporting adventure, the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail is hard to beat.
Quite what Uncle Ho would have made of such bourgeois activity also makes entertaining food for thought.
But the fact such an enterprise exists, its name linked to the trail that once supplied Vietcong forces, illustrates how quickly communist Vietnam has developed in the two decades since it embraced economic change.
Set up in July last year, the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail was designed to put Vietnam's emerging golf industry on the tourist map.
The country has some decent golf courses.
It was chosen as the undiscovered golf destination of 2007 by the International Association of Golf Travel Operators.
With Vietnam's economy going gangbusters in recent times, insiders expect the number of courses will nearly double to 25 or 30 in the next few years, with several high-profile projects in the pipeline - including three Greg Norman-designed layouts.
The trail is a joint venture of leading golf clubs and resorts, top-end hotels, a travel company and a public relations company.
It packages the courses with accommodation, travel and sightseeing, providing drivers and guides where needed, allowing visitors to experience a country where it is not easy to organise it yourself.
It sounded intriguing.
The trouble was that 12 hours after arrival and halfway through 18 holes at Vietnam Golf and Country Club, I was bemused by the bermuda grass, slightly woozy in the heat and blaming jet-lag as my fickle golf game went missing in action.
I could almost feel our cluster of caddies willing me to hit a decent drive before another ball flew wide of a generous, coconut-tree-lined fairway.
Through no fault of the course, a trip down the trail was feeling more like a tour of duty.
Fortunately it proved only a one-day attack of ugly golf.
The trail has three golf venues in the north with Hanoi as a base and four, more widely spread, in the south.
A new Colin Montgomerie-designed links opening soon near Da Nang will provide a stop in the centre.
Trail trips which can be tailored though organisers have three suggested itineraries, with seven days for the northern leg, 10 days for the south and 16 days to combine them - all allowing plenty of time for sightseeing and shopping, even a luxury overnight cruise.
Rather rashly, my trail colleague and I tried to combine north and south in seven days with five different stops.
Ho Chi Minh City is base for two trail courses including Vietnam G and CC, where general manager Blair Cornthwaite runs the country's busiest club with a small army of caddies to service two well-conditioned courses.
He says Vietnamese are taking to golf in growing numbers, relishing the chance to spend new wealth in a "status" sport.
The historic Caravelle Hotel on HCMC's Lam Son Square is ideally located to wander Dong Khoi district's streets and enjoy the faded French-colonial charm of buildings including Notre Dame Cathedral, the Opera House and Continental Hotel.
Next day we headed 200km northeast to the fishing town of Phan Thiet, home to the Novotel Ocean Dunes and Golf Resort and the Nick Faldo-designed Ocean Dunes course.
The hotel has a pool, beach and South China Sea on one side, golf course the other and is just a short stroll from the intimidating first tee shot, where water awaits on the inside of a dogleg fairway.
At 6148m, Ocean Dunes is not overlong but there's water in play on 10 holes and the coastal wind is a big factor.
Dinner, at open-air oceanfront Cay Bang Restaurant in nearby resort town Mui Ne provided the ultimate in fresh seafood, as a man climbed into a tank to net our chosen fish before it was cooked to order.
Another three-hour car trip took us into the Central Highlands to the resort town of Dalat, which got my vote as favourite trail stop.
Established as a colonial French getaway, Dalat's isolation amid lush mountain scenery has allowed it to retain some of that feel.
The beautifully restored Sofitel Dalat Palace Hotel has perched beside Xuan Huong Lake for more than 80 years and makes a luxurious base with a restaurant - Le Rabelais - well worth a visit.
Dalat Palace Golf Club, just around the lake, also has plenty of history.
An initial nine-hole course was laid out there about 1930 and patronised by Vietnam's last emperor Bao Dai.
The course has some terrific holes as pine-bordered fairways undulate across the hillside and Dalat's 1500m altitude provides major benefits for golfers, allowing the only all-bent-grass course in Vietnam to thrive and ensuring moderate temperatures year round.
You've got to love a golf club that lets caddies and other course and hotel employees play free of charge after mid-afternoon.
A flight north took us to Hanoi and the new five-star Intercontinental Hanoi Westlake Hotel, from where trail visitors can play golf at Kings Island, Chi Linh Star and Tam Dao, all within day-trip distance.
We tried Tam Dao, a new resort course set in mountain foothills by a national park, with well-groomed fairways running between streams and a lake.
At 6582m it is enjoyable and also demanding.
A day or two off just to explore Hanoi should be a must.
It's not only a great cultural centre but also a good place to hang out and enjoy areas like the French Quarter and the Old Quarter, a maze of narrow streets packed with shops of every kind.
Given the trail's name, visitors may also want to see the simple stilt house where Ho spent his final years.
You can see the man himself at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where his embalmed body lies, against his wish to be cremated.
Our trip finished with an overnight cruise on Halong Bay aboard Emeraude, an elegant 55m replica of a French-owned paddle steamer that filled the same role on these waters a century ago.
From the moment uniformed staff take your bags on arrival it's a luxury experience.
As you float among surreal-looking limestone islands jutting out of the haze, Emeraude plays its French Indochina theme to the hilt, down to a screening of the movie Indochine on the top deck after dinner.
It was a great way to end a trip guaranteed to provide many more memorable experiences than the average golf resort holiday. - Neil Harvey
- The writer was a guest of Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail.
If you go
• The trail's informative website www.hochiminhgolftrail.com - has contact details, suggested itineraries, information on member courses and hotels and links for booking questions and requests.
Top tip for the trail
• Check the climate in places where you're looking to go, it varies greatly across the country - and take sunscreen.
