Decades after battling the Vietnamese in jungles and rice paddies far to the south, some two-dozen American veterans arrived Monday in what was once the most forbidden of cities.

Spurs chairman Peter Holt walks in the former Hanoi Hilton prison.

“To come to Hanoi just freaks me out. It was the capital of the enemy, where the guys who were POWs were held,” said John McEvilly Jr., 63, a decorated Marine veteran from Virginia.

“The last time we were here, we were bombing Hanoi. Now we're eating lamb chops, prawns and pate,” he said over a sumptuous welcoming lunch at the majestic Hotel Metropole Hanoi.

McEvilly is part of a delegation organised by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund that is spending a week in Vietnam, finishing its trip in Ho Chi Minh City, once known as Saigon, on Jan. 17.

The vets came for reasons that ranged from the practical, such as discussing the dangers posed by buried U.S. ordnance to Vietnamese civilians, to the personal.

Some, such as Sam Metters, 75, a businessman from Virginia, knew exactly what they were looking for. In 1968, Metters helped build an orphanage school, and he wants to see it again.

“I was a platoon leader with the 147th Civil Affairs Platoon. The infantry would come through and level a town, and my job would be to rebuild it,” he said.

“It's been on my mind for years and years,” he said of the school.

“You know how the old World War II guys go back to Normandy? Well, this is my Normandy,” he said.

Others, including Spurs chairman Peter Holt of San Antonio, who was wounded in combat in 1968, returned for reasons that might become clearer as the week progresses.

“The last couple of nights have been emotional. For me, it's very much a personal trip,” said Holt, 61, a decorated Army veteran.

“My wife and I were talking about not having too much expectation. We'll see how it goes,” said Holt, who brought his daughter Corinna Holt, 25, on the trip.

This is the first trip back for Holt, who also heads a national campaign to raise money for an $85 million education center next to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Modern Hanoi

The bustling, vibrant Hanoi that greeted these American veterans, and many others like them every year, is nothing like the battered city that stood when the war ended in 1973.

Hammered by years of American bombing and later by government mismanagement of the economy, the residents of Hanoi endured food shortages and other deprivations long after the fighting ended.

“When I came to Hanoi in 1979, I still saw bomb shelters by the sidewalk. A few years later, they filled them in,” said Tran Dinh Song, 60, the tour guide who greeted the vets at the airport.

“Every day there were blackouts. The people had no air, no fans, so they had to come out of their houses and sit out front because of the heat. The joke was, only during a blackout do you know the population of Hanoi.”

Now, Hanoi buzzes with traffic. High-rises and business parks are sprouting. And luxury cars including BMWs and Hummers push against the swarms of Honda mopeds at intersections.

“The latest model of any car in the world will be imported to Vietnam in a few days,” said Hoang Duc Hieu, 25, an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs whose job includes accompanying reporters.

“I would like to have a Mercedes E-Class. They are good for doing business.”

Tourism is booming, and so many American veterans now visit Hanoi that a virtual war tour has emerged.

It includes stops at the so-called Hanoi Hilton, the massive downtown prison where captured American pilots were held; the lake into which Navy pilot John McCain parachuted after being shot down; and the wreckage of a downed B-52 bomber still visible in another lake.

On the 45-minute bus ride from the airport to the hotel, Song briefed the Americans on everything from Hanoi traffic etiquette to the best places to exchange dollars for dongs, the national currency.

“You look at the traffic first. You let them know you are crossing. If you don't stop in the middle and you don't run, you'll be OK,” he said.

The changing scenes outside the bus windows captured Hanoi's rapid modernization. Peasants in traditional black pajamas and white conical hats tending fields gave way to huge assembly plants bearing the names Panasonic, Yamaha and Canon.

And, Song reassured the Americans, they would be welcome.

Hanoi Hilton, high-rise

Before eating lunch at the Metropole, where author Graham Greene and silent movie star Charlie Chaplin once frolicked, the veterans met the Vietnamese media, announcing a $1 million federal grant for Project Renew, which is dedicated to removing bombs and mines.

A Vietnamese man with a badly disfigured face told of being burned by a phosphorus bomb when he was 5.

“I had 12 operations, including five in the U.S.” said Nguyen Duc Huynh, 20, whose terrible experience led to a film documentary.

Later, the veterans visited the famous prison where McCain's flight suit and parachute are on exhibit in a glass case and where a looping black and white video shows horrific scenes of bombing by the “imperialists.”

But only the facade and a small portion of the prison, built by the French in 1896 to hold Vietnamese liberation fighters and others, remains intact.

Most of it was torn down years ago to make way for a joint Singapore-Vietnamese development project, perfectly capturing Hanoi's rapidly changing face.

“It's bizarre. I have a friend who spent eight years here, and now they have put a high-rise on it. So I took a picture of it for him,” McEvilly said.

While watching the video of Hanoi's heroic efforts to resist the bombers, Holt reflected on what the American soldiers had so confidently thought in the war's infancy.

“The attitude was, it's a bunch of peasants. They'll give up. But they were never gonna give up,” he said.

“We think about the suffering of John McCain in prison for seven years, but what were we doing to their country? Bombing their babies.”