Health and Safety

Wow, where do you get your information? Civil unrest in Vietnam? Are you sure you have the right country? Your stateside relatives are right you have to be careful about food, but the reason is exactly food borne illness, i..e bacteria due to low hygiene standards. This is not anything unique to Vietnam, it's the same in all developing countries. You can never eliminate the risk but you can minimize it by trusting your instincts, eating where many other people eat, and not eating anything raw, like sushi or raw eggs. As for the other issues you mention like chemical contamination, I never heard Vietnam having any particular problem with that. Developing countries often deal with problems like this, but these are usually isolated to an area and time, and very unlikely to affect you. Vietnam gets millions of tourists each year. The only thing I would warn people about Vietnam is the scams there, but since you're staying with family you won't be a target.

I was wondering if the relies had gone off course and landed somewhere in Africa instead of Vietnam.
I know when we were in Dalat, we needed to travel with a tour to visit a local village because permits were necessary as the local government limited access to the Lat villages. The people were very tightly controlled but ran a co op shop selling their handicrafts. It was one way they could raise money without government interference.

I think it is the same all over the world. Things get reported in the local press, and read online overseas, but as a visitor to the country, most problems are unlikely to affect you, and your family will worry more than you do in situ. I did not get sick in Vietnam last year, and old style communist billboard's were the most political thing I saw.

Years ago I was in Thailand during a coup. My mum was a bit concerned, but I was safe at the beach, blissfully unaware there had even been a coup. Don't be put off, just enjoy your trip.

#4, far more freaky than Thailand was Highway 13 in Laos from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang where our van driver gave cigarettes to both Army and guerillas to ensure safe passage. A mini van was arranged for foreigners rather than a bus which had a high chance of being shot at.

I've heard similar stories from people's Vietnamese relatives and they are not people who have travelled there recently or even in the last few decades. In fact I've been hearing such stories for mNy years, since my first vist. They don't appear to be based on evidence. As for food safety, I've always found that tourist restaurants with too extensive menus and lots of frozen (then unfrozen then refrozen) meals are the most likely places to get sick, or the buffet breakfasts at flash hotels where the food hangs around for hours. Go for street food if the locals seem keen, it's usually cooked fresh. I'm also not so keen on fish anywhere but the coast, mostly they have been bred in somewhat suspect fish farms. I wouldn't eat farmed fish in any country.

Never had a problem in Vietnam with food, I tend to avoid tourist restaurants as food is often not so good, overpriced and not freshly cooked. I tend to avoid sea food in Asia.