25 January 1999...The Vietnamese customs/immigration was less hassle and more friendly than I expected. I teamed up with an old German guy named Wolfgang, and Mike, a fellow American, for a taxi, and have ended up sharing a room with Mike in Saigon.
It was crazy coming into the city, as motos and cyclos and cars are more maniac in Saigon than Phnom Penh, or perhaps there are just so many more of them. We got a room with two twin beds, a big room, feels like a real hotel with A/C, private bath, TV, reading lamps, a refrigerator--don't quite know what to do with ourselves as this isn't standard backpacker lodging. But for $9/night split two-ways...
Sunday evening...it was a big night out for Saigonese. We walked downtown to experience it all, thousands of motorbikes (one million motos in Saigon alone, in a city of 8 million people), cruising the streets, congregated in hoards stopped at intersections. By the river, karaoke on a boat decorated with lights strung all over, ships brightly lit out on the river passing before the huge neons that cast their colors on the water below. People on motorbikes everywhere, young lovers and even older ones!
Early this morning we got up to go to the War Crimes Museum, a depressing look at what American GIs did to the Vietnamese during the war (called "the American War" in Vietnam), from photos of torture practices to the slaughter of women and children...GIs seated around the severed heads of Vietnamese, photos of women and children taken by a LIFE magazine photographer. As he walked away he heard them being shot by the American soldiers. Other photos showed aftereffects of napalm bombing, the hideous birth defects caused by it such as "monster" babies born with three mouths, a face on the top of the head, a single nostril, hermaphrodites...Most creepy were two jars with the preserved corpses of deformed babies born in the early-80s. Whatever criticisms we have of the nazis, the Japanese, the Eastern Europeans during wartime, is best given when our own atrocities are remembered.
It definitely gives you some idea of the extent of the brutality on our part. But there was also an entire room with exhibits of how people, not only in the States and Asia, but all over the world, Europe, Latin America, were protesting US presence in Vietnam. But in the end, to what avail, as US leaders and military carried on for years afterwards. Makes me wonder if they every really do pay attention to the protests of the people.
We wanted to see the old US Embassy, but unfortunately they'd torn it down within the last few years and were building a new one.
We went out later, ate a small pizza and played darts at the Wild West Saloon, a pool table and old twangy country songs playing, plus beautiful Vietnamese girls milling around and hanging on the mediocre Western men. Also went to Apocalypse Now, the famed Saigon bar, but it was nothing close to apocalyptic.
Back to backpacker land to enjoy the street scenery, seated in lawn chairs in little bars facing the street, listening to Boney M and Southeast Asian dance favorites in Vietnamese and English. Walking back to our place, a moto with two guys was driving close to the curb coming towards us. Nothing unusual, as no one drives in the right place here anyway. But I suddenly felt a hard thump in my gut. Coming out of temporary shock, I realized they'd tried to snatch the small purse slung over my shoulder and across my chest. They missed. And I never carry more than a few dollars in it anyway, so it was no big deal; still, it's the first physical fear I've felt while travelling, and a wee bit unsettling.
Back at our hotel we stopped into the little cheesy lounge/disco on the second floor and I danced a bit with the Vietnamese girls and their boys before retiring.
Mekong memories
27 January 1999...We left for the Mekong Delta yesterday morning, taking river boats up and down, with villages on either side. Smiling faces, waving hands everywhere. Visited a Viet Cong army camp in the jungle where, during the war, VC generals hid out only 2 km away from a US camp. The US suspected they were there, but were never quite sure, and as the area was jungle it was difficult to penetrate. Plus the VC had set up landmines all around the camp to prevent the US from aproaching. As a result, the US military used air raids and bombings of the location insted. They'd take photos from above, then fly back over and take another photo ten minutes later. If there were differences in the photos (i.e. movement on the ground), they had reason to suspect and would then drop bombs.
The VC had all kinds of bunkers, holes and tunnels, tiny apertures often filled with water (as the Mekong often flooded the area), they wold use to hide in. It was an eerie journey, wandering through swampy jungle, envisioning what it must've been like only thirty years ago, the tension and danger, the fear we've seen potrayed so many times in Hollywood versions of the war.
The surrounding villages and villagers, because of their poverty, of course, supported the communists, even though the villagers were South Vietnamese, supposedly supporting and being supported by the Americans. Tank, our guide, was in the South Vietnamese Army, working under the US marines, and he was involved in arrests and interrogations as well. I can't imagine what kinds of things he must've seen in his lifetime. Born in Hanoi in the north, he fled to the south in 1954 when all Vietnamese were given a chance to choose which side they would live on--a 360 day free period. Their choice having been made they could no longer cross the demilitarized zone.
When the south eventually fell to the north anyway, in 1975, after the US pulled out and stopped providing enough support to the South, members of the South Vietnamese forces were forced into reeducation camps. Tank did three years of hard labor while being "debriefed" and taught communist teachings, a time in his life he prefers to forget. Because of his political background his children were not allowed to go to university, and even before 1990, he was not allowed to talk to foreigners.
Since 1990 Vietnam has opened up significantly though in essence, the old communist limitations are still firmly in place. Oddly though, with a twist of capitalism. Capitalist communism? Giant waves of consumerism sweeping the country, everyone wanting to earn money and buy things, tatus symbols, designer clothing, jewelry, watches, etc. Yet as for political freedoms, Tank says elections have the illusion of being free, although the government knows beforehand who will win, and representatives must all be communist party members.
Poverty is still rampant and many children have to work and can't be sent to school. Primary education, however, is mandatory and literacy rates are extremely high. reading and writing are considered necessary skills for all.
We spent the night in Cantho, a small city on the river with a quaint outdoor scene, sidewalk cafes and a river walk, but lots of tourists. A major drawback for Vietnam is not being able to easily get off the beaten path.
At first I was a little uncertain travelling with Mike, just because I'm so used to being on my own and much prefer solo travel, but we get on really well, he's a really nice guy, and we're having a good time together. In many ways, too, it's freeing to have someone to go out with at night.
Up early again and another boat trip to visit the floating market--hundreds of tiny boats, women in conical bamboo hats selling fruits and vegetables to other boats on the river. Then we stopped and saw rice being processed, the hulls removed, the rice polished, chicken feed being ground from the debris. An ancient wooden contraption reaching up to the ceiling hummed and whirred as all its parts did their various functions. Nearby, glass noodles made from rice, mixed with cassava (like sweet potato), softened in water, then steamed into a liquid and spread onto huge circular hotplates, lifted off with a wicker instrument that looks like an exaggerated baseball bat (roll it slightly on the hot mixture and lift it off the plate), then drop the noodle "round" onto woven mats for drying. When dried the noodles are cut and sold at market.
As we moved on today, we finally got away from the traveller riff-rafff. Our five-day tour brings us to Ha Tien, a tiny beach/fishing village close to the Cambodian border on the Gulf of Thailand.
We ate dinner and sat outside at one of the "cafes"--all over Vietnam, lawn chairs side-byside with a small table, facing the road for a good view of the street scene and passersby, plus funky Southeast Asia disco-pop playing, along with twinkling x-mas lights dancing around the edges of the bar rooftops.
Mike has been getting my "practice" massages almost nightly so I can remember all the moves I learned in Thailand. I'm planning to take my "skill" to Leleuvia and earn a few bucks on the island while I'm there.
The beach at Ha Tien...canopies, umbrellas, hammocks...stand with dried squid and other sea creatures...hot, humid, hazy, looking out on the Gulf of Thailand...rock mountains/formations out in the water...cave temple with crude Buddha images, psychadelic backgrond lights with illuminated geometric patterns...
At the Cambodian border: My Doc...Khmer Rouge attacks in the late-70s...bunkers, Vietnamese counter-attacks...Tank, our guide, after "reeducation camp" got low-paying jobs doing TV/radio repair...until 1990 he was not allowed to use his English or work with tourists...
During the war, no place was safe...Cambodia's Sihanouk allowed the Viet Cong to hide out in Cambodia close to South Vietnam...there were communists within the South Vietnamese Army so it was hard for Americans to distinguish whether they were communist or not...Women and children were killed, but women were often hiding weapons and could easily have turned on the GIs...a hopeless battle...
A visit to another cave temple with views of the Cambodian border (people make pilgrimages to the cave)...most Vietnamese people have no religion (animism, for people in the countryside)...In the Ha Tien area there are a lot of Khmer, Chinese and Cham people--more Buddhist temples/pagodas, which you generally don't see in the countryside
We drive for hours on the one dirt road from Ha Tien to Chau Doc where we'll spend our last night...In Chau Doc, the Lady Pagoda is a statue/altar of a woman who disguised herself as a man (monk) and only when she died was discovered to be a woman...famous site for pilgrimage..people bring handmade expensive robes and goldleaf plaque offerings...so many that the pagoda overseers finally told people to save their money and stop bringing the robes (which they use to dress the statue, changing it twice a month)....people still offer roast pigs, fruit, vegetables, money, especially during the upcoming Tet (Vietnamese New Year)...in this area, Chinese influence abounds.
Tiny birds are sold from cages stuffed full of them--2,000 dong each...because of the Buddhist belief in reincarnation, the person is reborn as another person, and that person is reborn as an animal...you take a bird and toss it in the air, letting it go--it brings good luck (I bought one from a young guy who wanted to practice English with me--we blew each other kisses goodbye)...
In Chau Doc, we ate dinner in a Chinese cafe, then walked around, following our ears to the blaring sounds of Santana...we seated ourselves at an outside set-up on the street in front of a Chinese temple where a huge Vietnamese guy who looked like the fat/happy Chinese Buddha, gestured to us (no English) to stay awhile...we ended up dancing to "Black Magic Woman" with the toothless grandma running the food stand and soon drew crowds of children and teenage boys--laughing and clapping...at one point we must've had 30 people standing around smiling and laughing at our kooky foreign antics...then more dancing to "Shalala in the morning..." holding hands and twirling with the local kids, everybody having a very good time, and almost no other foreigners in sight--a perfect evening.
Saying goodbye, I gave a big hug and kiss to the old woman who boogied to Santana with me. Her name was Lai (introduced later by her 18 year-old son, Ca). The Vietnamese kids we've met have been so incredibly good-natured, always hello-ng, waving, smiling, and even the impoverished ones who want money or food (even cigarettes--an unfortunate sight is eight year-old boys smoking and even a little girl begged a cigarette tonight though I wouldn't give any)...Even those kids wave goodbye, still smiling.
1 February 1999...So it ended up being really nice to travel around and hang out with Mike--easygoing, great conversation and good humour, and I got to practice Thai massage on him so he got a pretty good deal out of it, too.
Favorite memories: LOUNGING! In Saigon, Cantho, Ha Tien, Chau Doc--every place we went, after dinner, sitting in the lawn chairs facing the street, watching the strange little Vietnam world go by. "Caphe Sua"--my standard thick coffee served French style with the grounds strained in a little strainer over a little glass filled halfway with sweet condensed milk, sitting in a small bowl of cold water to cool the glass so you can handle it.
The children everywhere we went, running alongside, greeting from all sides with "Hallo!", smiles, laughter at everything we did. Dancing to Santana with the old lady and entourage...Chau Doc and the fat-happy Buddha man, playing air guitar, gesturing thumbs-up with delight that I was a fellow smoker. The young boys and haords of children who started off shyly, then joined hands and danced around with us at that makeshift cafe...
Then our favoirte "Shalala", English-Vietnamese pop-song heard everywhere we've been. Crowds of passersby stopping to laugh and smile at our dancing, the gawkers in the market where we bought bread and fruit for lunch--a crowd of nine turned into a crowd of seventeen women and children standing in front of the shop ogling our transactions within.
Wall's ice cream: Cornetto cones! So good in the heat.
The cheesy disco on the 2nd floor of our Saigon hotel, playing videos and Vietnamese karaoke, then humoring me with 10 minutes of dance music. The Vietnamese girls in the bars, friendly flirting with me more than Mike, I think---and fawning over middle-aged geeky ex-pats.
Stopping in for an hour of karaoke on our last night in Saigon--weaving adn dodging the thousands of motorbikes, the city infested with them (especially on Sunday nights, and especially last night, when there was a celebratory air with flag-waving when Vietnam beat the Russian olympic soccer team--the Dunhill Cup 1-1, 1/31/99)...the simple, yet noble Vietnam flag with red background and one big yellow star waving all around, one for every couple of motorbikes, and stands of them selling the flags in all sizes along with victory slogans imprinted on red headbands--the air "electric" indeed.
Contrary to all the nightmare stories I'd heard, there was not one attempt to short-change me, nor any real rip-offs experienced. Aside from the annoyance of the cyclo drivers constantly tagging along as you walk with "Where you go now?" And the usual strolling vendor nuisance, Vietnam has been a great experience and despite chaos in Saigon (the unnerving attempts to cross the street, any street, as thousands of buzzing, beeping motorbikes going in all directions and narrowly missing each other, the bicycles and you--every time--amidst the stench of steamed urine)...Yet it's a beautiful city.
Great hotel, Hotel Van Cah, for $9/night for a double with A/C, a free bottle of water/day, daily room service, excellent laundry service (clothes come back spotless, pressed and hung).
I said goodbye to Mike early this morning and hopped on a moto to the airport, my huge green backpack held in front in between the driver's legs as we ventured out amidst the morning motorbike madness. I just turned my head to the side and closed my eyes when I felt any fear. It's better NOT to watch what's going on around you--you might just vomit, or pass out, one or the other.