[JPM Travel Journals]
SOUTHEAST ASIA 00/01
Jets to Bangkok
A Low Xmas
Smoking Monks &
Slow Boats in Cambodia
The Seventy-Five Cent Saigon Crewcut
Sortie Inevitable
SAIGON CREWCUT
After two more days in Phnom Pehn, I take a mini-bus to the Vietnam border. More inexplicable roads and a few hours of rural village touring. The border crossing is relatively painless on the Cambodian side. I sneak a photograph of the marvelous scene, despite the daunting display of firepower trying to convince me otherwise. The Vietnamese officials make a proper introduction to the country by trying to rip me off twice. Strange fees which I know don't really exist seem to have been introduced. The several foreigners ahead of me fall for it-- or decide the dollar isn't worth the hassle. Not me. The words "U.S. Embassy" and (in Vietnamese) "No Have, No need" do the trick after a little repeating. The guards chuckle to each other and wave me through. Even more frustrating, I catch the next official penning into my Vietnam visa (in my passport) that my date of entry transpired a month previous. This would mean I'd have to pay a fine ($7) for each of those thirty days of overstaying my visa when I go to leave. More chuckling between comrades when I correct him, and he sheepishly fixes his intentional error.
Dong Ha. Vietnam.
I get onto a bus that is quite different from the one that was described to me a few hours back at the Cambodian ticket office when I purchased the fare. Hmm. I'm trying hard not to be daunted by this. It takes me thirty minutes of riding the bus, even with the beautiful light rain falling on the countryside, doing my best to shuck off this new chip on my shoulder. The first sighting of the Vietnamese women in their Ao Dai full-length traditional dresses riding their bicycles home from work does the trick.
This is the double edge of traveling in Vietnam. Each moment can be faced with beauty or with compromise, complication. You can be sitting admiring such beautiful architecture, propaganda posters, or natural wonder... and then be repeatedly disturbed by someone insisting you buy their overpriced postcards / bootleg-guidebooks / garbage souveneirs. It takes a lot of effort I find to try to selectively tune out the obnoxious elements. Fortunately the beauty and charm of this country is very strong, and I can always find something wonderful about every moment. This is why traveling can be so great-- I encounter these small scale instances, events, that prove to be fantastic metaphors, parables almost-- lessons in life. When I see the Ao Dai dresses I realize this aspect of the culture is far more worth my attention, let alone discussion, than the trickery and deception.
Shortly after it starts getting dark, the bus arrives in downtown Saigon. The traffic is mad, like Bangkok, except more bicycles and cyclos here. It takes a long time to make our way through the rush hour streets which are full of honking, smoking cars and motorbikes, and hundreds of people walking alongside their bicycles through the thick of it all.
Lambro550's in a line. Saigon.
We arrive at Pham Ngu Lao neighborhood, which is a smaller, scaled down, Vietnamese Khao San road. I find a nice simple guesthouse with a streetfront room and large windows seven floors up with a view of downtown Saigon. The sounds never end, everywhere a maze of streets filled with roaring engines, many unmuffled motorcycle engines that sound like chainsaws, lambretta lambro550 mini-trucks, and so many cyclos. They are beautiful. I avoid riding the moto's and instead opt for being ridden around by pedaled cyclo as often as I need more distant transport. The vegetarian restaurants here prove to be quite impressive, and so inexpensive it is embarrassing. I find myself ordering two entrees, an appetizer, a fruit shake, and an iced coffee for most meals. It usually ends up costing about $2.50 US. There are about five little streets and alleys in the small area around the hotel. Little shops, cafes, restaurants tucked in everywhere. Moto drivers hanging out all over the place eager to whisk you off somewhere. Personally I find myself very attracted to the quaint little barbershops.
I've waited two weeks for this. I'm overdue for a haircut, feeling a little shaggy and anxious for a return to my suedeheaded look. And I've postponed getting the haircut in Thailand and Cambodia, with my pretentious hopes set on getting my protypical american soldier crewcut in downtown Saigon. But with a touch of revisionism, I get it done by a Vietnamese women and a manual set of hair-clippers. I probably seem a lot more happy than I should be to be getting a haircut. They giggle at my requests to have my photo taken in the chair. The cost, 10,000 dong. About 75 cents. I'm feeling nice, so I give her an extra five grand. Vietnamese customarily seldom express appreciation verbally, but she says to me, in Vietnamese, "Thank you Sir." I bow my head a bit, return the folded hand gesture and tell her thanks.
Cu Chi, Viet Cong Tunnels.
The Cu Chi tunnels are a network of underground tunnels and rooms the Viet Cong built during the Vietnam - American war. The US forces made the blunder of building an army base in Cu Chi directly above the tunnels, and it took them about four months to figure out why they kept getting shot in the middle of the night.
The introductory film, made in 1967 by the North, leaves no sentiments unsaid. A few minutes are devoted to celebrating a young Viet Cong female fighter who is proclaimed and honored with a medal as Proud American-Killing Hero. Two people in the front of the room get up and walk out. I find that in my entire two weeks in Vietnam, I meet less than a dozen other Americans. In a sense I am disappointed because I would have wanted to get to talk to returning soldiers or officers, that have come for a psychological sense of repair or understanding. Even in my tour a week later of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) at its military sites, I'm unable to find such conversation. (Interestingly, two weeks after I return I meet a man in a Philadelphia bookstore travel section, who was stationed in Vietnam in the late sixties and is going back this spring after thirty years. We talk for a while.)
Here at Cu Chi, there is a man from San Francisco. He and I discuss the complexities of being Americans visiting Vietnam. It's not that there aren't many tourists-- there are more than I would have expected-- but its remarkable to see how so many of the foreign tourists take an interest in the American-Vietnamese conflict. Perhaps I could launch into a full-scale explanation of my intentions in going to Vietnam and what it meant to me to be there, but I will instead defer to a documentation of the perceptions and the reactions that I had.
I am continually impressed by the beauty of the countryside and the way that twenty-five years of nature and human resilience has nearly obliterated the traces of this bloody past. Riding the trains and buses, far from the cities, I get the feeling that I am in innocent frontier, that I am seeing this land much as any of the young men shipped out to Vietnam may have seen prior to all the bomb craters and burned villages.
In that sense it is so beautiful, and so reassuring to see the healing that has happened here. In ways it seems apologetic and respectful enough to be an American and to come here by choice as a tourist, but many times I feel the need to explain the sorrow and frustration I feel for the damage inflicted on this countryside.
The deepest irony is in my recognition that regardless of the flags that fly here or the semantic definition of the political system that is in effect here, it is the english language and the intent of private enterprise, selling, and profit that is at every turn. And yet the struggle of the Liberation forces has also been met-- Vietnam is unified and independent. An oversimplification for sure, but it rests my mind some to believe in some way that the country is for the most part healed and is more and more working towards security and happiness as was desirable by the Vietnamese and their former enemies.
An outdoor market in Saigon.
The one museum experience in Saigon that stays with me is a photoexhibit documenting Agent Orange and the defoliants used by the military efforts in countryside-- and leaving thousands deformed, crippled, or dead. This is at the War Remnants Museum (renamed from Imperialist War Crimes Museum.) It's a continual lesson how different history is told from different perspectives, and how so much of what I have read or learned about this time is challenged here. The exhibit is paniful: I catch a glimpse of a video taken in the early 1970's in a Vietnamese children's hospital... I have to escape to the courtyard to sit down and regain my composure.
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I take a cyclo to the train station my last night in Saigon. The ride through the city, however chaotic, is wonderful. The cyclo lurches forward push by push, steering me with the traffic, through the traffic, against the traffic... we pass the Thich Quang Duc monument and intersection (where the Buddhist monk immolated himself in protest of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem's policies.) In ten minutes time I hop off the cyclo and soon enough I have found my sleeping compartment for the first of three overnight train journeys all the way north to Hanoi.
Ironically, Edwin and his mother Jean, whom I'd recommended my train ticket agent in Saigon to, are booked in the same compartment as me. This is a soft sleeper car-- there are four bunks in our room, and there is a simple mattress on each bunk. There is one window with a metal grating that comes down, and a large sliding door to give the illusion of privacy in this accommodation. There's never really a dull moment, because if the train isn't screaming full volume across a trestle bridge, or the loudspeaker isnt blaring Vietnamese Pop music to alert the passengers of an impending station stop, undoubtedly there is a conductor sliding open your door and asking for some arbitrary something, or just looking in, making a strange face, and then closing the door.
I spend a lot of time in the halls. There isn't really a common area, and despire the halls narrow width, it is nice to duck down and peer at the landscape shuttling by. When its dark enough and we're finally tired enough, Edwin, Jean, myself, and the young Vietnamese woman who knows zero english, we turn off the lights, try to shut the window, and go to sleep.
I'm too excited to sleep. The scene is too exhilarating. I'm on an overnight train in Vietnam to a small coastal town called Nha Trang. I sit up in the bunk and peer out the window, the clicking of the wheels and track loud over my earphone-supplied soundtrack of Revolver. (George is winning again.) Edwin sees that I'm also awake. He sits up. We light cigarettes, 555's-- Ho Chi Minh's favorites. We sit there in the dark, saying nothing, listening to the clicking, blowing smoke out through the open window.
We arrive in Nha Trang shortly after an early morning breakfast on the train. It's not yet light out.
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My first day in Nha Trang I take a tour with a moto driver. I pay him $2 to drive me around for the better part of the afternoon. First stop is a rock promontory with a nice vista of the coastline and the fishing villages. Then we go to the Cham temples, which are unimpressive due to the massive scaffolding. I manage to gain access inside, along with the more devout, who are there offering incense and stuffing the small passageways. More remarkable about this location are the small children that delight in my tattoo work. I'm wearing a small, worn t-shirt and a shabby pair of fatigue shorts and sandals-- there's more to see than usually. After five minutes of hand signals and attempts at communication I realize that the boy wants a star of his own on his arm. Much to the enjoyment of the crowd that is gathering, with a set of red and black markers I began the illustration. By time my moto driver comes to fetch me informing me that we must leave and go to the last site now (he's tired of waiting) there must be eight Vietnamese children with red and black stars, moths, or suns drawn on their forearms. It's such a fun time that they think I don't notice that they are stealing my lychee fruits from the small pouch at my side. I'm whisked off by impatient moto man, and we motor across the skinny bridge over the piers and waterway here in quaint Nha Trang.
Temple & hilltop-seated "Pale Buddha." Nha Trang.
At the last site is a large hill with steps all the way up to giant white Buddha seated in the lotus position. At the base is a complex of buildings belonging to a temple and monastery that is hundreds of years old. Walking through the court I smile broadly and bow to a young monk perched on an upper balcony. He beams back at me and bows with his hands met under his chin.
Climbing the steps to the Buddha, I stub my toe ominously on one of the concrete steps. Then I have to climb over a boy writhing with no pants, his deformed spine bent at an angle that hurts just to see. His mother sits next to him endlessly waving her hands over his head, fanning him and keeping the flies at bay. She looks up at me and says, "Money."
When I make it to Buddha, there is a young mother beating a screaming child with a reed. I divert my attention to the swarm of enormous dragonflies fighting the breeze.
-
I take an all day island tour on a two level boat. We anchor several times for swimming, and diving off the top deck of the boat is nice, the water is very comfortable, but the water and the scene is pale in comparison to the gorgeous surf from Ko Chang, Thailand. Perhaps it is also my reservations that I am not really here in Vietnam to enjoy beaches and the ocean. One of our last stops is a large aquarium complex-- the sealife in the giant multi-floor tanks is incredible. The eels and sharks command my respect and astonishment. How incredible and large this world is, how diverse is Nature.
I take another overnight train further up the coast, about 16 hours to Hue. After a night's rest, when the sun has come up and I am again propped up gazing out the window, for the first time I feel like I am really in Vietnam. The train is clicking down the rails through a dense jungle, rainforests, and going through tunnels in the rock. The sound of water rushing and splashing and falling is loud enough to hear even over the roar of the train. At some bends and turns there is a clearing, we are on the edge of an enormous view of the countryside-- rice fields going to the horizon-- an endless array of geometric shapes and fields punctuated by the people in their wonderful hats, the water-buffalo pulling the plows, and children riding around on ancient bicycles. Riding on the train now, as I write these recollections, leaving metropolitan New York City, seems so insanely pale and cold in stark comparison.
Thien Mu Pagoda.
Hue is amazing. This old city exists with touches of colonial era and the imperial capital it was two hundred years prior. The pace here is so much more comfortable, the temperature here much nicer. The glowing lantern vendors colorfully light the major avenues, as I am riding unimpeded by a mass of vehicles in the cyclo to my guesthouse. I had come close to taking Hue out of my itinerary, for time reasons, but become so happy with decision to include it. The past week I have been deliberating between stops on the way to Hanoi. Danang? (Excursion to My Lai village.) Hoi An? (small city of tailors and old world charm.) or Hue (starting point for most tours of the DMZ.) I had determined Hue would be a good combination of both old world beauty and access to military history sites. And I think it was a perfect choice, although I do wish I had an extra three days to have seen Hoi An also.
One of the main features that other travelers that I meet tell me about Hoi An is the number of quaint little tailor shops everywere where one can get very inexpensive custom made clothing by design or alteration. I am satisfied to find that Hue also has many of these places, and I put down a deposit and order on a beautiful but simple black traditional shirt-jacket of raw, coarse silk. It will be ready tomorrow, and will cost $4. The woman finishes taking measurements, and I make my way out into the fairly quiet streets. I befriend a cyclo driver who even lets me peddle -him- around in the cyclo!
I wake early and head out for the DMZ tour. We start with a visit to an ethnic village, which I don't really understand-- its clearly not on the agenda of the history lesson I thought this tour was. Children carrying other children in papooses, old wrinkled women with black teeth chewing betel and smoking skinny pipes. They live in simple houses on stilts. I can't figure out why we're here, and the perplexities are bothing me about the impact this must have on the villagers to have a mini-van arrive two or three times a day.
We see The Rockpile. We see Khe Sahn former military base and landing strip. With a burned out tank and some other debris, scorched hard soil, it is one of the few stops that the evidence of the war still exists in the landscape this quarter century later. Driving for hours as we are in the country we see many rice paddy fields with what looks like remainders of bomb craters, but for the most part this tour is so amazing in the resilience of the people and the earth it evidences even from the unrelenting violence and firepower unleashed here: in some of these very landscape and roads we are driving on. We drive down a section of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It's hard to imagine I am in a secret convoy of materials to supply the North Vietnamese Liberation Army. I can't get away from the notion that I'm an American thirty years after the fact paying $11 for an all day tour of the names and places alluded to in so many films and books I have seen. There is an isolated moment when I am listening to a 10,000 Maniacs song which I have purposely brought for this trip, reflecting on the losses of the Vietnam war and speaking of a pilgrimage to the Veterans Memorial Monument in Washington DC. And I feel a few tears slip out as I am listening to the song and little Vietnamese children are waving to me as we drive by their simple houses out in the valleys of the former DMZ.
Khe Sahn Military Base. Debris.
That night, so thoroughly exhausted, I head to the train station to catch the final segment of my overnight trains to Hanoi. I take a cyclo and its one of the same young cyclo fellows from before. He drive me around the citadel, and then to the train station and treats me to a drink at the small cafe across the street where a hollywood ultraviolent film is playing-- with dubbed Vietnamese.
On the train, by morning I will complete my almost 2000 kilometers of train journey from the South to the North. I'm booked this time in Hard Sleeper, which is a class down from my two previous nights on the train. There are six bunks in a compartment, fold down planks with a rolled-out bamboo mat. This was the only class of ticket left for the overnight sleepers, and I am fine with it. I'm excited for the adventure, actually. The other five occupants of my compartment are all Vietnamese. Two are young women from Hanoi that are returning after a business trip to Hue for a UN project they are working on. Another is a math professor. The other two occupants I don't learn much about-- they are either minding their own business, fairly enough, or sleeping soundly most of the 16 hour trip. The young ladies speak relatively good conversational English and I enjoy talking to them for a few hours and their sharing some fruit and ginger candy with me.
The sleep in these conditions is actually much more comfortable and reasonable than I had predicted. Not only do I feel like I am traveling with more authentic style, because I am so exhausted, and because this country is only getting more comfortable and wonderful, I sleep soundly and comfortable for several hours.
I wake up a little past six, and as has been practice, sit out in the hall watching the countryside clicking by. There is a nice, cool breeze riding in through the open windows. The rural landscape is softly lit through the overcast, humid skies. It's still several hours before we get to Hanoi, but I feel completely relaxed, at peace, warm.
Hanoi's weather is even chillier than Hue. It's not as sunny here as it is in the South, but so much more beautiful. I walk from the train station to the Old Quarter where I hope to find a room. The lakeside is so picturesque. The European influence, the lasting effects of a french colonial era, seems to flow resoundingly from the heart of this northern capital. In ways it reminds me of Shanghai, which too, has its share of European flair. But it is also the juxtaposition of water and architecture, the attention to landscaping, the starkness and geometry of some things compared to the natural, curvacious qualities of other aspects of this city.
The old quarter is bustling and alive. I find a great room five floors up with a view of the neighborhood. The room is spacious and old-fashioned, with a nice, simple tile bathroom, and actually a bathtub (!) I go out for several hours of exploring, dinner, and then have a decadent ice cream dessert at a flash French creperie ice cream shop. I also go to the traditional Vietnamese water puppet theatre and catch an amazingly beautiful show. I opt for the $1 instead of the $2 seats, and so I am a bit far away, but the performance is lovely, and the traditional 'orchaestra' that plays along to the multi-act drama is incredible. Such flair, and intensity, and magic.
Water Puppets theatre. Hanoi.
Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum is an impressive piece of architecture. Severe art deco, and the stark white suits of the attentive guards posted at the tomb sets a cold, clear tone. Uncle Ho himself looks, well, quite lifeless. His embalmed corpse lies immaculately presented under a red glow in the otherwise very dim chamber of his tomb. The line of observers shuffles pasts slowly and then out the exit door. I'm thinking two things-- what a great beard he has, and how much like a wax model he looks like. After more official swindles where government officials try to convince me that there is a charge for this or that, despite large posted signs almost everywhere saying, in many languages, NO CHARGE, I decided to quit the scene and head back to the old quarter. I'm disappointed to not have time to take a day tour out to the Perfume pagoda, but I'm fully convinced that I've spent enough time on buses and trains for the last week, and that getting to see Hanoi itself properly is more important.
I spend more of the day exploring various streets. I sit and eat noodles, tofu, and greens with a woman cooking at a sidewalk restaurant of a few baskets and pots on burners. We're on little plastic stools, so small, my knees are almost at my chin as I sit with the bowl and chopsticks. For dessert I find a woman carrying and preparing fresh sliced pineapple on order. And then I find a cute french bakery, where I pretend to be a young frenchman, and order all of the pastries and treats in my very limited french. Since I assume that french is at least the young Vietnamese woman's second or third language, as she's saying "Merci, Au Revoir!" and I step out the door, I'm imagining that I might have pulled off my french imposter performance. The pastries are incredible.
I have a flight scheduled back to Bangkok for the next day, en route for my two days of flights back east. I spend the rest of the day wandering around the old quarter and last minute shopping for small gifts. I explore a large marketplace, and cruise down the avenues of food stalls and smoking moto drivers.
I find my way back to my hotel, tucked in the small street of tombstone engravers chiseling into the late hours. I wake to the sounds of the early morning traffic-- I find breakfast at a nearby guesthouse and with my strong morning coffee write a letter back to the States. And then I head to the airport to catch my flight to Bangkok.
Sortie Inevitable >>
©2001 JPM. All photography and writing copyrighted.