Note: This is the third part of a complete three part article that completes our time in Vietnam. This entry continues our adventures in Halong Bay and the wonder that is Tet in Hanoi.

The next day we were taken to a large island and dropped off. There we were given a bike each. These were frankly terrible bikes and I got the distinct impression that that staff did not expect us to ride them. They expected us to pay for a moped instead. An older couple from our group did so, but Cesca and I insisted on riding and so set off. The chain fell off immediately, so Cesca changed her bike and we set off. The wheels locked immediately, so Cesca changed her bike again and we set off. The seat fell off immediately, so Cesca took my bike, I got another one, and we set off.

The trip was through the mountains and I rode up to the guide,“What’s with these bikes?”

“They are the best we have.”

“Well, perhaps a little maintenance is in order.”

“Listen,” he said, “These people don’t have much.”

I thought this was a bit rich since it was his company’s responsibility to provision local services. Since he had so much of our money (about $2000 paid by the entire boat), one would think one of the locals could be trained as a bike mechanic. I suppose he was trying to make me feel guilty, but unfortunately for him I had already been to Laos. Those people had nothing. These people were relatively rich.

We rode through the mountain pass and down into the next valley. This was your absolute picture perfect Vietnamese countryside. Rice paddies, buffalo and villages set against the majestic mountains. Eagles soared overhead. The problems with the bikes were quickly forgotten.

We rode through the village and smiled a hello to all we met. This was much more like it. After about 5 miles or so, we stopped at a little cafe and bought some drinks, and then the guide led us to the walk.

It was clear to me that most of the time people do not actually fancy the walk, as it was straight up the mountain on a dirt track.

However, this time he had not only Cesca and I, but also a guy from the Italian mountains. He walked up the thing, back down, met us half way and back up again all without breaking breath. By the time we reached the peak (about an hour later), the three of us (plus guide) were the only ones who had bothered to make it.

At the top was an old base left over from the war, which afforded incredible views of the valley on either side and the water all around with the peaks of islands in the distance. It was one hell of a view.

We walked down again and stopped for refreshment. There I met another English couple who were about to go home. They too had got to wondering what their trip was all about and bemoaning the fact that they felt exactly the same as before they left. Don’t worry, I told them, it will come to you at home. Epiphanies are not always of the order of magnitude you expect. Not everyone can have the flashing burst of the infinite that struck Jesus or Buddha, some get lots of little ones, some get none. Perhaps they are something you must not look for.

Perhaps they are why we climb mountains and travel countries.

Personally, I get a little one every single time I cuddle up to Cesca in bed. That is good enough for me. Anyway, I had a big one about 12 years ago in Israel. Still, we jumped back on the bikes and rode out the way we came in.

Back on the boat, we were taken for one last jaunt, to Monkey Island. As we arrived, our group, which was by now getting on well, passed around some whisky and I read the Lonely Planet description about Monkey Island. I read it again aloud and everyone voted to give it a miss. Monkey Island is unsurprisingly full of monkeys that, also unsurprisingly, have developed a hatred for humans, not that I can say that I blame them. Subsequently they often attack them, and some have rabies.

Instead, the boat took us to a local floating village comprised of a couple of shacks, some barrels and a lot of nets. There we met with a clam farmer who uses an amazingly clever way of farming clams using buckets of mud suspended under water.

This was the most genuine experience of the entire venture and the one that we all enjoyed. The farmer was friendly and we joined him for a toast of the local firewater outside his shack.

The inside the shack sat his children and they obviously all live in this strange place. I think, it is quite possible the strangest lifestyle I have ever come across. At once so remote and harsh, and yet he gets tourists popping in all the time.

After half an hour of nodding and smiling, but no actual conversation, we got back on the boat and made for the final island.

Cat Ba Island is much larger than the rest and has a lot of building going on it. I suppose the idea is to turn it into a holiday resort, but now it is a bit of a concrete jungle amid a building site. We jumped into transports and were whisked to a hotel. This was purporting to be the Vietnamese idea of a high quality hotel, but I spied that it was really another type of tourist trap. That night we all met up for a set meal and some very expensive drinks. The food was ok, nothing special, but I really enjoyed the company as by this time we were all getting on in that peculiar British way of connecting when stuck with each other.

We slept comfortably that night. The next day, after a breakfast, we headed back towards the city. About half way, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. This also had something strange about it, as although it was nice and the food ok, I could not escape the feeling that only tourist busses come here. For people like Cesca and I, used to the genuine experience, such sugar coated tourism felt wrong and unnatural, but still the view from the window was great.

We bid the others goodbye when we arrived back in Hanoi and re-entered our original hotel. The staff was not pleased to see us at all. In fact, they told us that we could not stay. After I pointed out that we had already paid to stay, they got a little agitated. Eventually, they went over the road and organised for us to move hotels.

This turned out to be a great idea as the staff at this second hotel, the service, the room and the food, was the best I had in the whole of South East Asia. Friendly, quick, polite and happy these people made us feel right at home.

In the room, Cesca was still steaming about the other hotel. I personally think that the staff had made plans to close the place during the coming New Year, and we were totally buggering them up. Still, rudeness, the most unforgivable trait in a hotel concierge, was painful.

That night was the first day of Tet and effectively the Vietnamese New Year. Our hotel manager explained what that meant. Tet is the celebration of many things all rolled into one. The traditional Tet is the New Year, which means, like in the UK, that the year ticks over by one. However, unlike in the western world, it is also everyone’s official birthday. Therefore, someone 29 today would be 30 tomorrow. Someone born today would be one tomorrow. Crazy as that sounds, it gives rise to the third phenomenon: Tet is also Xmas. Of course, the Vietnamese are not a Christian nation, rather they are Buddhist, but Tet affords all the practical actions over a British Christmas.

Firstly, everyone takes as much of the week off as they can, they also go to visit their families for that time. They have a special social practice around this, where on the first day of Tet, only the direct family are invited, then on the second day wider family, the third day, neighbours, and so on. It is very easy for foreigner to cause offense in such an environment and if you are invited on a certain day, you must never appear beforehand. You are seriously warned about this.

Secondly, everyone buys each other presents.

Thirdly, they all surround themselves with a special tree. Rather than the Norwegian fir tree used in the west, they use a peach or orange tree. The entire city was decked out in beautiful fruit trees all around. It was rather magical.

Looking at it from his viewpoint it is not hard to comment that Vietnamese Tet has everything in common with the average UK Christmas; religion enters into it in only small and controlled amounts, while superstition is rife.

Also worth remembering is that Tet is the anniversary of the Tet offensive against the Yanks. The Vietnamese feel very strongly that the thousands slaughtered in the ensuing battles died as heroes, every single one. Amazing and even now the strength of feeling still moves me.

The final thing that happens is that the City empties in the run up to Tet and then everyone comes out for the fireworks party. Cesca and I spent the day exploring the area set aside for the party and planning our night’s activities. We had a lot of fun playing in the strangely silent roads, possibly for the only time in the year that they are empty. For a country such as Vietnam, where everyone – absolutely everyone – has a moped, this was a surreal experience.

As the night came down, the city stirred and we went in search of food. On the way we bumped into a few people we knew and shared a hearty “Chuc mung nam moi!” which is the cry of Tet. We eventually found a very special place to hold up awaiting the action coming later, this was a great bar above a street and one of the few place still open. Most were either eating in roadside food cafe’s, a sort of selection of crates used as chairs and planks of wood as tables – fear not as the food is amazing at these places, or they were ensconced in the higher end bars that charged Western high prices.

We managed to find something in between and had a very romantic time.

As the hour approached, we made our way down to the lake, which by now was stacked with people. Our worry about being unwelcome at such event vanished as the Vietnamese seemed to adopt all the foreigners that night, everyone was happy and smiling, all had brought their families out to enjoy the event, it was a wonderful feeling to be so welcomed at such an event and lots of smiling shouts of, “Chuck Mung Nam Moi!” reached our ears from all directions.

The crowd closed in and the numbers welled to thousands. Now everyone was standing. Cesca and I could see over the sea of heads that they were awaiting something. We worried for a moment that the trees lining the lakes edge would block the view of the festivities, but then the fireworks started and banished those fears.

I have seen fireworks all over the world, In Disneyland Florida, in the seaside coastal town of Brixham, in Australia, in Cambodia, in Brazil and even in Israel, but the fireworks I saw that night were as good if not better than any of them. The Vietnamese welcomed in the New Year, their new ages and honoured their dead with one hell of a bang.

After almost an hour, the last explosion lit up the sky and the crowd started to move in one direction. It seemed that some sort of temple ceremony was now happening and the idea was to visit the temples in a certain order. Cesca and I joined in and were carried along amongst the happy fellows.

Many hours later, we managed to arrive back to the hotel. There we found that the manager was having her family event right there in the lobby. With great joy she bid us to join, and greatly honoured, we did. I hope it brought her luck. We ate the traditional cakes and drank a little before thanking her and heading to a well-deserved bed.

A day later, we were leaving Hanoi and Vietnam in general and I took stock of what he had experienced. The people of Vietnam are a pragmatic and hard working bunch. Their economy is trying to copy the successes of the western while avoiding the problems, at least for now. Their cities are rich and impressive and they have a very positive attitude. They love visitors, but do not love tourists and in that I agree wholeheartedly with them. They cater to tourism out of the fundamental need to enrich themselves. Their cooking is divine, their beer is fine and their women are very good looking. We had seen the most sugar coated sights and yet had also managed to peek a little into the truth under these illusions. There was so much more to explore here that I felt that we could be back one day and see the rest.

I loved Vietnam. The country that, more than any other, I got “wrong” in my preconceptions. It has to be seen and felt with the heart itself as, like the brochures for Halong Bay, pictures alone cannot do it justice.

Regards,

Basho

Coming next: Coming in the next article is the mighty city of Bangkok, an incredible meet-up with some old friends and the horror of the Bridge On River Kwai, where Basho comes face to fangs with an eight inch spider.

The trip cost us $85, and we were lucky, others on our boat later told us what they had paid anything from $80 to $160 each for exactly the same experience.

The bus arrived at the dock’s edge (having visited the ubiquitous tourist-shucking-shop on the way) and we joined the scrum waiting for their boats. It was there that I started to come up with a theory:

What appears to happen, to my sceptical mind, is that the tour guide from the hotel is actually an agent from one of these travel cafes. He arrives with busload of suckers, all who have been sold “luxury” cruises and generally up-sold as much as possible, and then goes into the dock office and passes you off into that system for a commission.

Then he buggers off.

Now you are in another system, which has bought you all at the same price. This is why paying more makes no difference to the client. To the agent, paying more goes straight into his pocket. So now, you are randomly’ishly assigned a boat by block and shuffled aboard. The boat crew have paid the office a small amount for membership of the boat club and they then earn all their money, beyond a cut of the price, in the reselling of extras. This explains why a beer is £4 and they hate you bringing your own water.

However, that is just a theory and frankly like most we simply went along with it like sheep. After ten minutes our boat was ready. It didn’t look too bad; a little fake in that extra effort had been made to make it look oriental, with wood panels and dragonheads, etc. Really, it was just a big square-bottomed cruiser.

We said hello to our fellow passengers and settled into our room. This was in the second deck above the main kitchen, which itself was above the engine. The quality of the room was not too bad for two days at sea and I am sure that in the summer a lot of fun is to be had in sunbathing on the decks. This was not summer, but then we are British and are more than used to that. Cesca showed concern about the noise, but I figured that we would be stopped during the night.

Of course, the boat and the rooms had only passing resemblance to the pictures in the brochures.

The boat made its way out of the bay, jostling with the absolute armada of other semi-identical boats all setting off at the same time. We piled onto the top deck and considered the scrum; a veritable traffic jam of boats hitting each other and men shouting while wielding barge poles.

All the boats had people on the top deck (effectively the roof) by now and everyone was a little sheepishly staring at each other’s transport to see who’s was the best. I think that ours was average.

I was filming this amazing sight on my camcorder when it suddenly went pop and broke. Yep, I went off-line with my filming from this moment. This was the start of a big hassle and I did not get a working video camera up and running until half way through India, two months away!

Anyway, we chugged across to the famous limestone karsts peaks of Halong. They were large, strange, and popping out of the water to great heights. Over all there are more than 775 dotted around only 334km.

These amazing ancient structures have featured in many novels and films and it is not hard to see why, as they are unique. At least that is what they tell you on the trip. They remind me of fjords that have half collapsed into the sea. We passed by umpteen small structures as the sea mist swirled around them. The consensus on board was that they were well worth seeing

What I personally enjoyed more, strange old me, was the communities that live on the water, literally on the water, at the bases of the islands. Floating little villages and boats ferrying locals to a fro were very interesting. What would living in such a place be like? I wondered to myself. How would you get to work or to school?

The boat made its way further amongst the islands, roughly in a line with all the others. Then we came to the first stop; the Sung Sot Caves, or in English, “The Caves of Surprises!” I have been in caves all over the world, from Asia, to America to Australasia and of course, in the UK, but here was a cave system of magnificent proportions.

The Vietnamese know this and have designed a walk through the cave system that would be in Disney World if it were not so real. Well lit and stunning in proportion we went down to the caves in groups. The group leader tried valiantly to tell us about what we were seeing, albeit an official version, but I could not understand a word of what he was talking about so I started listening to the next group. Then I noticed my American chums from Sothern Vietnam.

After exchanging hellos and a quick update on our journey through the county, Cesca and I joined in with them and we all walked around together. The girl, and I honestly cannot remember her name – sorry, was about to finish her 6 month trip and head back home.

This was the first time that I had come across a now very familiar syndrome. When people start travelling they expect something to happen. They expect to change, get religion, or become one with nature. To find themselves changed inside, with the flashing of epiphany and momentous re-understandings of spacetime. It is not their fault; this is how travelling is sold to people; its image. Watching films like, The Beach or The Motorcycle Diaries, suggests that you can lose yourself and find yourself on your travels. Perhaps even become a famous revolutionary leader!

The truth is not so seductive.

This is 2009 and it is quite possible, even on a budget, to travel for months and never be out of your comfort zone, to never be reached inside, even by yourself. This is partially due to what is called, “The backpackers bubble”. It is really hard to honestly break out of this bubble. This leads to a quite strong feeling of frustration with having missed something. People tend to become uncharacteristically philosophical at these times, they tend to want to talk about, “what they have learned and what it all means.”

She talked and I listened.

Since then, I have come across this mind-set many times and I have talked many people through it, lent an ear and spoken a little on the subject. In fact, I have been thinking about it deeply and I am going to write a lot more than is appropriate here. Suffice to say, this girl was ever so slightly disappointed with her trip and needed to talk about it.

I am glad that she chose me for that brief moment for I was able to tell her this: “When you get home, when you find your old life envelope you like a warm bath, you will feel a tinge of guilt. Guilt that you did not become Che Guevara or a Zen Buddhist Master. You may also feel shame. Shame that there is not a book going to be written about your experiences. You want your life to have a meaning; you are told that it is special. Of course, life itself is special, but the meaning of an individual’s life is not found at the end of journeys. Meaning is found by living and breathing. Life is not a pilgrimage with a reward at the end. Life is a dance, and one that you only get to dance once. Cherish what you have done, not what you missed. Don’t look back, don’t look forwards. Concentrate on now. Live in the now and let the past rest and future be. Then your life will not lack for meaning.

Anyway, out of the caves, we returned to the boat and it took us to a floating village. This village had some very dodgy canoes, which we all jumped in and rowed ourselves around and through a cave system. This was pretty cool, but let down by the very poor equipment and the short time given to this part of the journey. I got the sense of boxes being ticked by the tour guides.

Then we were dropped off at an island to walk to the top of a karst mountain. It was great fun, if a little steep. At the top, we watched the nightfall and the lights come on all around.

That night we came down for dinner and sat with a nice English couple we had been chatting to and getting on well with.

Then the staff came up and directed us to move to sit with a different group.

“Why?” I asked

“You have different meal.”

“But we don’t mind, neither do our friends here,” cue agreement from our new comrades, “we want to sit here.”

“Move that table now,” he said pointing to the table next to us.

“Does it really matter?”

“Now!”

This conversation was then repeated with the next table and so on until the entire boat was being rearranged because no-one was seated “where they should be”  Everyone had to get up, move a few feet and back sit down. People were all a little miffed to say the least and some loud protests fell on deaf ears.

After all that, the only difference in the meal was the starter: crab.

The Vietnamese insistence in this regard, and their total bemusement regarding our reticence, was the first time I had come across a peculiar Asian phenomenon. It does not happen very often, but mores and social norms are naturally different over here. Not that they are in any way wrong, just different and when Western and Eastern feelings clash it often results in a complete lack of understanding. Our hosts simply stood bemused at everyone’s problem with moving, shocked (probably) at the (apparent) rudeness. For the Westerners, on the other hand, who had all been brought up that the “customer is always right”, rules in restaurants are really only guidelines; often broken as a way of making one feel special. To us the staff were being amazingly fussy and rude.

Who hasn’t been asked to follow a rule by a server of some type and then had them make an exception, “just for you sir”? We all have, it is common in the west. A Western server would not have insisted on a shuffle, they would have simply served where we were. It really was not important that we got the “right” meal, but it was important that we sat with who we wanted to.

None of this exists in Asia and I had similar things happen in countries all over this continent. Especially Japan, where the normally super-polite Japanese can turn into being, what can only be described as, “bloody insistent.” I suspect the core of it is the language barrier, as English has all sorts of nuances and “ways of putting things” when speaking to soften an order into a request. To those coming to English from another language, having been taught direct speaking, they can appear rude as all hell. Once we had all had about six beers in us, the staff started the hard-sell on things like pearls. They did not get very far, but Cesca did buy some postcards.

I suspect that the staff on these boats hate the rich westerners with their drinking, loud aggressiveness (to us: assertiveness) and incredible rudeness (what the westerners call ‘being direct’ or ‘plain spoken’). On the other hand, westerners probably just want an authentic experience without being asked to dip into their pockets every five seconds or the feeling that they are being fleeced. I think that trips like these made Cesca and I want to drop off the tourist routes as much as possible. To break out of that bubble and into a little freedom and honesty, where “tourists” were only normal “customers” and “servers” became “locals”. Such wants started to pull at us and our future plans for India started to take shape.

Anyway, after enough drinking, Cesca and I left the others to it and turned in. The boat was anchored in a peaceful lagoon along with many others and it slowly drifted around the anchor. Cesca and I opened the windows to watch the lights of the other boats playing against the deep darkness. The sky was clear and in the distance loomed the shapes of the giant karsts.

It was quite beautiful.

The next part is coming soon…

Regards,

Basho

Note: This is the first part of a final three part article that completes our time in Vietnam. The next part will be auto posted in 4 days and the third part 4 days after that.

This was the last stop on our tour of Vietnam and almost the last stop in the whole of South East Asia. It had been a long winding road up this thin and sunny country. A long winding road inside us too; as the further we travelled around SEA the more we felt changed by our time here. We wanted it to be an ending to remember. Luckily, the Vietnamese were only too willing to provide one hell of a party to see us off.

This was because in a few days it was Tet. To the Vietnamese this is Xmas, New Year’s Eve and everyone’s birthday all on the same day.

We arrived in Hanoi by, the now commonality, of a “Crush Bus” and were dumped unceremoniously on the outskirts of the city by the corner of a set of turnpikes. Traffic ran seemingly in all directions around us as we negotiated our bags off the bus.

Sitting on the sidewalk for a few moments, we almost fell prey to the taxi drivers who descended on the arriving tourists like fisherman who have just spotted a large shoal of fish. Cesca and I watched as the newer tourists were netted, gutted for cash, placed in small packed tins and driven off into the city. Clearly the bus company had dropped us here as a way of supporting outrageous taxi fees, probably for some sort of kick back. I looked around; the Hotel was probably only 30 meters away as the crow flies, but from here, well most would pay anything to get away from all this traffic. Cesca waved away all prowling taxi drivers and we sat on our bags and waited. After a while, we were the only tourists left and indeed the bus moved on as well. Only a few unlucky taxi drivers remained.

Good. We were ready.

We approached one and offered a price, a fair price.

He demanded a ridiculous price.

We all laughed and the game begun.

I remember thinking that seen from a distance through the eyes of, say, an observer from another planet, what was happening here would look like some sort of strange and ancient ritual dance. The Taxi driver and we moved around each other twisting and swaying, we were all pointing at maps and towards distant objects. We were haggling with big arm gestures and subtle head nods or shakes. At moments, we would turn away with a wave of a hand dismissively, and then strangely come back almost as if we had forgotten something whereupon it would all begin anew. The taxi driver would throw up his arms and cry out deploringly, and then hold his hands apart in an unmistakable gesture of reasonableness. There was lots of counting on fingers.

The observer from another planet might say to himself that, “Surely all this cannot just be for a taxi ride?” and when his fellows asked him later, he would probably theorise that we were conjuring up some sort of God.

Eventually all the moves were made and the strange waltz ended with my saying, “Look mate, do you see anyone else here except us? Don’t you want to get paid?”

The taxi driver sighed and considered the truth in this fact. “Ok,” he said. He conspired to look wounded.

It was at that point that I realised that we had in fact lost this exchange; as although a $30 taxi had cost us $10, it was actually only worth $5. No matter, he had been a worthy opponent and I respected that.

The bus company we used to move around Vietnam is called Sinh Cafe. As mentioned in previous posts all Vietnamese cafes are in fact tourist offices. The Sinh Cafe office was the location we now departed in the taxi. However, I was surprised to spy another office with the Sinh Cafe logo on the drive in, “Look baby,” I said pointing out the window, “another Sinh Cafe, it’s probably a little closer for when we leave.”

“And there,” she said point in a different direction.

“Oh and another there,” I said. “Hang on…”

“They’re all over the place!”

Indeed, on the journey into the heart of the city, we came across no less than 18 Sinh Cafe’s, all with the correct logo, all with the correct adverts, but all fake.

Some were laughably so; containing nothing more than a single bedraggled looking person sitting on what looked to me like an upside-down bucket. Others had taken the deception so seriously that they looked more professional than the real thing; investing in moulded plastic counter tops and sporting large hi resolution posters. We counted them off as the Taxi pulled into the narrow streets that make up the old quarter. The traffic, mostly an endless train of mopeds, was everywhere. A few more turns and the streets narrowed again. Now the shops took on a strange and more “touristic” look. I started to see western style bars, street food vendors, and endless travel agents amongst which were dotted infinite fake Sinh Cafes. We were in the tourist quarter now; a place as much removed from the city’s true life as it was possible to get.

The Taxi dropped us off, spat out our bags and was instantly gone into the throng of bikes. We walked down a narrow alley to our hotel. There is no shortage of hotels in Hanoi, of course, but trying to find one with good reviews, had space and was open over this period was difficult. The staff was unusually brusque considering I had cash in my hand, and I came to the initial conclusion that we had annoyed their sensibilities merely by being born. At the time, this manner seemed strange, but now I can see that this was a New-year for them and they would rather be with their families.

In fact, this attitude was to be found almost everywhere on that day. They say not to travel at Tet, and yet we had no choice, I remember wondering how well this was going to work out.

We went out for a walk around the city and tried to get out of the tourist bubble. As these things go, there is lots to see here. There is the park area around the lake, which functions as a sort of meeting point and place of celebration,

…the street market with its fresh fish and a million smells,

…and the church area with high-end coffee shops and moneyed wealth. Then there is the amazing way that the city planners have laid out the shops; all are collected together according to type. So, one street has only spice shops full of strange things in jars that smell incredible,

…while another has fake money sellers who sell stacks of fake $ notes used in funerals.

One street we walked down was full of nothing but people noisily hammering out tin buckets.

Cesca and I really enjoyed our walk that day.  When we arrived back we looked into a 3 day trip to the legendary Halong Bay, and be back for Tet proper.

Something you have to come to terms with when picking a trip to Halong Bay is that you cannot make a correct choice. That is one that doesn’t, somehow, try very hard to rip you off. It is a kind of like a shell game, in that the entire edifices of the travel agents, brochures, glossy posters, special money-off deals and so-called impartial advice is setup to convince you that what you are sold is somehow relevant or bares any relation whatsoever to what waits for you when you get there.

It does not.

So, in order to assist readers considering the options, remember that there are really only three price brackets:

Under $50: For which you are probably kidnapped and buried alive at midnight. At least that is the impression that the woman in the hotel conspired to give us when we enquired about the “cheaper deal.” It is impossible to buy this deal or more likely it probably does not exists at all.

$80 – $140: If you do not look rich, then you are pushed firmly towards this bracket. While the price range here appears large, do not let that fool you into thinking that one boat is actually going to be better than another. Whatever your hotel or travel agent tells you, WHATEVER, the boats are effectively randomised. This is the range in which to bargain hard.

$140+: You can pay up to $1000 without trying in this bracket. The boats promise to be truly splendid for this much, but remember that they are all going to the same places and taking the same trips off the boat. However, I am sure that if you pay enough, you will get an amazing experience.

Cesca and I were offered two options in the second bracket and she pointed to the one she liked. The women pointed to the other.

“What about this one?” the very short, female hotel manager asked.

“No that one please,” said Cesca smiling and pointing again at the brochure on the left.

“Ok then,” she replied with a nod to the one on the right, “I book you this one.”

“No, I said that one,” Cesca said pointing, “I like the look of this boat more than that one.”

The women picked up the brochure and considered the picture of the boat carefully. “You go better on other one.”

“Why?”

“Boat better.”

Cesca was getting annoyed but her voice remained very calm (only I – as her husband – could pick up the anger), “I… want… that… one.”

The women looked at Cesca as though questioning the innocence of someone choosing a tour based on the picture on the brochure, which clearly, she knew, was nothing to do with anything. Cesca was looking very determined and I could see the lady weighing up her options. She broke first, and waved a hand smiling, “Ok ok ok. This one.”

“Thank you.”

Of course, the next day, we got on the bus and found that we were on the other boat tour…

The next part is coming in four days…

Regards,

Basho

Vietnamese roads are much maligned for being terribly dangerous.  This is not strictly true.  Yes, compared to the average UK road, these Vietnamese roads are more dangerous, but compared to say driving through an endless desert pursued by homicidal chainsaw wielding bandits while juggling primed hand grenades they will actually come out as “not too bad”.

Twenty hours later we wheeled into Hoi An.  Luckily our hotel was steps from the stop and we thankfully crashed down in a nice little room before heading into the town proper for some supper.

Amazing products abound in Hoi An

A locals’ hat / the Chinese house entrance

The official way of visiting Hoi An’s old town is to buy a pass which enables you to exactly 1/3rd of the attractions.  I guess the point is to get you to buy another two passes to see the rest, but a quick chat with some locals and a sweep through the Lonely Planet tells you which to bother with.  The attractions are split into three types, classical Chinese houses of the rich and wealthy trading families, Local landmarks such as bridges, markets etc and Chinese religious halls.

That’s all. Seriously, the expensive ticket allows you to visit just that.

In fact only one of each per ticket.

I found it strange that anyone would be too excited about seeing a very small covered bridge, even if it has been there for a long time.  It is a very small bridge and nothing to write home about, but I was witness to that strange phenomenon that says that anything seen on a holiday instantly becomes interesting and worthwhile.  All around me families walked up the bridge, over it, around it, poked their heads into the very small shrine one half way along and repeatedly read the entry in guide books, all while proclaiming that it is,

“Really a lovely bridge.”

“Oh yeah, it really is, lovely atmosphere.”

I mean, I have been to Florence.  Stood on the Rialto bridge.  Now that’s a bridge to boast about for its atmosphere.

As for Chinese houses, I guess they can be distracting for a few seconds and the local guide/owner gives a good patter about the family having lived there for 8 generations.  Then I worked out that she actually meant 3 generations.  Her, her father, his father.  She was claiming that all her brothers, sister and uncles count as a generation each.  The houses are a nice wooden example of an old way to build a Chinese house.  They are… quaint.

And the less said about the halls, the better (there is no explanation of anything in them as they are all still in use.)

The entrance to a hall / large incense inside / the Japanese bridge

So why did we spend 4 days in Hoi An and struggle to move on?

Essentially because Hoi An is one of the most picturesque and beautiful places I have ever been.  Each step along a street is a step back into a more romantic and classical time as the cobbles speak of lost generations gone before…

All right, the beer was cheap and they had a pool table in one of the bars.

We spent many a morning in the German cafe having a brilliant western breakfast, followed by a stroll around the many craft and art shops.  I wondered hard about ordering a suit, but after reading different reports on the internet decided against putting down the money.  Suits of marginal quality are very cheap in central London, and I don’t think that one that fits better, but doesn’t last will compete.  Shopping however is prime here and if you have no money for something custom (from shoes to bags to clothes) you could tire of the town quickly.

Local wood craft is amazingly high quality / the bright market

We found that the beauty was all in the atmosphere, which Hoi An admittedly has in spades.  That relaxed and gentile river flows past with the paddles of ancient boatmen all making their living posing for Westerners, the little streets that narrow and have slippery cobbles.  The sounds of the men banging sheet metal into tins (probably for coffee). Nothing too special for a European, but I had a great time all the same.  It was charming.

Food wise the fare was mostly western and quite good.  It had some very nice bars and some free WIFI.

It also has some good faretrade shops and buying in these helps the local economy much more than buying in a standard tourist shop of imported items.  The touting was constant but mild; shouts from shop doorways and friendly hello’s rather than aggressive style chasing you down the street.

After I lost 3 games in a row of pool to Cesca I decided we should move on and we bussed to Hue.

Hue

My only fore knowledge of Hue came from a passing reference in an episode of Red Dwarf (a prize to anyone who can name that episode or quote some of it – it was a good one), so I wasn’t expecting much.

Which was lucky really.

Hue is one of those cities that has yet to get its act together.  It is much larger than Hoi An and busy as the northern capital of Hanoi, but the tourist quarter was empty of life – the wrong time of year?  Moreover, the quality of the food was massively varied.  We spied on the menu that one restaurant served the famous Vietnamese red wine along with a cheese platter, so I ordered.  The prospect of spending a few tender moments reminding myself of home was dashed on jagged rocks when tasting the red concoction in the glass placed in front of me.  I am hardly the world biggest wine snob but even I cannot take drain cleaner mixed with Vimto!  I bit down on a piece of what it had been claimed was cheese to take the taste away and yes it did actually do so.  Together with most of my teeth.  The so called restaurant had served rock hard parmesan as a plate cheese.  I also spied that famous delicacy of Laughing Cow nestled behind it melting in the sun.

However, at another restaurant, one night, Cesca and I had a great selection of local dishes. It was a total crap shoot.  With that start in mind we made our way into the old part of the city famous for its citadel and former capital of the kings of Vietnam.

Wikipedia notes it as:

“Modeled after the famed Forbidden City of Beijing, the grounds were surrounded by a wall 2 kilometers by 2 kilometers, and the walls were surrounded by a moat. The water from the moat was taken from the Huong River (Perfume River) that flows through Hu?. This structure is called the citadel.

Inside the citadel was the Imperial City, with a perimeter of almost 2.5 kilometers.

Inside the Imperial City was the imperial enclosure called the Purple Forbidden City in Vietnamese, a term that mimics that used by the Chinese for their own Forbidden City. The enclosure was reserved for the Nguyen imperial family. Like its Chinese counterpart, Vietnam’s Purple Forbidden City included many palaces, gates and courtyards.”

Classical looks from a lost kingdom / beautiful wood construction

This had been seriously bombed by the Americans during the war and as yet not put back together.  It had some amazing architecture and was an oasis of calm away from the city and its innumerable touts, but it also had nothing in the way of explanation.  If i was heading there today I would print out something from the web as nothing is made clear to the visitor at all.  What was this hall?  Who used it and why?  The only explanation I got was from the LP.  Now, there are guided tours, and usually I steer well clear of them due to the fact that we got at a very slow pace.  However, if you are to get anything out of this place I suggest booking one.

Little details abound on all surfaces

We enjoyed walking around this area with its little pools of water and quiet.  It takes some effort to get into it and away from the millions of touts lining all the roads, but I feel it was worth it.  It is however, extremely not finished.  All the museums were closed for renovations when we were there and I got the impression that Hue might be brilliant in 20 years, but now is nothing too special.

The no lying zone – you have been warned! / Entering the old city

However, no matter how great a city is to visit the amount of touts hammers down the rating.  This city has more touts than a single human could possibly handle and they are about as pushy as I have ever encountered (and I have been to Varanassi!).  This seriously gets under my skin and I found that I was actually warning people away from Hue for this reason alone.  Hue has potential and I can imagine is very busy at different times of the year, however, if you arrive outside these times the hordes descend upon you.  A pitty.

After Hue we moved onto the capital and the final leg of our Vietnam adventure – the best is yet to come!

Regards,

Basho

To visit Vietnam you need to preorder your visa before we leave the UK, we were told, or they would make us come back home to get one.  Ok, Cesca went to the embassy and dropped off the forms and I went to collect them a few days later.  Like all London embassies, the Vietnamese embassy is a large white Edwardian looking building in the heart of the leafy upmarket suburbs of central London.  It has that old fashioned build style that spoke of riches, as the rent on such a large patch of London’s soil must be staggering.  I was admitted into the building and directed to a teller-like booth behind which sat a very very rude man.

“You give me the form!” he screamed at me when I bid him good day.

“My wife already has done that, I am here to pick –“ I managed before he interrupted me.

“You fill out form!”

“I already have,” I said sternly, “I am here to pick up our passports”

He looked up at me levelly and, registering my face, started flicking through passports in the pile next to him.  He found mine and took out the next one, which I took to mean that it was Cesca’s.

“You give me 100 pounds now!”

I opened up my wallet.

“No credit card!” He yelled.

I handed over the amount in cash.  He took it and angrily stamped out a receipt and then pushed the items over the counter towards me.

“Thank you,” I said and opened the second passport to check it was indeed Cesca’s.

“You get the hell out of my embassy!” He said waving me away.  He really said this.

I remember wandering home after this abusive tirade and wondering quite how I would find Vietnam when I got there.  This worry was increased even further into the realms to actual dread when our visas ran out before we managed to get to Vietnam.  This had been due to meeting some great people in Laos, who had easily talked us into seeing the southern part of the country.

As all travellers do in such times of dilemma, I consulted the Lonely Planet for advice; both online at their forums and the print edition of the LP Cambodia. It cautioned us to relax.  Not only could we get a visa in Siannookville, the beach capital of Cambodia, but we could get one same day.  The advice was prophetic and our hotel arranged the entire service alongside my ordering lunch while sunning myself in a deckchair.  The passports arrived back, visa ready, within two hours.  All for less than the UK visa cost and that had taken 3 days.

And I didn’t get shouted at by anybody!

Good bye Cambodia

We hopped on the bus from Phom Peng to Ho Chi Min city.  After all the stories of Vietnamese bureaucracy and the callous treatment metered out by its London contingent, I was expecting a nightmare border crossing, perhaps even questioning.  In actual fact the crossing was so relaxed that the entry stamp person forgot to stamp us and just waved us through and it was only when a guard smoking by the door into the country pointed this out that we nonchalantly went back and got the rubber pressing.

That was it.  So much for border control.

The bus flew through the countryside and dropped us off in the tourist district of Ho Chi Min city.  Again the lonely planet came to the fore, this time the LP First Time Asia, and we checked out the hotels listed.  They all seemed fairly close, but you can never tell with LP maps as some are miles off.  A taxi driver offered to help,

“Oh that hotel,” he said smiling and whistled through his teeth eyeing the amount of luggage we had – a lot.  “That is long way away, 25 minutes walk.”  He looked into the distance in the hotels direction as though imagining the walk through a desert.

“How much?” I asked.

“Oh…five dollar,” he said.

Cesca and I looked at each other and nodded.  We had just spent the better part of 2 months in South East Asia and we knew when we were being touted (“gouged” as it is called).  With a smile, we left the taxi driver, yelling constantly reducing numbers, after us a went into a local bar.  The bar’s owner had been watching the tourists being preyed upon by the touts.

“You watch them,” he said pointing with a smile.  “They rip you off”

“Thanks,” I said and ordered some drinks.

“We have just been in Cambodia,” Cesca ventured as he opened the fridge to collect our Pepsi. “We know all about being gouged”.

“Good for you,” he said, “One guy, in here the other night, had a big bill but not enough money.  I sent him outside to get some from ATM.  He go get a taxi.  The taxi tell him, ‘oh its miles to ATM I take you’.   Drives him round and round for ages.  Finds ATM.  He then pays $20 to come back here.  I say, ‘What took you so long?’  He tell me.  I take him outside and point across road.  ATM is right there!”

We all laughed.

“Yes, taxi take him around block 10 times and back to this ATM!”

He offered us our drinks.

Saigon beer, a great little drop

Eventually a little walking and investigatory work found a small street lined with cheap guesthouses and we took a room in one of those for $15.  For that price in Vietnam you get a basic hotel room with AC and TV.  There isn’t really a true backpackers level below this where you can save even more and get just a bed, instead Vietnam has multitudes of these mini hotels.  Some strange feature they all have is that in tax is paid on the amount of land you have built on.  Therefore all hotels are exceedingly thin and very tall.  They also don’t believe in lifts.  Staircase after staircase awaits you.  We soon learned to try for lower rooms.  One advantage of the upper decks is that if your hotel does not have WIFI you can often leach it from multiple broadcasting networks in the area.  WIFI is very easy to get in Vietnam.

Our first task was to change our flights to Bangkok and India as our itinerary had changed enough to mean that we could no longer make those date. This required we visit the offices of Cathay Pacific.  I was expecting a similar nightmare to the last occasion we tried to change flights, which resulted in us being mistreated by Quantas in Wellington, New Zealand.  In contrast, Cathay Pacific were very helpful and professional and we were out of there quick smart.

That done, we walked back to the tourist quarter on foot.  The streets were thronging with more scooters than I could count and crossing the roads became an exercise in forced nonchalance.  The trick is that scooters will drive around you if you walk slow enough, cars and busses will run you over.

Try crossing this road at night, easy?

On our way back we found a French Bakery on a corner, which was serving all sorts of delicious cakes and buns.  Yummy!  That evening we ate in the tourist quarter on the corner, and watched as the world went by.  Every two of three minutes a tout would appear out of the hordes of people and try and sell us something.  Normally I would send these away and nurse my Saigon beer, but one guy caught my eye.  He had a stack of books for sale.  One was the Lonely Planet Vietnam.  I asked how much,

“10 dollar” He said getting the book form the stack.  I took a look, it was the standard photocopied fake, but quite a good one.

“I will give you 4 dollars”

He managed to look like I had just insulted his mother.

“Not possible, I buy for 8 dollars”

“I have seen this for sale for 4 dollars across town”

He managed this time to look like I had called his grandma a liar.

“This is latest edition, very good quality”

I smiled, “4 dollars mate, that’s what I will pay.”

He picked the book back up in disgust, placed it back in the stack and walked off into the crowd.

I nursed my beer and Cesca and I chatted, then our food arrived and we munched happily while people watching.  A few minutes later the book seller arrived back at our table.

“4 dollars, ok!” he said.

I passed over the notes and he passed the book.  Then he gave me a really big smile and walked off.

“Perhaps you should have gone for 2 dollars,” offered Cesca.

“I suspect he pays only 10 dollars for 20 of them, or somesuch,” I replied thumbing through the book and eyeing the remaining pizza.

The next day we went to visit the War Remnants Museum in the north part of the city centre.  This large collection of buildings is hidden by a high wall.  Its location is obvious – it’s the one with all the touts outside.  We arrived to find it closed for lunch, so we took that as our cue to go find a good bite ourselves.

The newly acquired LP suggested the French Style Cafe called the “Le Finetra de Soliel” that was supposedly a short walk away.  After ten minutes of fruitless search we were about to give up when a sign over a indistinct door caught my eye.

The non descript entrance

The sign was the name we were looking for, but where was the cafe?  I ventured inside and Cesca followed.

“It can’t be up there,” she said.

“Si a Todo,” I replied, which means “Yes to everything” in Spanish and had become somewhat of a mantra for trying new things. We went up the stairs.

At the top we found a filthy corridor more like something out of a crack-den episode of The Bill.

Down this and the second corridor on the right revealed the secret: a beautiful and very high class cafe was hidden up here!

We ordered some food and drinks and laughed about the secretive nature of this place, from the small sign, the dingy door, the dodgy stairs and the dangerous looking corridor.  Si a todo had come to the rescue again.

We returned to the War Remnants Museum.

This museum is split into a number of differing parts.  First comes a large section about how the war started, and how the American’s and French are mainly to blame.  I found such finger pointing to be quite refreshing.  The Vietnamese have no doubt about who caused the war.  Wall after wall showed broken UN resolutions and promises by the Imperialists.

After this came a section dedicated to the war photographers on both sides who had died in he conflict that was called “Requiem”.

We had met the man who set this exhibition up, Tim Page, when in Cambodia where he presented some of his work and answered questions from the crowd.  Seeing the actual collection after meeting one of the dead’s friends was much more emotional and we spent a good hour in there.

The next section is the main building and here things got a little more grisly.  This was the section about War Crimes.  Specifically, American war crimes.  From the famous massacre of Wai Lai, where the US killed all the men, women and children in cold blood execution style and then tried to cover it up.  It also showed a wall of the horrible effects of the various “agents” the US dropped on the country, including the hideous Agent Orange, which contains the deadly poison Dioxin.  Hundreds of thousands have been affected by this stuff getting into the water, or even getting some directly on them.  The resulting birth defects are terrible.

Also in this section was wall after wall of US weapons and an explanation of their power.

American weaponry

There were many people in the museum when we visited, mainly school children on outings.  What they make of such horrors is anyone’s guess.

The next building was a graphic representation of a prison from the Diem Government (the US backed government that the VC fought against).  The accusation was that the Diem regime had been bloodthirsty in putting down political activists and had gone so far as murdering them with the Guillotine which was on display out the back.

Finally came the section dedicated to those countries that opposed the Vietnam War.  Posters, pictures of rallies and flags from all over the world showed what the world thought of this war once the facts started to come out.

It was in here that I saw something that really got me misty.  One glass cabinet contained a collection of US war medals won by a Sergeant in the US army.  It was displayed alongside a letter from the man, saying how sorry he was for what he had done and how he had been wrong.

Although the War Remnants Museum is difficult to stomach in places, it was here that I first got the sense of pride the Vietnamese have about this war.  For them this is the war that earned them their country back and put paid to generations of foreign masters, be they French, Japanese or US.  The Vietnamese really did see the war as a war of liberation, in exactly the same sense that the US see’s the War of Independence and I started to feel better about it.  Crossing a river of blood in the name of freedom is something I think most countries would accept and think was a price worth paying.

So, whereas all my life I had seen the Vietnam war from the US side and had been indentured in the shame the US feels about losing, here suddenly I saw the same horrors but seen from a perspective of honouring those who fought for freedom.  No guilt at all.  Similar to how my country honours those who died fighting the Germans in WWII, be they killed in the Blitz or on the battle fields.

I suddenly realised that Vietnam was not going to be like I had expected and I was rather glad about that.

Part two coming soon…

Basho.

Introduction

They say the better part of travelling is meeting the people from the countries you visit.  They do not say how much that meeting will affect you, neither how heartbreaking such encounters can be.  The first time I met a one legged man in Laos, while visiting COPE – the charity for the war injured, I asked him how he lost his leg?

“The American’s took it,” he replied.

What can one say to that? 

Such emotionally confronting sights are common in South East Asia if you let yourself see them.  Too many of the people who come here simply gloss over the lives of the people they encounter.  Too many go home and say, “Oh South East Asia is alright, beautiful countryside… but so many beggars!”  Without giving any thought to what this means and what causes people to beg on the streets.  Beg, not because they want money for a drug addiction, simply because there is no governmental help for the war-wounded and having no legs, fingers or arms is a lifelong barrier to entry to almost anywhere.

We have spent the last three months travelling all over SEA with our eyes wide open.  In fact, we decided to go all the way and visited all the disabled workshops, children’s orphanages and museums that we could.  We have met with Cambodians missing limbs, Children Orphaned by AID’s, Vietnamese who fought against the US and Laotians struggling to come to terms with their ravaged country.  Along the way, we have visited many of the actual areas attacked by or affected by the war, spoken with war photographers who captured the images that define the war and run our hands over the pockmarked remains of war equipment.  This is not very hard to do.  Simply visit Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam and you cannot help but see if you only look.

However, the results are not pretty.

Read more by clicking here:

Through all this I have held off commenting on the war, known to those in Vietnam as “The American War,” until I actually left the area.  This is because millions of people in South East Asia are still feeling the effects of the conflict everyday and by being there I was in danger of missing perspective on the big-picture.  I wanted to be far enough away from it all to be able to get some context before I commented.

That is why this blog entry exists.  We left the area in February, bound for India, and after much discussion between us, I feel I can properly write about the American War.

Historical Outline

Everyone knows about the war in Vietnam, right?  Wrong.  Before coming here, 90% of the information I had about the Vietnam War was created by the US movie industry.  I grew up watching Platoon, Hamburger Hill and The Deer Hunter.  To me the Vietnamese were slant-eyed nightmares who charged the noble US grunts fighting for freedom in the jungle.  Before I left home, I had neither any idea where Laos was nor had I known the tragic history of Cambodia (all I knew was that it didn’t look like Kansas).

If you are in the same situation, here is a quick outline of what actually happened in easy to understand steps. 

Caveat.

Please keep in mind that while I do have some qualifications as a historian, I have not attempted to be definitive here in any sense other than intentions. Some of the numbers happened at the same time and some may be out of order.  I have linked all my sources in the endnotes of the article.

The War

1. The French took over a lot of SEA apart from Malaysia, which was British owned thanks to a British adventurer who had his balls shot off.

2. The Japanese invaded in WWII and “kicked them all out”.

3. The British, US (via sea), Australasians’ and free people of SEA defeated the Japanese.

4. The French tried to get their empire back.

The French landing back in SEA were confident of victory

5. They were defeated by the Vietnamese in battle.

 

A soldier begs for the end to battle

6. Meanwhile the Chinese went communist.

7. The US invented the idea that since China was next to the USSR and SEA was next to China, a dangerous “Domino Effect” might spread Communism as far south as taking over Australia.  This shows a mighty misunderstanding of the Australian temperament.

8. Ho Chi Min declares his country separate and his view communist.

Ho Chi Min (Centre in white)

9. The King of Cambodia declares his leanings communist after a long visit to China.

10. All parties agreed to avoid war or get involved.

11. All parties ignored this agreement and the US started “advising” South Vietnam.

12. The South Vietnam regime is blood thirsty and even uses the guillotine. Much like the reports of the North then.

The guillotine of Deim

13. The South Vietnam leader is assassinated, which shocked Kennedy.

Kennedy and US Defence Secretary Robert Mcnamara

14. Kennedy is assassinated.

15. The US either engineer, or allows to happen, the Gulf of Tonkin incident securing a declaration of war.

16. The US strategy in the war is similar to the “Shock and Awe” tactic used in the 2nd Gulf War.  They believe that the communists will eventually quit.  Thus, it becomes a war of attrition.  This later proved a wrong move (see endnotes).

A US base comes under attack

17. The Vietnamese do not give up and build a very long road that weaves in and out of Vietnam and Laos, which allows them to go around the north/south divide in Vietnam.  This is known as the “Ho Chi Min Trail.”

 

When the trail was blown up the VC simply carried their equipment

18. The Laos army tries to stop this and the Vietnamese start a revolution/uprising/civil-war in Laos.

19. Laos’ king asks the US to help after being left somewhat in the lurch by the French.  They start a secret CIA led war in Laos by using the highland Hmong tribes as soldiers supported by the US airforce (directed by the famous Ravens). This war is against the Pathet Lao communists supplied by the Vietnamese.

One of the Raven spotter planes

20. The US uses most of their airforce in Laos to bomb the HCM Trail.  In fact, the bomb they crap out of it with cluster bombs, high explosives, soap and anything else they can think of.  Nothing works to stem the flow and many of the bombs do not explode.  The rest they use against the Pathet Lao around the Plain of Jars.

Bombing runs in Vietnam

21. The US government says to the people that the war will soon be won; the communists are weakened and cannot fight anymore.

 

The US president Johnson talks the talk

22. In reality the communists threaten the Khe San base to such an extent the US commanders plan on using short range nukes to defend it.

23. The Khe San offensive turns out to be a ruse by the Vietnamese and they have been secretly digging tunnels to Saigon (the Cu Chi tunnels).  On the eve of the Tet celebrations (New Year – around mid Jan) the Vietnamese attack everywhere from these tunnels.

A US soldier orders up help during the Tet offensive

24. These resulting battles are all won by the US, but the public realise that they have been lied to and the US have to pull out.

 

Nixon describes the pull out of troops

25. Without US support Vietnam falls to the HCM forces.

26. Laos falls to the Pathet Lao and the Hmong are all killed or flee around the world.  Many now live in the US.  Some, amazingly, still live in the Laos hills avoiding the Laotian army.

27. Cambodia is in civil war at this point and the communist Khmer Rouge win the conflict in many ways thanks to the king (who is still in China) publically supporting them.

28. The Thai / Cambodian border is mined.  A lot.

29. The Khmer Rouge move into the capital of Cambodia amid celebrations, but they have another agenda.  They announce that all the people must leave the city immediately.  Anyone who argues is shot on the spot.  Those hiding in the French embassy are forced to leave and shot.

30. The Khmer Rouge forces the people of the cities of Cambodia to work in the fields as farmers.  Anyone who argues is shot.

31. The Khmer Rouge leader starts rounding up people who do not fit his plans, basically educated people.  Has them all seriously tortured and then taken out to fields and beaten around the head until dead.  This is a staggering amount of people.

32. The Khmer Rouge then tries to take over Southern Vietnam.

33. The Vietnamese invade Cambodia, knock over the Khmer Rouge in two weeks and turn Cambodia into a vassal state only allowed to buy products from the Vietnamese (much like Laos then).

34. Thousands of Laotians start to die from Unexploded US Ordinances (UXO’s) every year.

35. Thousands of Cambodians step on land mines every year.

36. Thousands of Vietnamese start developing strange symptoms and having children with very serious birth defects.  This is traced to “Agent Orange” that the US dropped on the jungles of Vietnam.  “Agent Orange” contains some of the worst ingredients imaginable. Top of the list is Dioxin – look it up.  Its claimed effect was to defoliate the areas hiding VC troops (Chu Chi for example), but the ingredients basically kill all life, not just trees.

37. Australia does not become communist.

That is the basics.  There is much more to it than that, but this is enough for you to be going on with.  What is clear from the history of the area is that the US hates Communism.  Hates it to such an extent that they almost nuked the country they were trying to defend to stop it.  That’s some hate.

Why?

What is so wrong with Communism?

Well, nothing in particular, but it is essentially a people supposedly without rich and poor.  Equality.  Which doesn’t seem so bad until you realise how screwed up some of the attempts to implement the idea have been. 

Take Cambodia.  There, the Khmer Rouge were inspired by Maoist Communism and yet decided that it was not going far enough.  They tried to force the entire Cambodian people back into a simple farming life, a basic existence, by shooting anyone who said anything against it. 

Alternatively, take Laos, the Pathet Lao won the war and changed the country forever.  Consequently, Laos is one of the world’s poorest countries; it has elections but only one party is on the ballot. 

The issue is not so much that a share-alike egalitarian culture is a bad idea, only that it has not been successfully implemented yet (Kerala in India not withstanding- it’s only a state).  To the US though, it is more than this.  The US is essentially designed as a country that rewards striving for wealth.  The idea that a man is due the full value of his work in the pursuit of happiness.  This is the “American Dream.”  What it leads to is a country split between those who have and those who have not.  Those who have: have a lot, and those who have not: have bugger all. 

The government is highly influenced by those who have and they were not about to give it all up to those who have not, right!?  Bingo.  The people who have won the “American Dream” deeply fear to lose their cut of the world’s profit.  This fear underpins almost all US aggression around the world.  The rest is just marketing; the picking of a bogyman and sticking it to him.

The Aftermath

The aftermath of the American War is the greater tragedy. 

Cambodia

The Khmer Rouge was one of the most bloodthirsty murdering governments in history.  One really has to get Biblical to match them.  Would such a group have prevailed if not for the war?  This is perhaps something that no one could have predicted.  However, their legacy is still with us today; anyone over 35 in Cambodia lived through the Khmer Rouge government.  That in itself is an achievement and the scars are everywhere.  There is honestly something in the eyes, something in the attitude of Cambodians, which is not yet healed; the entire country is still emotionally broken.  Mostly, this is due to the lack of justice done on the Khmer leaders.  Pol Pot died under house arrest escaping a trial, and even the man who ran the Tuol Sleng Centre (also known as S-21) has not been tried yet.  The ringleaders of the Khmer Rouge are all dying of old age before being judged.  Its not that putting octogenarians into jail is going to protect anyone, but the country needs to judge these people as wrong.  Only then can the healing begin. 

The horror of S-21 and the Killing Fields

So what’s stopping it?  The Khmer Rouge have simply faded into a new skin: that of the Communist Party.  The trials are therefore all being held up and so justice and healing for the Cambodian people is still a long way off.

When visiting Cambodia, a number of things tug at your heartstrings.  That is, after they are through tugging your arms.  The whole country is awash with children who are forced to work.  In many cases this is a genuine need for the family to supplement its income, but it does not change the fact that these children are everywhere.  Everywhere but school.

Child workers sell theirs wares and services to a
Western Lady

The second thing also tugs at you.  At your ankles.  So many people have lost limbs through stepping on mines, or though the war, that you encounter them all the time.  In certain places you will encounter one every ten minutes.  Cesca and I went to a performance by an invalided acting troop in Siem Reap and saw firsthand the mental effects and stigma of having such injuries in a country without a social service.  Begging becomes their only hope.

The disabled acting troop in Siem Reap

Thus, the cycle perpetuates itself.  In fact, for the children at least, selling bracelets, massages and themselves on the beaches of Cambodia is a real career choice.  I remember Cesca asking one little girl what she wanted to do when she was grown up.  “Doctor!” came the reply.  Cesca was moved enough to buy the proffered item; why not to help a girl in her ambitions?  Twenty minutes later another girl came up and she wanted to be a doctor as well.  So did the next one after that.  It seems that “becoming a doctor” means more sales because Western people respect doctors a lot.

Small things like that work on you.  They gnaw.  Cambodians are great people- friendly, helpful and smart.  They need a break, but for now, they are broken.

Laos

The US really wanted to save Laos. I say that now because this is the only redeeming quality for what they did to this country.  It was akin to saving a man from robbery by shooting him in the head.  In addition, official history has not been kind to them on this score- the Pathet Lao, now the government, has very subtly changed the version of events in its official histories.  As far as they are concerned the US were fighting against the Laotians, not for them.  Such a dichotomy partially explains the over-bombing of Laos, making it the most bombed country in the world, when in fact the truth is far worse. 

The US bombed the hell out of Laos to try to save it.

Of all the countries to suffer from the American War, Laos is the one left with the longest legacy.  The entire eastern side of the country is littered with unexploded bombs of all types.  Even monstrously large B52 bombs are regularly dug up. On one video we watched they found two in the road between two schools.  Both armed, both ready to blow if knocked.  Aside from the big stuff, Laos was cluster bombed to hell and back.  Cluster munitions, called bombies by the children of Laos, are small cricket ball sized bombs of varying types. 

A collection of deactivate cluster bombs (bombies) made into an art exhibition at COPE

The idea is that the cluster container opens and disperses these bombies over a large area.  The problem is that they often did not explode; in order to prime the basic type requires a number of rotations.  If they hit a paddy field before the required count or snag a tree and stop spinning then they will often not explode.  That is until picked up or disturbed by a local.  Then they will blast out 200 red-hot ball bearings in all directions.  Mixed in with such devices were all sorts of ‘special’ bombies.  Some are smaller, some are meaner, but by far the most terrifying is the Spider Mine.  On landing, this bombie shoots out trip wires in four directions and blows up the first thing that crosses them-

Usually a child.

You see, Laos is so poor that scrap metal is worth serious money.  Little children all want to get the bounty on scrap and so regularly hunt for Bombies.  This is too often a tale with the most tragic ending imaginable.  I cannot think of anything worse than children blown to bits by cluster bombs dropped by an ally in order to protect their culture. 

That is exactly what happens every day here.

Laos was the country that stole our hearts in SEA.  It has an innocence about it that belies the fact that a fair percentage of the population is living with the threat of being blown to bits every single time they step out their door.  It is testament to their innocence that they do not realise that this is not normal.

Perhaps they are waking up.  The government of Laos is a classic Eastern Block Communism but now with capitalist overtones.  The opening of the country to international trade has started a chain reaction that will eventually lead to change, even if that change is violent.  Necessity will drive it.  For now Laos is a wondrous mix of countryside Asia unchanged for 100 years and French inspired food and drink.  The beer in Laos is one of the very best in the entire world and in the capital you can get a brilliant steak dinner for pocket change. 

The simple Mekong Life – how long will it last?

The visitor numbers are increasing and it will not be long before this travel trade, properly directed, will make a real difference.  Much of the conversation held between backpackers is on the subject of the travel trade in Laos.  The question is, “will the money made from travel affect Laos in a good or bad way?”  Already the town of Vang Vieng is given over to supplying tourists with drink, drugs, endless episodes of Friends and riverfront clubbing.

Lao T-Shirts, great but only for tourists.

To those harmed by bombs it is already too late, but organisations such as MAG (Mine Action Group) are trying to de-bomb Laos by 2012.  On our visit to their headquarters, they showed us a computer drawn map of the amount of Unexploded Ordinance in Laos.  Each bomb sortie was a red dot.  The entire eastern side of the country was red with so many dots that they all blended together.  You can see the data yourself online using Google Earth.  We donated all we could to MAG and hope they achieve their projected clear date as each year adds more misery to this already burdened country.

Downtime in Vang Vieng

Vietnam

Vietnam’s issue is not with UXO’s – although they do exist and like Cambodia, you should never walk off the path, nor is it to do with societal mental damage.  In Vietnam, they have sorted through the American War and put the blood very firmly on the hands of the US.  In Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) there is a very good museum to the war that pulls no punches to tell you what the US did to these people.  However, it did not break them.  The Vietnamese are proud of their achievements.  Proud to have won what, was from their point of view, a war of independence.  I could not help but be impressed by both their attitude to it and indeed their industrious attitude to the future.  So, what is the damage here?

Basho considers facing one of these monster US tanks in battle – they are scary enough when decommissioned.

Two things. Firstly, one man you meet fought against the US, the next fought for them.  This has a dividing effect on the country and while the north/south border has physically gone, the mental border is still there.  Still, that is no worse than in England.  The second, and far worse thing, is the way the world see’s Vietnam is through US war movies.  I watched Rambo cut down multitudes of evil VC in the Rambo: Part 2 movie.  I saw Platoon portray the VC as simple targets.  I have seen them dehumanised repeatedly.  Even the films that try and “apologise” for the war, like The Deer Hunter, shows the VC in a way that would be scorned if it were – say – the Japanese.

I have seen a man in Ho Chi Min take his children for a walk to the same park every day.  Feed them breakfast on the grass, play with them and watch over them.  He did not fit a stereotype I was force fed all my life, he was simply a good father.

This Hollywood movie misrepresentation leaves the Vietnamese with a lot of catching up to do even today.  I lost count of the number of people who warned me against the Vietnamese culture.  Many said that they were rude, hostile and not friendly.  This malignment was quickly banished on arrival.  I have to say that the Vietnamese are some of the nicest people we have yet met on our journey and all through the country the same smiling faces greeted us.  We felt very welcome, even when chatting to a man who had lost his arm during the war.  They are proud of the war.  Such wounds are worn with pride here.

 

The modern Tet celebration has a real buz about it.  It is everyone’s birthday, the New Year and the “surge that changed the war” all rolled into one. Great fireworks.

Conclusion

In 50 years time, will we be writing posts like this about Iraq?  The amount chaos left in South East Asia is truly tragic.  Death and destruction to prevent a theory, a theory that said if SEA falls to the “commies” that “western” people may be next.  The real fear the US had was a fear of about its own societal core, it is after all a very young country and such upheavals always seem more possible.  It is no gratification that the US even turned on its own people to flush out possible communists with the advent of the “Reds under the bed” and McCarthyism.  It is, I guess, just another part of the tragedy of the American War in South East Asia.

Regards,

Basho

Endnotes:

Where the note is marked “(WIKI)”, it is linked to Wikipedia.  Note that this brilliant website is not the be all and end all of factual information on anything.  It is, however, a very good place to start.