| QUICK UPDATE Where are they now? |
| Viet Nam |
| We'e not here here anymore. See the Cambodia page. 9/8-10/2002 Saigon Like most cities in Asia, the air here is so polluted that I am getting back the raspy cough that seems to plague me. Without A/C, the humidity would kill you in a room at night, but with it on, the air is too dry. Even large doses of fresh fruits and juice can't keep the upper respiratory goblins at bay. The shopping seems limited to the same 20 or so t-shirts that are for sale, pirated CDs and the same wood/bone/ivory carvings that you see everywhere else. Our hotel is right in the heart of the tourist madness, but four floors up and in the back of the building, all we hear is loud rude Europeans stomping up and down the stairs at night. The lot is only 15 feet wide, but the building is 7 stories tall! No elevator either. You can't really venture too far on foot here because the streets are impossible to cross. The scooters pay little attention to traffic signals, and even less to pedestrians. If you take a cab tour, they try and take you on the pagoda, Post Office, Communist Party building, etc. tour, which we're sick of. This afternoon we'll try to get to Chinatown. 9/3-9/7/2002 Hoi An and Nha Trang Three hours south of Hue is the beachside town of Hoi An. On the way there we stopped at the Marble Mountain and China Beach near Da Nanag. This is the area where the first American ground combat troops landed in Vietnam in 1965 when the US Marines came ashore to guard the airfield at Da Nang. The beach is very pretty, and there was no one there except for us and the troop of 6 - 10 year old girls who guided us and sold us a bottle of water along the way. The Marble Mountain has a huge natural cavern inside that has been enlarged to the size of a cathedral. Passages lead into and through the mountain. The VC used the caves and small chambers in the mountain to stash supplies during the war. Hoi An is a tiny town famous for the 100s of tailors that line the streets. A couple of girls whom we met in Hue recommended a tailor, in case we wanted anything made. They each had 6 suits made! Both had just graduated from Harvard Law and needed clothes for their first year of work in New York City. Monica had a very nice dress made, as well as a traditional Vietnamese dress, both for $20 and ready in 8 hours. The next day we took the bus to Nha Trang. Thirteen hours later we arrived. There had been a road between the two cities, but about one third of the 350 miles was torn up or had fallen apart. The repair crews had also ripped out about half of the width of the bridge at each creek crossing, leaving the trucks and buses going either direction to battle for the remaining space. At times, the bus was rattling and being jarred so badly by the potholes that we couldn't even read. There seems to be little priority given to repairing the roads outside the big cities. Only those that run from the big cities to the resort towns. Socialist leaders who live in the big towns and cities want their Mercedes to get them to their vacation villa in one piece. Nha Trang is a very nice sea-side resort, the Riviera of the East. The water was too murky for diving, but the mid-day sun was just right for relaxing on the beach. A 2 hour cycle-cab tour took us to the major attractions. We still had some shopping to do in Saigon, so we headed back on the 7th. 8/30-9-2/2002 Hue A painless trip on Vietnam Airlines took us about 400 miles north to Hue. As a commercial for them, they have served two of the finest meals we've had on this trip in an airplane! They even served a very nice piece of fish that was quite edible. The rest of the world has a lot to learn. We wandered throught the Citadel (the walled old city) and nearby neighborhoods. The morning of the 30th we took a tour of the DMZ, the former buffer between South and North Vietnam. Our guide this day was a little less "American War of Aggression" oriented, and had even had the displeasure of guiding former Lt. Colonel Oliver North when he returned to Vietnam a few years ago. Without a good knowlege of what happened here, it really isn't that interesting. You really need a good imagination and a little knowlege of the events that took place 27 year ago to get much out of it. The jungle has reclaimed a lot, and hides tons of unexploded shells and bombs (which, even today, cows and farmers still find by stepping on them, causing them to explode). There isn't much there to help you visualize what it was like. After a day of rest, we toured the "magnificent" tombs and pagodas in the area, which luckily had no admission fee because of National Day on 2 September. Good thing it was free, because none are magnificnet nor very well preserved. 8/29/2002 Saigon Got up early to take a 1/2 day trip to the Cu Chi tunnel complex, about 50 km outside of Saigon. It took took about 2 hours to get there, so I'll explain why. The Vietnamese are the world's (and I've seen a bit) most oblivious drivers. No one pays any attention to traffic signals, lane markings or other traffic at all. Most just drive around with the horns on their scooters blaring as if everyone else is supposed to get out of their way, and bicycles just ply the streets completely defenseless. Even in Bangkok traffic (which, by the way, was silent - no one uses their horn unless it is really needed) there was order in the chaos. None of that here. There are few private cars, so scooters and bicycles share the roads with busses, cement trucks and heavy vehicles. Drivers of the big vehicles pass swarms of scooters/bikes at any time they think they can (including on blind curves at night, we've heard), all the while leaning on the horn. This results in a "pucker factor" usually reserved for riders of thrill rides at amusement parks. We just can't understand how more people aren't killed on the roads. We arrived at the tunnels at about 11, and proceeded to the theater for the patriotic film about the American Killers (Viet Cong) who occupied the tunnels despite the American war of aggression. Very interesting take on the war in general, and the events in this area in particular. For instance, a 16-year-old with a gun in her hand is an American Killer; that same 16-year-old dead is a civilian victim of American aggression. Anyway, the tunnels are very tiny and stuffy. I could get along by waddleing on my haunches, but anyone taller and less svelte had to crawl along. We brought flashlights, but others just plodded along in darkness until they came to the 3 foot drop to the next lower level. At certain points, we were about 10 feet under-ground, but there were tunnels down to 30 feet. They were so small and cramped that the average American soldier (or tourist) had no chance of outmaneuvering a Vietnamese who could run through the same tunnels firing an AK-47 machine gun. Later we were offered a chance to shoot a selection of American, Chinese and Russian small arms. They even had a guy shoot an American M-60 medium machine gun which makes a heck of a racket. On the way back we visited the War Remnants (formerly the American War Crimes) museum in Saigon. It had a good collection of out-of-context quotes from various American politicians, and a sick but enlightening collection of photographs. Much of the display was simply a presentation of the work and stories from many war correspondents and photographers. They stayed away from America-bashing, except when it came to Agent Orange. Lots of very graphic photos and specimens in jars of exactly what dioxin can do to humans. The courtyard had a great collection of American tanks, planes, helicopters, guns and bombs. We sure left a lot of stuff behind. That night we had a great dinner at a tiny food stall near our hotel. They cook with potatoes here! A starch besides rice! We had a great pepper steak and a nice chicken stew. Quite a relief after the not-so-varied foods of Thailand. The baguettes are great too, about the only positive thing still here from the days of French-Indochina. In the evening we walked through the back alleys around our hotel. This was one of the most interesting things we have done, no kidding! After a short walk, we found ourselves away from the tourist shops and in the living room of 100s of local families. With apartments as small as they have here, an awful lot of living is done outside in the allyes. As we went deeper into the maze, we found that the kids were all out playing either in the alley or in one family's big room, while next door the mothers were working makng clothes or preparing food. Doors were open, and almost everyone was smiling back, whether they were hard at work or simply lounging. It was a great chance to see how people really lived. 8/28/2002 Saigon We flew into the airport that looks as if the American Air Force left only a few months ago, not 32 years ago. The remnants of the war (hangars, fueling and arming pits, etc.) are still there. The heat was fierce on the runway, but after we caught our cab and got away from the huge expanse of concrete, we found that the weather is actually more tolerable here than in Bangkok. Our hotel is in a building about 14 feet wide, and 6 stories tall. Everything is straight up here, even in the smaller neighborhoods. Got a good night's sleep. |
 |