The Cu Chi Tunnels

The next morning I was feeling a little queasy. A month and a half of steady drinking and traveling in the hot Southeast Asian sun was starting to wear on me. I awoke early and headed over to the Happy Tour agency for the Cu Chi tunnels tour. The tunnels were a vast network of underground passageways used by the Vietcong during the Vietnam War that is just south of Saigon. Sometimes these tunnels went right underneath American base camps. It took about a half hour to get to the visitor’s center where they first showed us a short film on the tunnels and the people that fought in them.

I have seen many a war documentary in my day, but this one was really interesting to see how it was done from the other side. They showed footage of Vietnamese women and men fighters and the film noted how some of them were given a medal for being American killers. Hearing this expression was really weird and it first it kind of angered me. After I thought about it for a bit I realized it is actually more honest than the medals we give out. Our congressional medal of honor is basically the same thing. It is awarded to Japanese killers, Vietnamese killers, and Iraqi killers, but we just gloss it over with an honorable title. You do not win awards in the military for helping grandmothers across the street.

The tunnels themselves were quite a trip. They actually enlarged the ones for westerners to go through. Even enlarged it was really cramped. I cannot believe so many people lived and fought in these tunnels. Halfway through one of the tunnels, a Canadian in front of me kind of freaked out and wanted to go back. There was no room to go around us, so we all had to shimmy back to a place where he could go around us. It was hot in the tunnels and I was walking almost on my hands and knees. I looked up at one point and a couple of bats were flying right in front of my face towards me. There were a couple of young Canadian girls right behind me and they screamed as the bats flew overhead. It was quite an experience. It really makes you admire the people that lived and fought in them. Walking through these enlarged tunnels, I realized right away why we were unsuccessful in Vietnam. Even though they lost many of the battles they won the war because they wanted it more and were more determined to outlast the GIs. It would have taken unbelievable sacrifice by the Americans to uproot these Vietnamese from their holes and tunnels, and with the cause crumbling back at home it was impossible.

Inside the tunnels they had many exhibits including a mock war room where they had plastic likenesses of Vietcong fighters making plans. They also had a mock mess room where they ate and a hospital room. When we emerged it was quite a relief to be back in the real world and breathe the clear outdoor air. We also saw other remnants of the war including huge B-52 bomb craters and other opening of tunnels that had started to fill back in with earth.

We returned back to the visitor center and there was a display of all the nasty booby traps that the Vietcong fighters laid out for the GIs. Things like holes in the ground which were covered up to look like ground only to give way when stepped on and at the bottom were sharp spears to puncture GI feet. I am glad that I did not have to fight in this war. There was also a shooting range where for 10$ you could shoot ten rounds from an AK-47. One American man kind of wanted to shoot, but when no one else wanted to he changed his mind. This ended our tour, which was another really well organized tour. Our tour guide was named Omar, and he was hysterical. He had actually worked for the US army during the war.

We returned to Saigon and then we were bussed over to the War Remnants Museum. This museum was basically a bunch of pictures with captions over them as well as some artifacts like guns, bombs, grenades, and a helicopter from the war. It was an interesting museum, but not the best I have ever seen. Once could get the same experience by going to the library and checking out a Time-Life book on the war.

This was to be my last day in Saigon. I bought an open ended bus ticket from Saigon to Hanoi for 16$ with stops in Nha Trang, Hoi Ann, and Hue. I bought my ticket from a flirtatious girl named Fairy. When I returned to my hotel room I called Fairy and asked if she wanted to go to dinner. She said she worked until 10pm, but I could stop by after that. We then walked around the corner and each had a bowl of Pho and talked.

While talking to her I realized how lucky I am to be experiencing this trip. She said so herself a couple of times. She works day after day from 7:30am to 10pm at night so that tourists visiting her country have an easy and enjoyable time in her country, yet she never has a chance to travel herself. I know that she would love to travel herself, but she does not have the time or the money to do it herself. It just seems so unfair. We exchanged emails and I returned her to the travel agency and walked back to my hotel. I have enjoyed Saigon, but except my great experience with Tho and the friendly Vietnamese gentleman on my first night, I feel that I have been insulated from the Vietnamese people except for tour guides and moto-bike riders. It is hard to explain, but something seemed to be missing from my experience in Vietnam so far

The Mekong Delta

The next morning I left for my tour of the Mekong Delta. First I had a little breakfast before trying to find my bus. I sat down and had some coffee and an omelet. They serve the coffee here in individual coffee filters. They give you a coffee cup and then place a little tin cup on top which is a little filter and contains the coffee grounds. Then they pour the hot water into the little tin device and the coffee drips right into your cup.

I had a little bread along with the breakfast. The bread here is fantastic. When the Vietnamese army surrounded the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and in the process ended French colonial rule in one fell swoop, the Vietnamese had the foresight to only kick the French out and not their baguettes. Many countries when overthrowing a foreign ruler want to not only throw the foreign army out, but also all signs of their influence. Not so with the Vietnamese, as French influence can be seen in many facets from the language, to their delicious bread, pastries, cheese, and their architecture.

I walked back to the backpacker area and found the bus for the tour. It was an hour and a half bus ride to the river. We then got on a boat with about 15 other tourists. The boat then took us across the river to a smaller boat. This boat then proceeded up a little channel that was surrounded by huge ferns and large coconut trees. It was very scenic. The Mekong River at its delta is huge. It is more like a very large lake than a river. Going across only part of it on the motorized boat took about 15-20 minutes.

The tour was great. They kept us busy by shuttling us from island to island in the delta, and each island had some new activity. We saw a coconut candy factory at one island, had lunch at another island, and were treated to Vietnamese folk songs on another.

We also enjoyed a variety of boat transport from island to island. We started on a big boat that was able to hold all of us, and then were moved to smaller boats where our tour was split in two. At one point we traveled from our lunch island back to our original boats in these little pirogue boats that only could hold three of us. This was really interesting as we paddled through these narrow canals between the islands and the shoreline was lined with coconut trees. Each boat was paddled by two elderly Vietnamese ladies with authentic cone shaped hats.

I met a couple from Australia that had just come from the north and they were extremely helpful on giving tips on what to see and how much to pay for certain tours once I head up north. I also met an American couple from New Jersey. They were the first Americans I had met in a couple of weeks. I asked where they were from and they said they were from New Jersey, and they asked if I had heard of it. I told them I had as I was from the Chicago area. They seemed surprised at this because they thought I was British. At first I thought they were kind of stupid for this, but then I realized that may be I had started to pick up a little bit of a British or European English accent as I had not spoken to any Americans for weeks. In that time I have talked with many Brits not to mention Irish, German, French, Australian, and of course Cambodian and Vietnamese. It does not take long to pick up an accent.

The bus returned us to Saigon at 5pm. The traffic in the city at this time was absolutely crazy. Saigon is the moto-bike capitol of the world. There are several million people living here in the city and I think every person has a moto-bike. The traffic was just a sea of wall to wall people on moto bikes during rush hour. It was like something I have never seen. The funny thing was that there were all these moto-bikes wall-to-wall and there were many tourists on the side of the road taking pictures of this craziness. The Vietnamese people looked at us like we were the dumb tourists that we were. On a more somber note the tour operator said that 20 people a day die on the roads in Saigon. Someone in Cambodia told me that 60 a day die in Delhi, India. It does not seem possible, but in my short time here I have seen the aftermaths of a wreck and seen many close calls. I think I will stick to walking and taking taxis here.

Crossing the road at this time can take quite a leap of faith to step off that curb. Not every intersection has stoplights and during rush hour there is an endless stream of moto-bikes going in all directions. They somehow manage to avoid themselves while crossing the intersection from all four ways at the same time. What you have to do is just walk right across the road in a steady gait and do not stop and do not hesitate. If you walk across the road at a steady pace they will see you and avoid you. Since they are on a moto-bike it is just as dangerous for them to hit you as it is for you to being hit, so they make every attempt to avoid you of course. They do not want to fall of their bikes and meet the concrete. The problem is if you hesitate it can be disastrous or stop unexpectedly. They expect you to keep going and if you stop you might get hit because they have already adjusted for you to be at a place where you are now not at.

When I got back to the hotel Khoa was in the lobby and inquired if I was Ted. I told him I was and we shook hands. He said lets go out for a drink after we both settle in. After taking a shower and relaxing a bit, I met Khoa at the lobby and we ended up going out for more than a drink. We also had dinner, more drinks, followed by more drinks, followed by a late night snack accompanied with more drinks. We were also joined by two of his friends Ty and George. During dinner Khoa called his sister Christine, and I got to talk to Christine and my high school friend Jon. It was great hearing a familiar voice as I have not called anyone since I got here in January.

Khoa grew up in Vietnam and this was his first time back in the country since he left with his family thirty-years ago. He was spending a couple of weeks in Saigon. He and his friends flew to Hanoi for a couple of days and had just returned. It was a complete coincidence that he was in the country during the same time as I entered. It was nice to be with someone who knew a little bit about the country. We ended the night at little restaurant along the road where we had a bunch of appetizers. The highlight was some steamed lobster legs that were incredibly fresh. We finally turned in around 3am. It had been another long day.

Cambodia to Vietnam

The morning I got packed and ready to depart Cambodia. The gal at the front desk told me they would pick me up around 7am or 7:30. I was outside the hotel when the bartender walked up. This bartender told me she makes 14 US dollars a month for her salary. Evidently she does not get many tips because I tipped her 1$ the night before after having a couple of beers and she was confused when I gave her the tip. She held the dollar up and looked at it strangely, and I said “for you.” Then she smiled and thanked me.

She arrived around 7:30 and I saw her the night before cleaning up the bar around 10pm. Not only was she paid horribly, but she also had a very long day. When she saw that I was leaving she smiled and said “see you again.” As I was waiting for the bus a couple of very young kids came up in Buddhist monk clothing. There were four of them and each one said a little prayer in front of the hotel. When each was done with their prayer the proprietor of the hotel bowed down in front of each one and gave them a little treat. It looked like she was giving each a package of rama noodles or something like that. It was like a Buddhist trick or treat and in return for giving them food, they blessed the establishment.

As I was sitting waiting to leave Cambodia, I started to reflect on some observations I felt in this very strange land. One observation that occurred to me was that Cambodia was in dire need of another hero. Jayavarman VII is one of the most revered rulers in Cambodian history because under his rule he kicked the Thais (then called the Siamese) out who had briefly conquered the Angkor empire. This happened somewhere around the 12th or 13th century. The town of Siem Reap was named after this even as Siem Reap means Siam defeated. Since then their heroes have been few and far between. The closest thing would be Hang Ngor who survived the Killing Fields and won an Oscar as the best supporting actor in the movie the Killing Fields. He may have survived Cambodia’s Killing Fields, but he did not survive ours. He was shot and killed a number of years ago in Los Angeles in a robbery attempt.

The extent to which the Cambodians admire their ancient Angkor history is amazing and signs of this reverence can be witnessed everywhere. I was in the hot as the towering inferno market having a drink at this little café and started talking to the owner who happened to be sitting next to me. When I told him I had been to Angkor he said that Angkor was like their George Washington. The lonely planet mentions this too saying that many Cambodians feel very proud about these temples because if Cambodian people could build something as beautiful as that then they have something to be proud of. Angkor is also the name of their national beer, they have a cigarette brand named Angkor, and icons of the temples can be found everywhere.

This dedication to the past is all fine and good, but the sad thing is that this was over a thousand years ago, and there has been nothing great to come out of Cambodian history since. Then the Khmer Rouge came along and basically knock them back in history may be one hundred years with their ruthless killing and torture. Their adherence to the Angkor temples would be like Africa being really damn proud that they were the home of the first human beings. African countries might adopt a flag with a likeness of the bones of Lucy in the middle of it. I wonder if any African country brews a beer called Lucy beer or may be has a cigarette called Lucy strikes.

I left Cambodia today with very mixed feelings about the country. I have never been in a place so poor and it was definitely eye opening. I think Julia the bickering Canadian girl was right when she argued that Thailand is not third world. If Thailand is third-world then Cambodia is fifth-world.

Of course we have much to blame for this situation. In the early 1970s our government felt that the Vietnamese army was using Cambodia to hide and also as a supply route, so we decided to bomb Cambodia into the pre-Angkor days. I have seen some of the victims of this bombing begging on the Phnom Penh streets and it is horrific. When I was in the sweat your balls off market I was trying to walk through an area that was crowded with people. On one side was someone shopping and on the other side was this burn victim. She had half a face and worse she was wearing a tank top which revealed sickening burns all over her body. I had to walk through this constriction to get by and almost had to rub up against this poor gruesome woman. You cannot get very far in Cambodia without seeing someone with an arm or leg missing as there are still millions of unexploded land mines that litter this countryside. Lonely Planet warns not to stray off the beaten path when exploring in places not usually traveled.

The irony in Vietnam was that we were fighting to contain the communist threat, and we spawned an even worse regime in Cambodia. The result of the years of carpet bombing the Cambodian peasantry was to radicalize them against anything we represented like freedom and democracy and the following de-stabilization due to years of indiscriminate bombing allowed the insane regime of the Khmer Rouge to take power. It was kind of a reverse Marshall Plan. Instead of aiding countries that were thought to be weak economically and ripe for a communist takeover like Europe after World War II we bombed Cambodia into a weak economic country ripe for a radical takeover.

I had a lot of time to make these reflections because the bus I was waiting for had still not come, and I had been waiting there for over an hour. Since my reflections were not doing the world much good, and I finally had that this bus is never going to come feeling, I finally decided to stop reflecting and ask the girl at the hotel if the bus was usually this late. The girl at the hotel asked if I booked through them. I said yes and showed her the actual ticket. She said she would call. She made a phone call and had an excited and worried look on her face, but as soon as she got off the phone she assured me they would come. Suddenly, instead of a bus, a moto-bike driver approached me and said he would drive me to the bus station. He told me that he was sorry, but they forgot me. I drove on the back of this moto-bike with my huge backpack on. We stopped on the side of the road, and he pointed and said that is your bus. It was another mini bus, so I figured this was the pick up bus. I got on as it was completely full and we drove and drove and I soon realized this was my bus. That was the funny thing about traveling in Asia. The traveler was always the last to know about these things. The guy sitting next to me said they drove for an hour and that they then turned around because they forgot someone. I told him it was me that they had forgotten.

We then stopped at this ferry as there is no bridge over the Mekong River on this particular highway (only in Cambodia.) A few people on the bus departed at this point as they were taking a boat the rest of the way, which thankfully created space. After they left the bus, we had to wait for the ferry to come back from the other side. Meanwhile there were beggars and peddlers everywhere outside tapping on our window trying to get our attention. I bought a loaf of bread and water, but I did not need gum, sunglasses, and all the other crap they were selling. They were persistent and annoying. One kid tapped at the window and showed the man in front of me every single drink he had in his cooler twice. He would take coke out and tap on the window and the man would shrug no. Then he would take a bottle of mineral water out and tap the window and the man would frown no. Then he would take a pack of gum out and this persisted until he tried to sell everything in his little cart to the man in front of me They all had these vacant stares and it reminded me of being trapped in a van with a bunch of zombies like Dawn of the Dead or something like that outside waiting to eat us. We finally got through the ferry and on to the other side.

We hit the border and the Eastern border crossing of Cambodia was much easier than the Western border. It still took awhile, but it was a lot smoother and incredibly, no beggars. Plus, a cool front has hit SE Asia. Today it is only like 90 degrees with a nice breeze instead of the sticky 95 it has been lately. I did have some minor difficulty getting through as I had to complete an entry visa form three times for some reason. I had to duplicate the form exactly twice because they kept one copy and the other copy was kept by the tourist because when leaving the country the customs people would take the duplicate then. I only entered one copy so the customs man said I needed to duplicate the form. In the meantime I had loaned my pen out to another tourist, and he gave me a pen to complete the form. The pen was blue ink and my first form was done in black ink. When I showed him my two duplicate forms one was done in blue and one in black. When he saw this he frowned and gave me two new forms to complete because they had to be in the same color ink. I am not sure how the customs guy as I was exiting was to know that my entrance form was done in different color ink, but it is no use in arguing with these people because they have ultimate but temporary power over you so they must be appeased. I completed both forms again and smiled to my new friend and gave them to him and thanked him. He then finally allowed me to pass. Since I had now completed this form four times, I was now an expert. I should have stayed at the border and helped people complete the form for a fee. I could have been an entry/exit form consultant.

We piled on a big bus that took us the rest of the way to Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon. One of my best friends from high school Jon, married a beautiful Vietnamese girl named Christine. It so happens that her brother will be here in Saigon at the same time I will be. Once inside the city I was going to check into the same hotel as he was in. When I got there they said they were booked. I asked if Khoa Truong was there and the lady at the desk frowned and said they had no one by that name. I was perplexed because I had an email from both him and his sister with the address of the hotel. I got out his email and showed it to the clerk and she said “oh yes, Khoa Truong is here.” Apparently, I must have massacred the pronunciation of his name. He was currently in Hanoi, but would be returning the next day. Now that she knew that I was friends with Khoa, my troubles with the hotel were gone. She said she would give me his room until another was available for me later. So I put my things in his vacated room and am here at an internet cafe drinking a beer. Apparently, when I get back they will have my own room for me.

One of the first things I did when I got here was to book a boat tour to the Mekong River Delta. Since the tour started at 7:30am the next morning, and I had a long day, I wanted to get to bed early. I was just going to have a beer or two and some dinner and head back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

I started walking up and down the backpacker area of Saigon for something to eat. It is interesting that every city I had been in has had a back packer tourist area part of town. Since many of the back packers are young people into hippy type activities, there is a kind of US counterculture aspect to the atmosphere at each of these places. It is kind of something like one might find on Haight-Ashbury Street in San Francisco. I felt like trying some Vietnamese food. Many of these places in the area I was in had more western cuisine, so I turned off on a side street and found a cafe where a few Vietnamese people were eating as well as a couple of tourists.

I had a Saigon beer and choose fried octopus with a sweet and sour sauce. The Vietnamese man next to me started asking me general questions where I was from, and I spoke to him until my food came. I was impressed with his English as it was perfect. Then I started talking to an English couple next to me. My food arrived and it was awesome. More of a spicy sweet and sour sauce than what we are used to and it was topped with many different kinds of vegetables.

The English lady next to me asked what I was eating and she ordered the same. We started to talk and they were really nice. She all of a sudden started talking about her son that was visiting Australia, and I smiled thinking she was going to start telling some story about how proud she was about her son. Instead she said he was in Australia for fourteen days then got sick and died, and she started crying. I was still smiling when I realized to my shock what she just said. I tried to console her, but there is no way to console someone for something like that happening. I told her that my brother had died when I was 16, and she then consoled me. I guess her son basically had a heart attack at age 28, and he was in almost perfect health according to her.

I was still kind of talking to this couple when another Vietnamese man next to me tapped on my knee and said he wanted to talk English with me to practice. I said ok, but I was a little worried because in Cambodia many people told me this and then asked for money, plus I was still talking to the couple next to me. He turned out to be a really nice guy though and he talked a little bit about remembering the American GIs being here.

The man who tapped my knee soon left without asking for any money to my relief, and I continued talking with his friend named Tho who was a Vietnamese businessman here in Saigon that worked for British Petroleum as a purchaser. This was the man that was talking to me before my food came. He learned English when he was seven from the GIs. All of a sudden another older Vietnamese gentleman approached and extended his hand and groped mine and held it and smiled at me. I thought this kind of odd, but I could sense that he was a nice person. He started talking in really broken English, and I had trouble understanding. Tho interpreted for me, and he told me that he was very happy to see foreigners talking with Vietnamese because this is an international city and he told me that he was happy I was here. I told him thanks and that I was happy to be here.

Through interpretation from Tho, I was able to discern that this older fellow used to be in the Navy, and apparently he trained in San Diego and Philadelphia prior to the Vietnam War. I had trouble understanding him as he talked in broken English and when he realized I was not understanding spoke Vietnamese so Tho could interpret. He then threw up his hands and declared “I love the American GI.” It was actually nice to hear this. We hear so many negative things about our army these days with the prison scandal and other things, so I was pleased that when he was in the presence of our troops that he must have been treated very nicely by our American soldiers. He had this beatific glow on his face as he remembered his time in America.

Tho was with a Pakistani tour guide that worked here in Saigon named Bobby, and all of us had a great political conversation and also a great conversation about different languages. I had finished my second beer and had forgotten all idea of going to bed early. The older guy bought everyone another round and we continued to discuss. Somehow we got on to the subject of world peace and Bobby the Pakistani excitedly yelled “what is peace?” Tho replied that peace is “within our mind, in the way we deal with others, and in our heart.” I could not agree with Tho more. We eventually began to wind down as I was tired from my journey from Cambodia earlier in the day. I was going to pay for my bill, but Tho would not let me and paid for both mine and Bobby’s and said it was his treat.

Bobby made some point that although he was foreign he was now local and had started to learn the language, so he was becoming less foreign here. He then said to me that I was really a foreigner. I agreed that this was true, but I said that I appreciated for one evening being treated as not a foreigner, but a human being by the first people I met in Vietnam. It was great to have such a positive first experience in this country. In Cambodia it was really weird, and I never felt like I had any positive communication with any local people. They were always trying too hard to please and wanted money, so it was difficult to interact with them. My first experience here was thankfully much different. I also learned quite a bit about Pakistan. We had a good conversation about Pakistani’s ruler President Mushareef. Apparently, President Mushareef cut his country’s debt in half by agreeing to lease out bases to the US. This has put him in hot water with some of the radical groups in his country, but economically, it has benefited the country tremendously, and Bobby really admired his diplomacy in this regard.

I got back to the hotel and just as I was getting in bed, Christine’s brother Khoa called, and he said he was still in Hanoi and would be back in Saigon the next day. As soon as he hung up the front desk then called and the most confusing conversation ensued. He said something about Khoa wanting to buy something for me and it was no problem, but I could not understand him and he could not understand me. We finally gave up. Then a minute later Khoa called back saying if I wanted anything to eat the front desk would take care of me. I thanked him and then went to bed.