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All Roads Lead to Saigon, Mama Hahn's Boat Trip, "Is He Dead?"

Vietnam - (January 1-14, 1998)

Before we left for Saigon, Don and I decided to visit the Patpong district in Bangkok. This area is notorious for being the raunchiest sex pit in Asia (and there's also a good night market there). Well, the market turned out to be "copyright infringement" center - all the Nike t-shirts and Rolex watches you could get your hands on. The sex side of it was just as disappointing. Rows and rows of girlie bars, desperate for customers. I think HIV has finally made an impact here. The touts were so aggressive that they even came after us as a couple - offering a menu of possibilities. We quickly high-tailed it back to the hotel.

Vietnam - Saigon (Although officially renamed "Ho Chi Minh", everyone still calls the city "Saigon")

During the war, Saigon Airport was one of the three busiest in the world. Now it is pretty run down, but on landing, you can still see the fortress-like walls that protected the runways from enemy fire, now all overgrown with moss.

We were wondering before our arrival how much we would come into contact with the past. Thankfully it was usually pretty subtle, however, because we were Americans, we also experienced some "in your face" history as well.

We had heard horror stories about getting through customs on arrival. We had many books that could be classified as going against the "communist grain", but amazingly nobody gave us or our bags a second look.

Saigon is a fun city and it was New Year's Eve, so we quickly checked into the Giant Dragon Hotel and then headed downtown. Every restaurant was packed, but we talked ourselves into the best French restaurant in town "Augustine", and then after a fantastic meal, we headed to Ho Chi Minh Square to wait for midnight.

Actually, the Vietnamese celebrate Lunar New Year at the end of January. December 31st is a new holiday here (just legalized after 15 years). So most of the Vietnamese just milled around waiting and watching to see what the foreigners would do. They had figured out that confetti was needed to celebrate this event, so everyone was trying to sell us bags of confetti. When midnight came in the Square, it just wasn't very exciting. So, we hopped a cab back to our hotel and found the real party. There were two "backpacker" bars on either side of our hotel in full swing. There was confetti everywhere, lots of music and dancing in the streets. The street was jammed with Vietnamese watching our antics. We chose to sit at a table on the sidewalk to watch all the goings on, but that didn't last long. All of a sudden, the proprietor of the bar grabbed us and threw us inside - chairs, table and all. We were angry until we saw what was coming up the street - the Vietnamese army in jeeps and on motorbikes. They came to break up the Western ruckus. So, we ended the night in the bar down the street where they only played music by the Rolling Stones.

The next day was an "in your face" day. We first started at the Reunification Palace. This is where the first communist tanks rushed on the morning of April 30, 1975. Crashing through the wrought iron gates, a single soldier ran in the building and unfurled a Viet Cong flag off the balcony. Now the building stands as a symbol of unification between the North and South.

In the brochure we were given upon arrival, it explains the symbolism of the palace....

"Continuing the heroic, long lasting struggles of our ancestors against innovation late last century, and through the two holy resistance wars full of hardships and sacrifices of many generations, culminating with the historic Ho Chi Minh campaign, Vietnamese Army and People have achieved total victory....."

After the tour, we were shown to a viewing room to watch a poorly edited video on war atrocities in which Americans were referred to as "The crazy imperialist bastards".

Our next stop of the day was the War Remnants Museum, previously called the "Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes". This was a grisly place and we don't recommend it for the faint of heart. The brochure we received here was entitled "Some Pictures of U.S. Imperialists Aggressive War Crimes in Vietnam". The exhibits ranged from a mannequin of an American soldier stomping on a traditional rice basket with a burning village in the background to jars filled with pickled deformed fetuses which had been exposed to Agent Orange.

After that we needed a drink, and there is no shortage of bars in Saigon. The most popular being "Apocalypse Now". We instead tried "Bob and Hein's". Bob is the first Vietnam Vet to return to Saigon to open a bar (with his Vietnamese wife, Hein). But, unfortunately the government deported Bob, so now it's just Hein.

The next day we joined a tour to see a few sights outside Saigon. Our first stop was to the Caodai Sect compound. Caodaism is the product of an attempt to create the perfect religion. It mixes Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, native Vietnamese Spiritualism, Christianity, and Islam. They get alot of their ideas and "saints" through seances. This is usually performed by a high priest holding a crayon or by a follower who leaves an empty envelope taped to the altar and when he comes back a divine message may be found inside. Patron saints include Dr. SunYat Sen and Victor Hugo. Their symbol is a Masonic-like eyeball and their temples are extremely colorful and festive. We witnessed noon mass, which brings hundreds of followers all dressed in white into the temple for prayer.

Next, our tour went to visit Cu Chi Tunnels. Cu Chi is an area just outside of Saigon. The Viet Cong were so strong here, it is considered one of the main reasons why Johnson decided to involve Americans in the War. The tunnels were built over a period of 25 years, and figured prominently in both the war against the French and the Americans. During the American War, about 16,000 Viet Cong lived in these tunnels - stretching from Saigon and back to the Cambodian border. The tunnels were several levels deep and served as kitchens, sleeping areas, and arsenals for the Viet Cong.

The tunnels were so well hidden that an American base was built right on top of them! And the soldiers could not figure out how the

Viet Cong could attack them at night. It was so frustrating to the Americans that they could not find the Cu Chi tunnels during ground operations that they resorted to massive firepower. The 420 sq km area of Cu Chi is considered "the most bombed, shelled, gassed, defoliated and generally devastated area in the history of warfare." The U.S. estimates that there is some 150,000 tonnes of unexploded ordinance still in Vietnam. Needless to say, we stayed on the well-worn track during our tour.

At one of the tunnel sites, tourists can shoot a M-16 for $1 a bullet. We met some Australian guys who had tried it. At first they just fired a couple shots, but then they asked for it to be set to automatic. It ate up $30 in the end, but they said it was worth it. They also told us that there is a place in Cambodia where you can fire a rocket launcher! Our guide showed us a tunnel and Don tried to fit inside, but the tunnels were very narrow and he got stuck. Now, they have an enlarged 100 meter stretch of tunnel for us to climb through and that was bad enough. It was very hot inside. The guide also showed was horrific booby traps made from bamboo and shrapnel that were used to catch American soldiers. We also had to sit through another badly edited video presentation that referred to Americans as "crazy imperialist bastards".

Our guide was very interesting. He was a translator for the American army during the War. But after defeat seemed eminent, he transferred to the South Vietnamese Army as a Seargent. He did this because after "reunification", former officers received 2-14 years in re-education camp, whereas lower ranks only received 5-7 days. He then returned home to Cu Chi where he farmed for 17 years. This must have been deadly in itself given all the defoliants dropped in that area.

We met many older men like our guide. As soon as they found out we were Americans, they shared their history with us. Many of the pedicab (bicycle rickshaws) drivers were South Vietnamese soldiers released from re-education camps.

Our guide did say that the majority of people were very disillusioned and unhappy with the communist government because promises were not kept. The Vietnamese must pay for educating their children and most cannot afford it. Health care is not free. During the War, the Vietnamese could get US $1 for 350 dong and now it is 12,000. But he also said the mood is changing since Vietnam opened up in 1989. Things are getting better.

The next tour we took was a 2-day trip to the Mekong Delta. This is south of Saigon and the most productive land in Vietnam. It provides all the rice the entire country needs plus some for export. It is also known for its canals and floating markets. We visited some cottage industries: a mat weaver, rice noodle maker, and tofu maker. The tofu maker was along the river and produced a delicacy that can only be described as "tofu scum". They scrape off the top scum formed on the tofu and roll it into strips. I refused to try it, and threw my piece to the dog, who also wouldn't eat it. Along the canal, there were children flying kites made from soda straws and saran wrap.

The tour had us booked in a hotel that must have been a former army barracks, so we didn't wait around to see which restaurant they were taking us to for dinner and instead hired a "motorcycle chariot". This was a motorcycle with a rickshaw welded on the back. A very iffy mode of transportation, but it got us into town. The children just loved us in town. They wanted us to pick them up, many just wanted to touch the hair on our arms (this seemed to be a continual fascination), and then comparisons were made between Don's goatee and that of Ho Chi Minh - whose effigy was never far away and in this case was in the form of 20 foot silver statue (he looked like the tin man). We played hackysack with the children, which they had made from a piece of plastic and a feather. But like in Saigon, many of the children were very poor and unkempt. After we would finish meals in restaurants, there would always be a child waiting to eat whatever leftovers there were. One time, we came out of a bakery and children mobbed us as we dove into a taxi, it became surrounded with screaming children. The poverty in Vietnam is the worst I have ever seen. We tried giving food away but it is never-ending.

We took a five-hour canal trip the next day. We went through the floating markets. This was National Geographic come alive. Everyone ran out of film. Each boat was selling or buying something. Whatever good they wanted was hung out on the front of the boat. Everyone was extremely friendly and happy to see us. I can say this for our whole trip to Vietnam. The people are the most pleasant and genuine that we met on our entire trip.

We also visited a snake market - snake is a delicacy here. No we didn't eat any snake. We also tried to walk across a "monkey bridge". This is a bridge the size of a two-by-four which people use to get across the canals here. It took us, with cameras and water bottles, so much time and concentration we became comical to watch. Then we headed back to Saigon.

Our story of Vietnam would not be complete without a word about the traffic. It is horrendous. No one has a license. The cops only stop cars in order to cull a bribe from them. It is mayhem. To top it all off, all Vietnamese drivers are "horn addicts". During our two-week stay, our various drivers were involved in no less than 4 accidents. During our trip back to Saigon from the Delta, our driver popped in a tape, Leonard Cohen's "Road to Hell" and that was just fine.

Our last day in Saigon, we visited Giac Lam Pagoda, the oldest pagoda in Saigon. This is definitely worth a visit. I've seen many temples, but I found this to be very calming. There are still monks living there, but it is most interesting for the mix of French and Vietnamese architecture and decor.

Nha Trang

We took our first ride on the "reunification express" train from Saigon to Nha Trang overnight. We booked a four berth room and shared it with a young Vietnamese family. All foreigners traveling in Vietnam pay 5 times what the natives do for train, bus, etc. That's the way it is. Fortunately, the sleeping arrangements weren't bad, except for the "Voice of Vietnam" blaring constantly. This is a propaganda station which airs 24 hours a day. We tried to turn it down or off, but they had removed the knobs. So, Don got out some masking tape and a pair of pliers and went to work, while our berth companions looked on, giggling nervously. Finally, it went off on its own until we were awakened by it at 3 am and I swear what was coming out was Santana's "Como Va".

Soon after, the train steward came in and yanked the blankets off us and minutes later we arrived at our destination. Once the train came to a halt, many beggar children ran on board to collect any leftover food. We had children trying to grab our stuff through the window and when I gave one girl some cake, a fight ensued with the others. It was crazy.

The reason we came to Nha Trang was for R&R. It is a beautiful white-sand beach resort. We headed down to the beach and rented a cushy lounge chair with shade canopy for $1 a day. We were then plied with food, drinks, and massages from sellers on the beach. We decided to try a Vietnamese massage ( $4 for 45 minutes). After the Thai massage experience, I knew to lay down the law first before we got started. The lady masseuse asked "Do you want

Kaka?" which I determined to mean cracking bones and I said "No ka ka " and after that everything went beautiful except for her opening move which was to dip her fingers in menthol oil then stick it up my nose. It cleared my sinus cold though. Don let her work all her magic and not only got "kaka", he also got his upper ear lobes cracked. Now, you didn't know that was possible, did you?

We couldn't leave Nha Trang without participating in a "Mama Hahn's Green Hat Boat Trip". This has become a well-known activity. It consists of spending the day on a boat, touring the islands off the Vietnam coast. But don't ask us about the islands, because we never left the boat.

Mama Hahn is 56 years of energy and wildness rolled up in the form of a petite women wearing a large green cowboy hat. Right away she laid down rules for trip " Listen up! This is your f---ed up Mama. Don't be lazy on my boat!

Beer is $1 but everything else is free, including me!" We drank mammoth amounts of beer and ate crab, prawns, fresh fruit and more. Whenever we stopped for a swim, Mama would throw all the lifesavers (the floats, not the candy) off the boat and we would jump in and just float for an hour drinking beer and listening to the rock and roll music blaring off the boat. We were lucky because the day we went on the boat a group of young Americans and Australians were on their third trip with Mama Hahn and were geared up for a big blowout. On our second stop, Mama Hahn gave us zinc oxide in blue, green, orange, and white and we all painted our faces as if going to war. Then we all floated on the water while she served us Mulberry wine and pineapple cocktails for her floating bar made from Styrofoam.

It was a wild day!

On the way back to port, we all climbed on the roof and danced and danced. One Danish girl played the guitar and made up a "Mama Hahn" song.

Danang/Hoi An

We went straight from the boat to the train station to catch our next overnight train to Danang. It was a hard berth we got on this trip and we shared the cabin with eight others. It was a horrible ride.

The worst was in the morning when they served us a breakfast (similar to what you would get on an airplane with plastic dishes and utensils and cups). After everyone finished the meal, a woman came around and open the window, took the trays, and dumped all the garbage out the window. I yelled at her for a good five minutes about the future and pollution and such but since no one spoke

English it didn't make any impact.

We came to Danang to meet, Cahn, a work friend of Don's who was home visiting his family. It was his last day and there was a party planned for him so we were very lucky. We tried many traditional Vietnamese foods such as fresh raw spring rolls and eel soup. Cahn's father in-law was a major in the

South Vietnamese army during the "American War" and spent many years in a re-education camp. Now he lives in California. We could barely move after the feast, so Cahn arranged a driver to take us to Hoi An , a town 30 minutes away.

Hoi An is the new travelers mecca. This is the only town that the government has designated as an historical area and barred cars from driving through the old streets. It is also known for tailored clothes - cheap tailored clothes. So once again we had clothes made. Don got a suit and silk shirts and I had some shirts made. A silk tailored shirt costs about $5 to 10 and is ready in a few hours. The amazing thing is that they still use manual foot-pump sewing machines and their irons are the kind where you first heat up coals, then place them in the bottom of the 5 lb. iron. I felt so strange watching these women toiling late in order to make me a $5 silk shirt that I decided I would give each one a big tip. Well this went over like a lead balloon, and I am still not sure what I did wrong. Maybe it challenged the establishment, I don't know.

Outside of Hoi An, we visited My Son, a Champa intellectual and religious site from the 4th century. The Champa people were driven out of the area by the Vietnamese long ago. My Son is the most important Cham site and is equal to Angkor Wat in Cambodia or Borobudur in Indonesia. The Champa were incredible stone carvers. The designs are very detailed and intricate. Originally there were 68 structures there. Unfortunately, many were pillaged and destroyed over the years. During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong used My Son as a base, so the Americans bombed the monuments with B-52s (you can still see the craters). The area was also extensively mined and too many Vietnamese have been killed trying to clear the mines so now they just let cows graze in the area. The cows are sometimes blown up, making it progressively less and less dangerous (for people). We stayed very close to the paths here, too. When we were leaving the site, passing the guards, their dog started barking and running toward the ruins, and the soldiers became agitated and one ran and got his AK-47 and lit out after the dog in the direction of the other tourists, we headed the other direction.

Back in town, we visited lanes with old French homes and watched the sunset on the river. There were two men trying to stuff an enormous sow in a basket to take to market and the thing was making a noise that would raise the dead.

A little girl, who spoke excellent English, was trying to convince me to have more clothes tailored at her Mom's shop, and a little schoolboy was begging for a ballpoint pen to do his schoolwork, and when I gave one to him, he danced for joy and then ran away.

Hanoi

We gave up on trains and tried flying to Hanoi. Like always we had to pay a departure tax at the airport. Behind the counter there was a sign "All must pay departure tax except diplomats and people lying unconscious on a stretcher". So we paid. The plane was an Airbus and very nice. The Hanoi airport is about 45 minutes from Hanoi, so you have to bargain hard to find a reasonably priced taxi. We ended up sharing a taxi with two Norwegian women. With all our luggage it was very cramped and to top it off our cheap taxi driver wanted to pocket two extra dollars by not paying the tolls and so when we past the booth he didn't stop to pay but raced through! The police guard was banging on the side of our car and ran after us. Then the driver took the back roads to avoid anymore tolls. It was a nightmarish trip. Swerving, honking, braking, speeding, more honking. We were happy to get to our hotel.

There were alot of funny signs in Vietnam. In our Hanoi Hotel, posted on the back of our door, it read "No explosives, weapons, radio activity, stinking inflammable objects (they left out comma here) can be brought into the hotel, if so, they must be left a the front desk." Grumbling, we left our Plutonium with the desk clerk.

Hanoi was much quieter and more "French" than Saigon. But in the end, all the sights of Hanoi came 'round to the founding father, Ho Chi Minh. We went to the Ho Chi Minh Museum which was basically a collection of things like Uncle Ho's plate and cup, Uncle Ho's corrected speeches, Uncle Ho's childhood home, etc.

Our pedicab driver came into the museum with us and reverently stopped at all the exhibits. But we had had enough and headed down the stairs and towards the exit. But, on the way, we saw a sign "traditional music room" so we followed it down a hall of offices and into a room. There we found four ladies all dressed in traditional costume waiting to give us a concert after serving us tea. Then they put traditional straw hats on our heads, gave us a rose, and took our picture. We felt thoroughly cultured at that point.

That night we went to see a traditional water puppet show. This art was started as a past time for rice farmers when their fields flooded. The puppeteers stand in waist deep water for an hour manipulating brightly colored puppets. It was quite good. In one scene they had dragons swimming and shooting fireworks from their noses.

We got back late to the hotel and I sent Don out for some water. Our room was on the 5th floor and there are no elevators in hotels here until you get to the five-star level. On the way back, Don was asked by a pedicab driver if he wanted "boom-boom". Prostitution is rampant here. It is particularly amusing if you think back to Jane Fonda's Hanoi radio address when, after spending one week in North Vietnam, she proclaimed how happy everyone was and that there is no prostitution or corruption here. That's right Jane, our guidebook says the police in Vietnam are the best money can buy! Unfortunately that behavior has trickled down to the masses. Nothing outrageous, but we suffered a lot of "skimming" off our foreign exchange rates and extra charges on our hotel bills. Luckily "Don the human calculator" was able to catch most discrepancies and depart a few arithmetic lessons in the process.

TV watching was pretty limited in Vietnam. CNN was edited to death and all foreign language TV shows and movies were dubbed over with a single monotone woman's voice.

Our last tour we was to Halong Bay. This Bay was featured in the new Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies" (where the stealth ship is found). It was also featured in the movie "Indochine". We took a five-hour cruise around the Bay which has 3,000 plus limestone islets and explored caves and grottoes. The town itself is full of hotels. All narrow three to four story buildings. The property in

Vietnam is taxed by frontage width , most buildings are therefore skinny and tall.

Our last day in Hanoi we went to visit Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum where you can see him in his final resting place inside a glass sarcophagus. The mausoleum is closed three months a year while Ho Chi Minh's body is sent to Russia for maintenance. Luckily it was opened for us. Outside the building are many guards and inside a guard stands at each corner of the sarcophagus. The visit consists of one turn around the glass case and out again. It took about fifteen minutes, but there are strict rules to follow: You cannot wear shorts or tank tops. Nothing can be taken inside including cameras. A respectful demeanor must be maintained at all times. It is forbidden to put your hands in your pockets. And, although not posted, it would be considered very bad form to tap one of the guards on the shoulder and ask "Is he dead?"

Our last stop was the Temple of Literature founded in 1070 for the study of Confucianism. It was the place Emperors of Vietnam got their education and when you graduate, your name is carved on a stone stelae.

There was not much left to do before we left in Vietnam. We did last minute shopping and had our laundry done so as to arrive in Hong Kong with some dignity. After we picked up our big stack of laundry, we were heading back to our hotel when a man offered us $100 for our clothes.

It was just some old boxers and socks so we considered it - but what we do without our clothes!?

For our last meal in Vietnam., we found a warm little French creperie and had some wine and played alittle chess and thought " just one country left before we go home".

Love to all!

-don & karen

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