We left Hue after my super-cool elephant ride through the ornate, yet misogynistic Citadel, and headed for Hoi An by bus. We drove highway 1A which took us along the coast and through some imposing mountain landscapes. The weather was moody and dark, with occasional clear breaks of sunshine through the clouds which made the scenery even more spectacular and thunderously atmospheric. We stopped briefly, just outside Danang, at a particularly sublime view-point and happened to arrive at the same time that a dragon was dancing to some drum music in celebration of the new moon and mid-autumn festival. We ran (or rather I flip-flip skidded, tripped and fumbled) back to the bus when the heavens opened, cradling my beautiful camera as if it were made of rice paper. Continuing on through Danang, which is the city where the first, and many subsequent American Marines landed during the war, we didn't have time to stop, but out guide did tell us about the notoriety associated with the city. In the 1970s a number of children, fathered by American soldiers were born. Because of their lighter skin, blonde hair or other western features, they were commonly rejected by their communities and abandoned by their mothers because of the stigma; especially in cases where the mother had (re)married. At the end of the 1980s these "children of the dust" were permitted to resettle in the West, because of this alienation and mistreatment.
The hotel we stayed in, in Hoi An, I am convinced, is Australia's Benidorm, complete with building works and a surplus of over-exposed beer-bellies. There is, however, far too much to do in this quaint little city and the surrounding area to spend much time poolside, thankfully. Apart from the requisite sightseeing, I spent my time in two extremely engaging activities; shopping and visiting the ancient temple ruins on My Son (pronounced "mee sun") 55km outside of the city. There are well over 300 tailors in Hoi An and most of them are very friendly, reasonably priced and tempt you inside their shops with a display of beautiful dresses, coats, suits and everything pretty. These two days were without doubt, the most expensive of my travels yet and cannot afford to be repeated, but I was very practical and had some gorgeous suits tailored for when I start at White & Case LLP in February, and also a little something whipped together for Emily's wedding next year (!!!!!!!!) There is no space left in my backpack and so it's all been shipped home in preparation for my other, future, life, when instead of learning the Vietnamese for "no cilantro in my pho please" I will be learning how to 'do' full time work. All of a sudden Vietnamese doesn't seem that tricky.
The ruins and runes at My Son were fascinating in themselves and our local guide was very informative, but having no previous knowledge about the 8th century kingdom of Champa, I didn't have much of a context for what I was seeing. The ancient temples formed an intellectual and religious complex for the elite classes between the 8th - 12th centuries. They are found close to Hon Quap Mountain in a humid and dense jungle valley. During the war, American intelligence indicated that the Viet Cong (VC - communist) was using this temple complex as a base for their operations. Consequently B52s destroyed at least 2/3rds of the structures, and walking around the area many, many bomb craters are still visible and form as much of the landscape as the uncleared piles of rubble, that used to stand proud as a place of worship.
I've been reading/listening to a lot of Vietnamese and American war literature (and Agatha Christie!) since I have been over here, in an attempt to understand the war more fully from a more human and less militaristic perspective. This has had much more of an affect on me that I bargained for, and walking around the jungle at My Son, the environment in which both the American troops and VC had to live and fight, was a very vivid and inexplicably scary and devastating experience. I felt further confused because the jungle we were in was so beautiful and peaceful and I felt really elated when I heard the thunder sound and felt the gust of wind rattle through the trees, but then again, saddened by the glimpses of destruction everywhere we walked.
This experience was echoed a few days later when we visited the Mekong Delta and tunnels at Cu Chi. The Mekong Delta I initially found disappointing and much like a tourist theme park. This theme park did enable me to sample and see coconut candy being made, hold a 5ft snake and taste fresh honey straight from a bee hive (the woman took my finger and unexpectedly prodded it straight into the hive still swarming with bees...) and so it was a certain kind of organised fun, but I wanted rural and authentic, and it didn't seem like we were going to be there long enough to get beyond tourist-land. I was less disappointed when we arrived at our homestay, which this time consisted of (thankfully a lot less rice wine) and some camp beds erected under a palm leaf shelter...in the jungle!! To get to the homestay we drove in a trailer attached to the back of a motorbike down the dusty roads and along jungle paths, being thrown around over the bumps and frequently ducking under overhanging palm branches, which hit me in the face more than once and taught me, the painful way, the benefit of admiring the scenery ahead, and not just around you. This 40 minute ride was fantastically fun and a definite highlight of this last week, as was sleeping and waking up in the jungle. As exhilarated and over-excited as I was, as I drifted off that night I did wonder what it would be like to be sleeping in boots and uniform under an army-issued poncho, and not under a mosquito net and roof, in quite the same jungle.
The next day we visited the tunnels at Cu Chi. It’s worth a quick read of this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/720577.stm but in short, the Viet Cong (VC - communist) constructed a 250km underground tunnel network, over three levels, in which over 16,000 (figures differ per source) people lived, cooked, hid and fought during the war. Aside from the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, this was the most hard-hitting and sobering insight into the war I have experienced. The tunnels are, again, in the jungle, but further south and close to Saigon. The VC would stay in the tunnel networks in the day and engage in jungle warfare by night. Everything I saw was brutal and inhumane. The VC frequently constructed booby-traps around the jungle, which invariably would skewer their victims on a number of sharpened spikes, with a hooked head coated with poison. Walking around, our guide pointed out a number of traps, all so cleverly disguised and hidden that we would walk straight past them. The traps in actuality, only killed about 100 soldiers (and a lot of dogs) but they were so barbaric, torturous and well disguised that they played an important part in psychological warfare, and terrified me, let alone a young American soldier patrolling around an alien and unrelentingly hot jungle.
The tunnels themselves were equally terrifying because they were so small. I lowered myself down through the entrance of one and my ribs scraped the sides. Once I was down I couldn't turn or breathe deeply and it felt so constricted that I was too scared to drop down to my knees and actually go into the tunnel. Instead I posed for a cutsie-tourist snap and hurriedly lifted myself out.
One set of the tunnels have been widened to accommodate western tourists crawling through them, and as with the actual VC tunnels, go deeper over three levels. I completed the first level only, and found it very intense and scary. Inside the tunnel it is very hot, and so dark that you have to feel your way along with your hands on the dirt walls. The tunnel is also tiny, and shoulder width in more than one place. I bailed after level one, and after scrambling up the stairs into the safety of the sunlight, I was pouring with sweat and my heart was pounding ferociously and my breathing shallow. That the VC lived in tunnels narrower than this epitomises their unparalleled resilience and bravery, especially when you read the statistic that of 16,000 people who started living in the tunnel network, only 6,000 survived the war.
Prior to the Mekong and Cu Chi tunnels, I had visited the War Remnants Museum in Saigon. I am not a very emotional person, and have always tended to read history as objectively and analytically as I can, but this museum broke me. For over three hours I read accounts, studied photographs and viewed artifacts that brought me right up to the limit of what I could absorb and engage with. I left the museum feeling hollowed out, physically sick and utterly devastated. This heavily influenced the next few days traveling, and continues to do so, in a quieter way.
The last week has influenced my experiences and impressions of Vietnam. The harshness and militaristically communist feel of the North makes sense in the context of the history and barbaric fight. This is a beautiful country, with a complex psyche and a sublimely majestic and breathtaking landscape – but it is not a country that you can take a face value, or with and objective “understanding” of it’s history.
I have less than a week left in Vietnam, and I have traveled north a bit from Saigon to a city called Dalat for some down-time. The climate here is much cooler, and just outside the town are miles and miles of evergreen forests, which are lush, deep green and beautiful – a refreshing change from the tropical jungles and tropical heat. Tomorrow I am going 'canyoning' which has something to do with abseiling down waterfalls? It sounds terrifying and exciting in equal part and I can't wait. Apart from this it is too rainy and slippy to trek up the volcanic and forested mountains and the government have drained the pretty lake in the centre, so I plan on doing very little else, except reading up on the next big adventure: China! I definitely haven’t always felt like this, but I’ll be quite sad to leave Vietnam – especially because speaking a little Vietnamese, which is expected in Hanoi, gets you free ice-cream in Saigon!
