Seasons on the Move

Hanoi – October 1

After picking up our passports at the Indian embassy, we spent the majority of the day sitting in cafes drinking coffee and sipping cold drinks. We did, however, manage to take in a water puppet show in the afternoon. At first, I had no idea how the puppets were being manipulated. They seemed to magically float on top of the water. The stork in the second act gave the secret away. I could see the strings dangling from his beak. If I had had any common sense, I would have figured it out right away. I mean, they’re puppets after all. Still, I felt like a mystified child for the first little while. After I figured it out, the show became monotonous, but the traditional Vietnamese musical accompaniment remained fabulous.

At night, we dined roadside at a pho stall and then crossed the street to drink a couple of bia hois. An old woman in flower printed pyjamas pulled yellow beer out a silver keg for a little over fifteen cents a glass. We sat and drank our beer, took in the ambience of the Old Quarter for one last time and then returned to the hotel to prepare for our departure to Thailand the following morning.

Hanoi – September 30

We were up by 7am and ejected from our rooms by eight. So much for the two day excursion. The trip lasted barely twenty hours by the time we got off the boat. We spent the ride back to the harbour talking about traveling with an English couple and a group of lovely Americans from Grand Rapids, Michigan. We made some recommendations to the English couple as they were planning to visit Canada and Mexico in the coming months. Somewhat unwisely, they were planning to visit Canada in January and February in order to get the ‘real Canadian experience’. “Trust me,” Fab replied,”That’s one experience you can do without.”

Once on shore, we had lunch in a restaurant filled with Vietnamese businessmen downing bottles of Vodka Hanoi. It was 11am. The scene was chaotic. The group moved from table to table, arms wrapped around each other singing songs in unison and filling the restaurant with blue cigarette smoke.

Back in town, we checked into our hotel, had a dinner that took more than an hour to arrive at our table and then walked around the Old Quarter snapping photos as we went.  

Hanoi – Halong Bay – September 29

We got stuffed into a mini-van with another fifteen travellers just after 8am. The ride out to Halong Bay took about four hours and included an obligatory stop at a souvenir shop. I read “The Father of All Things” for most of the way. When we arrived at the pier, our group merged with another group and then got herded onto a jetty boat that took us out to the “Halong Phoenix Cruiser”, our rig for the trip.

When we boarded the Cruiser, we were given an overview of the activities for the next two days. Activities? What activities? Fab and I purposely booked a boat that would provide peace and tranquility. “Alex”, our Vietnamese guide for the trip, talked to the group as if we were children. He spoke into a microphone that had the reverb and volume cranked even though we were in a room no more than thirty feet long.

When he was done, we were served a decent meal and then sat in the harbour for close to two hours. Fab and I made awkward conversation with a German couple now living in Brussels. Daniel, the man, worked for the European Union Solar Power Commission. His girlfriend, Lisa, was a banker. By the time the boat started to move we were out of conversation topics and it was nearly 3pm, far later than the scheduled twelve o’clock departure time. 

Once the boat left, Fab and I went up to the top deck to lounge around, take in some sun and read our books. What should have been relaxing was turned gratingly annoying by a loud mouth Canadian girl and her dude boyfriend. I had noticed these disposable human beings when boarding the boat (they came on a different bus) because they had over-sized, obnoxious Canadian flags on their backpacks. The girl had a mouth like a sailor and spit out such eloquent gems as “Fuckin’ rights I’m havin’ a beer. I’m Canadian!” and “I’m gonna get shit-faced in Thailand. Full moon party? Fuckin’ eh.” Her boyfriend just grunted in agreement, chain smoked and tanned his waxed gym body while doing his best to keep his neatly coiffed, yet slighty mussed, faux-hawk from getting damaged by the breeze.

Despite the blow-hard Canadians, the bay was wonderful if not a little overrun with tourist boats. Limestone karst formations shot out of the water with irregularity like deformed teeth in a crooked smile. It was nice to be out in the water floating along, not having to side step motorcycles and holes in the pavement.

Then the boat stopped. Alex came on deck and ordered everyone to get off. We were going ashore to see a cave. I didn’t want to go since I never asked to be part of a tour when I booked the boat trip. “You have five minutes,” Alex informed me. Fab and I relented and gathered our things. When the boat came to a complete stop, various other small boats surrounded the Cruiser selling water, beer and snacks. Fab and I tried to purchase some beer to avoid the exhorbent prices on board, but when we were handing over our cash, Alex came running up to tell us that this was forbidden and anything we brought on board would be confiscated. By now, I had had enough of this jerk-off. I have an intense dislike for authority, especially the kind that has no right to be authoritative. “I will make it my mission to make you hate me,” I thought to myself as Alex led me to the boat waiting to take us to the cave.

The caves were exactly what I had imagined, which is to say that they were caves. Alex gave us a stern warning to stick together as a group because, in his mind, someone could get easily lost on a clearly marked path that led only in one direction. Fab and I immediately disobeyed, not wanting to listen to what was sure to be a boring tour given in Alex’s broken english. We walked ahead of the group and chatted about our families and what things we missed most since being gone. I missed my pillows, Fab missed the cat and both of us missed cooking for ourselves.

We met up with the group back at the boat and returned to the Cruiser to prepare for a kayaking excursion around the bay. Once inside the kayak, Alex singled me out in front of the tour group and told me, “Wait for me out in the bay. You follow me. Understand?” I just stared back blankly at him. “Are you listening? You do what I tell you,” he continued. “Why?” I asked petulantly. “Because I say so. You do not listen well. You listen to me now or no go,” his voice laced with disdain. “Whatever,” I said as we backed away from the dock in the kayak.  

Out in the bay, Alex cruised past us and out of sight. Fab and I struggled to keep up to the pack, having never been in a kayak before. We managed all right after a while, but at first we blamed each other for our slanted progression. For some reason, the kayak always wanted to go to the right. I tried to coordinate our strokes by yelling, “Left! Right! Left! Right!” This did not help. Instead, we just rowed twice on the left and once on the right in our comedic attempt to go straight. On the way back to the dock, Alex passed us once again. By now, the sun had begun to set and we were rowing in the growing darkness. We made it to the dock, exhausted and sweaty, just as the sun disappeared for the night.

Upon returning to the boat, we were met with the thumping of awful trance music that wouldn’t have been out of place on a mid-nineties dance music compilation. Apparently, the Halong Phoenix Cruiser doubled as a night club. The wooden walls of our cabin shook from the repetitve bass line. I couldn’t help but think how the older Kiwi couple must have been feeling, seeing that they had booked two nights on the boat to celebrate their twenty fifth wedding anniversary.

Thankfully, after dinner the music stopped. Fab and I sat on the top deck under the full moon, the karsts still visible in pale moonlight, and discussed our Vietnam experience with Daniel and Lisa. Now, the conversation flowed. Funny what a few beers and a mutual love for traveling can do to a group of people with relatively nothing in common.

When the lights went out for the night, the rats came out to play. Fab and I heard violent scratching underneath the floor boards and throughout the walls. We stomped on the floor to try and get the vermin to move along, but all this did was excite them. We spent the rest of the night listening to the fuckers participate in a rodent track meet or, perhaps more accurately, a rat race.    

Hanoi – September 28

We got up at the crack of dawn to go and pay our respects to Ho Chi Minh’s corpse. Mao was out of town getting some work done while we were in Beijing so we figured we’d visit  Uncle Ho’s mausoleum. There is something oddly compelling about the Communist affinity for mummification. It’s must be a Russian thing, first Lenin then Stalin. Poor Khushcev and Brezhnev got the shaft on that one.

From what I have read as well as heard about Ho Chi Minh since being in Vietnam, he seems closer in ideology to Castro than he does to Stalin or Mao. In other words, he seemed to genuinely care about the general welfare of his people. Sure, Castro has tossed some dissidents in jail and kicked the shit out of a few others, but Cuba has over a 95% literacy rate, high life expectancy and a good health care system. In fact, Ho Chi Minh is the only communist leader to publicly apologize for famine caused by land reform and re-distribution. I mean, he actually apoligized. According to Tom Bissell’s “The Father of All Things”, Ho also spoke seven languages, had over twenty aliases and loved volleyball.  As one Vietnamese man said in Bissell’s book, “My family hated the Communists, but we have deep respect for Ho Chi Minh. It’s complicated.”

We took a cyclo over to the mausoleum only to find that it was closed for the day. Since the cyclo had cost us a couple of bucks, we decided to make the most of the trip and walk around a little. We passed some soliders marching half-heartedly in oversized green and red uniforms. At the end of the marching formation, young soldiers poked each other in an attempt to throw off the lock-step. I wondered, were these the type of Vietnamese that outlasted the Americans? Or were these children of a new generation, softened by “tolerant capitalism” and ignorant of their country’s past struggles?

We ended up passing the Canadian Embassy and decided to stop. Recently, I had noticed that I was running out of pages in my passport due to poor visa placement. I wanted to ask if it was possible to get additional pages added. The guard at the front would not admit me because I did not have any identification with me. I informed him that my visa was with the Indian embassy. He didn’t seem to care. He did, however, let Fab through the embassy gates because she was carrying an expired Saskatchewan driver’s license. Why she had this with her in Vietnam I’ll never know. Anyway, she went in and asked some questions for me while I sat on the side of the road and got stared at by the guard.

Later, we went for a stroll around Hoan Kiem lake in the south end of the Old Quarter. There is a small pagoda in the center of the water connected to the boardwalk by a red bridge. The pagoda was fairly unimpressively and was filled with loud Australians wearing ball caps and hiking boots. We stayed for only a brief while and then set off to try and book a tour for the following day to Halong Bay, about three hours east of Hanoi.

We ended up booking a two day tour for a fairly reasonable price. Stories abound about people getting ripped off on Halong tours, but the place we booked at, The Culi Cafe, seemed liked a reputable joint and the people who staffed it were friendly. To top it off, they offered a free breakfast in the restaurant before the commencement of the trip. We made a down payment, had dinner and then retired for the evening.  

Hanoi – September 27

My immune system, usually a fortress of fortitude against things as petty as germs, must have been seriously compromised in Nha Trang because I was laid down for the count for most of the day with a hacking cough and a sore throat. Fortunately for me, I had enough cold medication to dope myself up properly.    

By the time the sun went down, I was feeling a little better. The tight phlegm that had threatened to strangle me earlier in the day had begun to expel itself from my body cavity. I pumped in some more pills and went down to the street corner to grab a bite to eat. Fab and I hunched over bowls of hot pho, chatted and waved off hawkers selling photocopied versions of Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American”, Robert McNamara’s “In Retrospect”, and other books of particular interest to Western tourists.

Hanoi – September 26

Fab and I spent the day discovering the narrow lanes of the Old Quarter. Leafy trees hung down over the road providing patches of shade from the sun. Scooters and motorcycles whizzed down the streets and darted in between gawking tourists and the slower cyclos. On every corner, like elsewhere in Vietnam, moto drivers leaned on their bikes trying to solicit rides. Vietnamese men and women, squatted on tiny stools, sat around slurping pho and downing bia hoi (fresh beer) out of plastic cups. Others gobbled meat off of wooden skewers being cooked on make-shift charcoal grills.

By the time the afternoon rolled around, the sky had clouded over and heavy rain began to fall. We hopped between awnings to avoid being soaked. We gave up after a while and ducked into some of the many pirated dvd shops to browse and wait out the rain. I wasn’t aware of this, but apparently Vietnam is not subject to international copyright laws. In all of the shops, there were box sets consisting of sometimes random collections of up to 45 films on as little as two discs. Some of the sets on sale:

Overwhelming USA Action Movie

Champion List on Action Hit

Erogenous Beanty [sic] League (Films of Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Meg    Ryan and Catherine Zeta Jones)

Global Superb Violence Movie

Denzel Washington: Hero Being Black

Morgan Freeman: Super Black Film Star

Tom Cruise: Bold and Passional [sic]

Nic Cage: Cafard and Wild [sic]

I passed on the above titles, but did manage to pick up a Woody Allen collection containing all of his films for five dollars. Fab picked up the Almodovar collection for three bucks.

Hanoi – September 25

We got off the bus reeking like the B.O. blankets and our bodies full of cramps from the night’s sleep. Despite being uncomfortable and a smelly, the fare for the bus was worth more than what we would have paid had we traveled by train.

After finding a hotel, we went to the Indian embassy to try and obtain our visas. In a week, we were due to arrive in Mumbai. The application was a painless process. The man who processed our visas inquired with Fabiola about immigrating to Canada. He also seemed entralled that Fab was from Mexico. Throughout our trip, Fab has been somewhat of a novelty. Apparently, not many Mexicans travel the way we have been traveling. Her passport is always a source of fascination for people.

We tried to walk back to our hotel, but got lost. The map we the hotel gave us added to our confusion. However, we did pass by the Hanoi Hilton, an actual Hilton hotel, not the infamous prison for American POWs. After a lot of backtracking and squabbling, we found the hotel. I made some comment about men having a better sense of direction than women. Fab did not take kindly to this comment.

Hue to Hanoi – September 24

We went to the Citadel mid-morning, another one of Vietnam’s UNESCO World Heritage sites. Hue was the capital of Vietnam, at least in name, until 1945 and the Citadel was the center of the government. The city was also the main battleground for the Tet Offensive (other fighting occured in Saigon and in other major South Vietnam cities) in 1968. After the Tet Offensive, Hue was held by the communists for a few days, the only South Vietnam city during the war that they controlled. Something I didn’t know: the Vietnam portion of Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” takes place in Hue and the Citadel.

Fab and I walked around the Citadel grounds for a couple of hours, taking our time and enjoying the peace it provided from the noise of the city. The site was basically destroyed during the Tet Offensive. There were pock marks from bullets on most of the walls within the compound while other portions of the site were completely levelled by mortars.

After bidding farewell to Lan, we boarded the sleeper bus to Hanoi. The bus consisted of 3/4 reclined bunk beds and televisions projecting Vietnamese music videos. The beds were cramped, but much more comfortable than I had expected. The bed sheets were a different story. It took me a moment to realize where the smell was coming from, but after snuggling up, I found that the odour was not from my armpits or feet, but rather from the blanket. I tried my best to take shallow breaths for the rest of the evening.

The DMZ - September 23

During the ride out to Dong Ha, where we were scheduled to pick up our tour guide, the driver, Quang, blasted synthesized instrumental versions of 1960’s pop music over the van’s distorted speakers. The songs were strung together like some bizarro karaoke medley. Quang eyed us in the rear view mirror as he smoked cigarettes and sucked coffee out of a small plastic bag with a straw. Lan rode shotgun and did his best to communicate to our non-English speaker driver through hand signals.

Our guide, Yien, a middle aged man with long salt and pepper hair and a toothless grin, grew up near the DMZ. He was seventeen when the war ended which meant that he narrowly avoided being drafted by the South Vietnamese Army. His brother was a lieutenant who fought for the south and, after the war ended, was sent for re-education. I asked Yien if he knew of any VC in his village during the war. His response: “Of course, everyone did, but we never said anything because if we did we would have been killed.” On a side note, the term “VC” or ”Viet Cong” is actually a derogatory term for a communist similar to the English language usage of “pinko” or “commie”.

After we left Dong Ha, we headed east on Highway 9 toward the Laotian border. Our first stop was at The Rockpile, a Marine Corps lookout that Yien said constantly shelled the area throughout the war. Nothing remained at the sight except for, well, a pile of rocks. Then we headed to Dakrong Bridge, significant because on the other side of the bridge was part of the Ho Chi Minh trail, now a paved highway leading to the border.

Next up was the Khe Sahn Combat Base. On January 21, 1968 there was a 75 day siege on the base that laid waste to 500 US soldiers, 10,000 North Vietnamese troops and god knows how many civilians. The soil around the area is, to this day, still unusuable due to the napalm, white-phosphorus shells and mortars that were used during the fight. The interesting part of the bloody battle was that it was a decoy by the NVA to draw attention away from the forthcoming Tet Offensive. At Khe Sahn, the American military was prepared for the fight. The Tet Offensive, however, caught them off guard.

Around the compound there were downed American helicopters and re-created sand bag bunkers. A quaint musuem displayed communist propaganda and various small arms used by the NVA in defeating the “American Imperialists”. Outside the musuem, a young Vietnamese man tried to sell me American dog-tags and North Vietnamese combat medals, all of which Yien maintained were real. I had my doubts.

When we completed the sights along Highway 9, we turned around and retreated back to Highway 1 which lead north to the DMZ. On the way, Lan asked Yien, “So, when the Chinese invaded after the war, you guys kicked their fucking ass, right?” Yien replied and nodded with a toothless smirk, “Of course.” Lan followed up by asked Yien if the Vietnamese people felt abandoned after the US pulled out. “No,” Yien said confidently, “we felt liberated.” He went on, “Only the people in the cities, mostly Saigon, felt abandoned and that was because they made money off of the Americans. To us, living out in the country, we had nothing. You have to understand, Vietnam belongs to the Vietnamese. All through our history we have had many foreign countries interfere. We have defeated them all.”  

Yien also told us that Vietnam had been at war for over forty years, starting with the Japanese invasion during World War II, continuing with the French shortly thereafter, then the Americans, Cambodians and Chinese. It was not until 1986 that Vietnam had some sembelence of peace.

The DMZ itself was not much to look at, just a large swath of green land dividing what used to be North and South Vietnam. Yien informed me that before the war with the Americans had started, Canada had peace keeping troops patrolling the area. Once the Americans arrived, he said, Canada left.   

As we continued on to the Vinh Moc tunnels, Lan began to run off his mouth. The man was a walking contridiction. He would say things like:

(To Fabiola) – So would you be considered a spic?

Fabiola: That’s a derogatory term.

Lan: I know, but who would you consider a spic? I mean, you don’t look like a spic. I mean, I would never have guessed that you were from Mexico.

Fabiola: You’d better ask someone who uses words like that, not me.

OR

(To both Fab and I)

My friend has this Filipino girlfriend and she told me before I came that I should watch out for the Vietnamese because they were no better than niggers. Personally, I don’t see it. I think the Vietnamese are basically nice people.

OR 

Abu Ghraib? Big deal. That type of shit happens during fraternity hazings all the time back in the US.

Then he would say stuff like:

Our country is completely unable to learn from its mistakes. I mean, look at our history. We haven’t learned shit.

OR

I wish more Americans would travel outside our country, that way we could get some perspective on why the world views us the way they do. It’s just that our government makes us fear other people.

The Vinh Moc tunnels were frightening. Not because the tunnels were dark and claustrophobic, but because people actually lived in them for years. There are 2.8km of tunnels at Vinh Moc, some more than 50m underground. Inside the tunnels there were living quarters, a meeting room, a kitchen, a medic room and even a room for watching films about the war’s progress.

We spent close to a half hour underground and that was more than enough for me. Ten years? I tell you, after spending a couple weeks in Vietnam, these people are tough motherfuckers.  

Hoi An to Hue – September 22

Our clothing was delivered to the hotel just after 7am. We had a quick breakfast and then got on the bus bound for Hue, an approximately four hour trip. Not surprisingly, the bus stopped after an hour of travel time so we could patronize a cafe. Forced pit stops at restaurants are a staple of South East Asian travel.

We arrived in Hue and were met with a torrential downpour. The rain we had been lucky enough to avoid so far on our trip had caught up with us over the past week. While Fab went to rest in the hotel room, I braved the storm and headed out to try and book a tour to the DMZ the following day. Accompanying me was Lan, an good ole boy from Pensacola, Florida. We had met in the hotel reception and found that we both wanted to go on a tour with small group of people rather than a large package tour. Lan, whose full name is Lancaster, had come to Vietnam with the sole purpose of visiting the DMZ. He was the type of guy who worships guns, loves his country but hates his government, and thinks killing stuff is awesome. He had even went as far as to get a VC uniform tailor made in Hoi An. Despite his brash exterior, he was a nice guy who, like a lot of Americans, simply doesn’t edit what comes out of his mouth.

Lan initially wanted to book a tour with an ex-VC soldier, but this proved to be too difficult. Instead, we settled on a experienced tour guide who lived through the war in the DMZ area. However, we did manage to get a personal mini-bus for the day for just the three of us.