While traveling in Cambodia we had met a fellow traveler who had just spent two months in Vietnam. His biggest piece of advice to us was “get out of Saigon as fast as you can!” We didn’t see what all the fuss was about. We loved Saigon. We learned a few things in there. We learned how to cross a street amidst a steady stream of buzzing mopeds by stepping off the curb and moving at a predictable pace allowing the mopeds to spill around us like water around a boulder. It worked like magic. Lisa honed her skills haggling with the gnarliest of shopkeepers. When a shopkeeper quoting outrageous prices was placed between Lisa and a beautiful silk purse I would stand back as the princess became a ruthless dragon, gnashing her teeth and breathing fire until victory was hers. We reluctantly resisted the urge to load up on all the inexpensive silk items we encountered in Saigon as we had planned to make the pilgrimage to Hoi An, a shopping Mecca, mid-way through our month long adventure from south to north along the reunification express railway. Traveling the length of Vietnam would become the most frazzling portion of our entire trip to date.

It was day 126 of our yearlong adventure when we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, more commonly known as Saigon. From the airport we took a taxi to Pham Ngu Lao, the Khao San Road of Saigon. It had been two weeks since we had any real civilization in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Our first critical task was to scout out the American embassy and have pages added to our passports as Lisa had filled hers with stamps and stickers from the various countries through which we had passed.

At lunch we met a sullen college graduate from Marin who couldn’t find a job back home with his recent college degree so he decided to hit the road and teach English in Vietnam. His body language and heavy sighs spoke louder than his words when he said he wasn’t enjoying it. We wished him well and found the US embassy. It was a fortress. Proud of our new thicker passports we wandered the streets of Saigon to see the sights.

The following day we signed up for a tour of the Cao Dai temple and the Cu Chi tunnels outside of Saigon. Cao Daism is a religion that was founded in the 1920’s. Followers believe that Winston Churchill, Jesus Christ, Confuscius, Moses, Louis Pastuer, Charlie Chaplin, Sun Yatsen and Victor Hugo are all agents of the “all-seeing” Divine Eye. The religion mixes Confucian, Buddhist, Taoist and Christian beliefs with a garnish of Islam. It is, shall we say, different. We reserved our judgments and marveled at the elaborate noontime prayer ceremony. Before the “War of American Agression” Cao Dai followers numbered in the millions and maintained an army of 20,000 troops. It is estimated that 7 million Vietnamese follow the religion today.

The tunnels at Cu Chi provided a more interactive adventure. These were the tunnels the VietCong used to launch guerilla attacks in Saigon. The tunnel network was incredibly elaborate but the tunnels themselves were little more than narrow passageways through the clay and dirt. The shameless propaganda film we watched prior to climbing down into the tunnels was a real eye-opener. “Why would these aggressors from America want to hurt these poor little farmers who just wanted to be happy?” It was a view from the other-side counter balancing the propaganda fed to me in my weekly reader in early grade school.

Our tour guide was a re-educated former soldier for the South who had been forced to fight in Cambodia after the Saigon fell in 1975. He had a sinister side to him. Although he assured us we could not get lost in the tunnels we managed to succeed in spite of his casual disclaimer. We crouched and shuffled our legs as we moved along the smoothly worn dirt paths in the tunnels. The guide had told us to follow the path and that he would be waiting at the other end. He assured us we could not get lost in the passages as all but the main tunnel had been sealed off. What he didn’t tell us was that the light bulbs had burned out and that there were bats in the tunnel.

As Lisa shuffled along ahead of me feeling her way through the darkness in the sticky tunnel I heard her say, “What was that?” I could see in the display of our camcorder, with night-vision function activated, that a bat had brushed through her hair in flight. As another bat flew by us I responded, “It was probably nothing.” Not wanting to arouse any more fear. Ahead of Lisa were two panicked young girls from Japan. They politely answered yes to every question Lisa asked of them as we all walked like crabs crouched down under the low ceiling dirt tunnels. “Is there light up ahead?” “Yes”, “Is the guide up there with you?” “Yes” “Can you see the end?” “Yes” “Are you lost?” “Yes”. They screamed and cried as we made our way through the darkened humid tunnels.

This picture is of a larger tunnel we crawled thru earlier in the day. The one we were stuck in now was 1/2 the size of this one! Finally Lisa had had enough. She turned to me and swore like a truck driver saying, “We need to turn the f*&# around and get out of here. This is bull$#*%! The problem was that another 15 people were compressing the formation behind us and we had to walk in a single file line. We convinced the others behind us to turn back and we eventually found our way to the surface through a lighted side shaft. It was a bit over the top! We certainly appreciated what the Vietnamese had to put up with during their long stays underground. During the war intense bombing rained down upon the area and it was probably the only place where the VietCong could purchase a good night’s sleep before launching a guerilla attack on Saigon. What a trip! Although a bit intense at times, we highly recommend this tour.

Once above ground we were horrified to see a gory display of boobytraps and barbaric homemade weapons used to fight the American aggressors. War is a horrible thing and yet the Vietnam government continues to take pride in its ingenuity of warfare. What a re-education we were getting. The Vietnamese government makes a big effort to educate its children of how evil and bad America was and still is. But the children, teenagers and even adults seem to brush it off as they have developed a real love affair with everything American. From cowboys to MTV, from blue jeans to Britney Spears, you name it they love it.

Before leaving Cu Chi our otherwise trusty digital still camera died on us. Thinking it might be the batteries we purchased a pack of Duracell AA’s from the government run concession stand at the attraction’s entrance. After two days of being convinced that our camera was hopelessly broken and that we would need to buy a new one we discovered that the Duracells were counterfeits! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Counterfeits, selective disclosures and institutionalized theft and out-right lies had begun to rub us raw.

We returned to Saigon and planned our advance northward. We traveled by bus to Dalat, billed as a pleasant mountain getaway town. It was more like Tijuana transplanted to Lake Tahoe, under-whelming by any measure. The tour company did their best to hold us captive in their guarded fortress-like hotel, dropping the drawbridge to allow our bus in and aggressively taking our baggage inside. We took offense and chose instead to spread the wealth and found a family owned guesthouse nearby. We should have stayed put. The volume of the motorbikes with no exhaust controls rattled our heads from 7:00 AM to midnight. Our sleep deprivation sentence had begun.

Several days later, we traveled six hours by bus to Nha Trang through the much-deforested mountains. Again we were escorted to the hotel fortress of the Sinh Café Bus Company. We grabbed our packs and wandered around in the midday sun to seek out alternative accommodations. It seemed that every motorcycle driver in Nha Trang wanted to lead us to an inexpensive dive hotel most of which were next to large construction zones. We were convinces that every building in Vietnam is constantly under construction. Finally we found a gem for $6 a night on the top floor of a family run guesthouse overlooking the main roadway separating us from the beach. Again the loud drone of the countless motorbikes late into the night deprived us of the sleep required to keep up a smile on our faces and an open mind. During the day, everybody wanted to sell us something and we became exhausted just from expending the energy to say “No” so often. The beaches of Nha Trang were impressive and so we cancelled our plans to visit a Cham temple on a nearby hill and decided to just chill out on the beach for an afternoon. The relentless pressure to buy something, anything knew no bounds and the beaches were no exceptions.

The next day we took an overnight train north to Danag, the midway point between Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and Hanoi. Read more about the adventure we fell into at the train station in Nha Trang. Thursdays with Moui

Not much to say about Danang other than the story of our charming friend Moui taking us under his wing. Danang is an industrial port with little draw for tourists. We did see the most frightening menu item of our trip while in Danang.

After saying goodbye to Moui and his gracious family we traveled to Hoi An, backtracking to the south thirty kilometers. Hoi An was a highlight of our trip until I succumbed to illness and took a turn for the worse.

Hoi An is a charming little town, another UN World Heritage Site, mainly because it seems it's one of the few towns in Vietnam where bombs never fell. The travel infrastructure is really good here and lots of backpackers make the pilgrimage to Hoi An for shameless shopping sprees of inexpensive custom clothing. Today it is the best place in SouthEast Asia to buy custom made clothes. After several days of exploring the town by bicycle, the weather turned on us like a rabid monkey. Lisa had packed a duffel bag full of clothing and while I was laid up in bed fighting off some nasty tropical bug. With no room for more clothes we threw in the towel on my birthday, March 11, and purchased airplane tickets to get me to a hospital in Hanoi. Yeah!…and that was gonna happen! Not! . Read more about Chris’ SARS Scare.

Back to the South East Asia Journal List