Rock Stars in North Vietnam

We transferred to Viet Tri about thirty miles  from Hanoi. Low water required that we start our eleven day boat cruise 15 kilometers down the Lo River. The cruise vessel accommodated thirty-two passengers if every bed was filled but our tour group made up of Australians, Brits, Americans and Singaporeans numbered eighteen. We were introduced to our guides Mr. Tifo and Mr. Than who gave an orientation for our trip and the ship.

As I mentioned in an earlier post each of our guides had a slightly different impression of the US involvement in Vietnam. Both our guides were from North Vietnam.  Tifo was 46 years old and was cautious in what he said about the communist government. Several times he said, “You didn’t hear this from me.”  He was interested in the current party congress until his opposition candidate did not get selected. He did not speak of the congress any further. His younger colleague, Than, who was thirty was much more optimistic about the future. He spoke often of how good things are in the country after 1986 when the communist experiment ended. Neither made very specific comments about the US history in Vietnam.

The use of the rivers for transportation in Southeast Asia started when the Scots came to Burma(now Myanmar) more than 120 years ago. They saw the great Irrawaddy River as key to commerce and developed a flotilla which grew to 1200 ships by the 1930’s. The Pandow Cruise Company reinstated river cruising not only on the Irrawaddy but now on the Mekong and the Red Rivers in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Our ship is similar to the ships that plied the rivers of Vietnam and Myanmar in the 1930’s with upgraded conveniences. The cabins have polished teak wood floors and walls. Cabin doors open to one side of the river or  the other with louvered doors to let the air in and a second glass door to reduce noise and insure warmth. Our crew was mainly Cambodia where the company is based. Our crew like most Cambodians we met were sweet, gentle people wanting to serve.

Pandow Angkor

Pandow Angkor Crew

We were the first group excursion to be in Viet Tri in 2016 and as a result we would be met by dignitaries from the local tourist council. The visit turned into a real media event as we were met by the Provincial Chief of the Communist Party, members of the tourist council, television cameras for interviews with members of our group. After receiving a flower lei of yellow chrysanthemums and red orchids and other gifts we were treated to traditional Vietnamese dancing by children and adults. We were then pulled into the dancing for many pictures and happy faces. We were treated like rock stars by the people.

2016 Tourist Season in Viet Tri

The same morning we visited a family who made traditional conical hats. This was our first exposure to the tradition of multi-family members in business together. The business owner was the oldest woman we met and she was assisted by many family members. Her son and I traded hats. He gave me a new conical hat and I gave him my baseball cap. Pandow cruises takes you to out of the way places that buses can’t reach.  I felt like an honored guest.

Sadly the next morning no cameras and microphones greeted us but we were met by friendly people at a village market. Tifo had great fun interacting with the women who sold food. We saw literally hundreds of local markets where people shop daily for their food.

Blacksmith’s Son’s Family

We walked through the village to a the blacksmith business owned by a man, his wife  and assisted by other family members. They made machetes and other sharp cutting instruments from recycled iron and steel. Their son, the middleman, took the knives to market. This was followed by a visit to a carpentry village.

 

Tifo told us that our welcome was genuine since few tourists come to these communities. The best part of these days was interacting with the children.

Because all Vietnamese children begin learning English in the third grade the older children if they are brave enough ask you your name and where you are from in English. We took time always to answer their questions.

 

 

 

“What is Your Name?”

Children in the Conical Hat Village

Each day we passed hundreds of rice paddies where farmers were planning one of the two rice crops for the year. Tifo explained that 41% of the people in Vietnam are farmers. A major dam on the Red River had been opened  the previous day so the fields could be flooded for rice planting. The higher water in the river substantially increased the number of barges loaded to the gunnels with sand and gravel that were also moving.  In Vietnam it is hard to describe how much sand is moved up and down the river from dredging operations and to fill construction needs.

Andrew and I sit in the back of the bus on our land excursions so we don’t have to see how close the bus driver comes to hitting pedestrians, bikes or motor bikes or being sideswiped by trucks twice out size. To suggest that we were not the first to have these feelings Tifo told us the following story: “On judgment day a monk and a bus driver were standing before the king of heaven hoping to be allowed to enter nirvana. The king of heaven said to the monk “You have been a good monk but please stand aside as I let the bus driver into nirvana.” The monk was shocked and begged, “Why are you letting the bus driver into nirvana before me?” The king of heaven said, “You have been a good monk but during your sermons people often fall asleep but from the bus driver’s bus I hear ‘Oh my Gawd, Oh my Gawd.’

I have resisted focusing on the weather but in a word it was very cold for our boat journey. We learned from the crew that cruising this time of year is often cold.

In Hanoi at Ho-Chi-Minh Mausoleum

We started our day at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum where “Uncle” as he is affectionately referred to is buried. He did not want to be buried there and instead wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered in north, central and south Vietnam.

It didn’t happen and after his body was hidden for a while his body was entombed in a Russian style mausoleum that looks similar to the tombs of Mao and Stalin. Behind the tomb there is a series of houses where Ho Chi Minh lived alone since he never married even though it is rumored that he had a daughter in China. That fact has never been officially acknowledged. From these structures he and  General Caip conducted the campaign to defeat the South Vietnamese government and the American Forces.

Ho Chi Minh died at age 79 in 1969 so didn’t live to see his dream of a unified Vietnam under Communist rule realized. He is revered and when we were in Hanoi the 12^th Communist Party Congress  was occurring. The Congress selected four new leaders to lead Vietnam for the next five years. Tifo and Than did an excellent job giving us the complete history of events in Vietnam. The chronology follows:

• 19^th Century French came to Vietnam and remained until 1945
• 1946 they returned only to be expelled in 1954
• 1954 two governments – North and South were established but fighting did not stop
• 1965-1972 American war with North Vietnam. (We visited the Hanoi “Hilton” prison where American airmen were interred.) American forces left Vietnam in 1972
• 1979 – war ended with Paris Accord unifying Vietnam under Communist government. Many from the south were killed, reeducated or escaped by boat to the west.

When the Communist took over they instituted the collective farm program which existed until 1986 when it was declared a failure. The government remains Communist controlled but the economy is definitely western. We witnessed 1000’s of industrious farmers who work their own land.  Merchants sell everything on almost every corner. Capitalistic principals are in evidence from north to south in Vietnam

Bonsai Village

The Pandow Angkor proceeded down the Red River for excursions visiting a bonsai village and a famous wooden Catholic Cathedral built in Vietnamese style. North central Vietnamese is heavily Catholic with accommodations for ancestor worship. In Binh Linh Province, which is called the “Halong on Land” we visited giant limestone mountains like those we would see two days later in  world famous Halong Bay.

 

We were anchored in Halong Bay for two days among the almost 2000 limestone islands that grow out of the water. The weather was rainy but that didn’t stop us from paddling or kayaking through the caverns of the bay.  We woke up each morning to marvel at the beauty of nature. The Pandow cruise was truly outstanding and was the highlight of our trip to Vietnam. We went places tourist don’t usually go. We were served by our excellent Cambodian crew. The food was interesting and regional. Our group got on exceptionally well. We highly recommend a river cruise with Pandow. Hopefully, the weather will be a bit warmer next time.

Andrew and I spent three nights in Hanoi. On our first night at the recommendation of Than, we found an authentic Vietnamese shop that sold Bun Bo Hue, a hot, spicy noodle soup that we had not been able to find previously. The soup is so spicy as not to appeal to many westerners. I tried it with Andrew and had to turn my bowl over to him.  It was too spicy for me. We made it back to the hotel dodging taxis and motorbikes.

We ate so much on the cruise that we decided to eat late breakfast at the hotel and only have dinner. That we accomplished by eating in the old quarter of the city before attending the gigantic night market. We walked from the market to the peaceful lake surrounded by colorful dahlias and impatiens, yellow mums and budding cherry blossom trees all planted in advance of Chinese New Year on February 8. One of the funniest sites we witnessed numerous times was motor bikes with a large cumquat tree or cherry tree perched precariously speeding down a busy street. Most public spaces are blanketed in floral arrangements that give vibrant color to an otherwise gray city.

Hanoi at Night

In the evening as we returned to the hotel we came upon couples dancing salsa, contemporary and traditional dances. We happily joined in.  We walked the circumference enjoying the beautiful flower gardens. It was nice not to go anyplace or see anything that we didn’t want to. Relaxed we’re ready to fly to Myanmar.

Good Morning Vietnam

Our three weeks in Vietnam were divided by a land tour in south and central Vietnam and a river boat cruise in north Vietnam ending in Hanoi. First, it is good to have a geographic picture. Vietnam is more than fifteen hundred miles from north to south and at its narrowest point is fifty-three miles wide from the Gulf of Thailand to Laos. Vietnam is a country of mainly young faces. The country has ninety million people with 71% under 40 and 50% under 30 years old. The population is nominally Buddhist but they are actually ancestors worshipers more than anything else. There are 6 million Catholics as the result of French missionaries who started coming in the 16^th century.

We flew to Saigon from Siam Reip, Cambodia. Officially the city is Ho Chi Minh City but since the Vietnamese call the city Saigon so did we.

Just a Few Motorbikes

After a quick overnight we left the city among trucks, buses, motor bikes and bicycles on Monday morning. Our destination was the Mekong Delta about three hours from Saigon. Our adventure that day included a river boat ride followed by a canoe ride. Unfortunately, the water in the canal was low and three men made for punting difficult and eventually impossible for our lady guide. She finally had to call a friend for help.

Punting in Mekong Delta

In the boat behind Andres

After finding our motor launch we took a ride to a coconut candy factory on one of the canals. We watched the coconut sugar being molded into candy pieces. This was followed by watching men pop rice using a ancient method of heating black sand in a large iron pan that looked like a wok. Once the sand was blisteringly hot rice was poured in and it immediately starts popping. When most cornels were puffed the man poured the mixture through a sieve where the sand fell out and the rice was ready for candy making.

Snake Wine – Yum Good

That was just a prelude to watching snake wine being made.  A shelf was filled with big jags with snakes peering out. The cobra makes the best snake wine and is prized as a medicinal tonic. I tried a shot and it was remarkably tasty. I suffered no ill effects but don’t think I will make a regular regiment of the tonic. After trying every candy in the shop we boated on another canal for a spectacular lunch in an old French summer villa. By cocktail time we were back in Saigon where we met with Bill and Makoto, friends from Chicago, who were on their way to Laos.

The following day we visited the Palace of the former premier of South Vietnam before the Communist took control.  This was followed by a visit to The War Museum of Remnants.  It is true the victors get to write the history and that was the case in this museum. The museum depicts the time that the French and the Americans were fighting the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army. In the USA we think the war was over in 1975 when we pulled out. In fact, the war did not end until 1979 when the Communist government took total control of Vietnam. Visiting the museum was the first but not the last exposure we had to the US involvement in the war. Each of our three guides told us their personal opinions. Tomas, 34, from central Vietnam was most sorry that the Americans left Vietnam because conditions got worse until the war was over. He said things really didn’t get better until the Communist economics experiment ended in 1986. The politics are controlled by the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Don, John, Andrew, Eric and Ser Huat in Danang

Arriving in Danang we met Tru, our guide who is 57 years old. He had strong negative feelings about the French.  He felt the French were poor colonists because they took from Vietnam and didn’t give anything to the people.

Our first overnight in central Vietnam was spent in the old port city of Hoi An. It was a main Chinese trading center in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. The area was originally settled by the Champa people a distinct minority who came to Vietnam from India.  We visited a large, ancient Hindu temple complex at My Son. Over the years the Champa people were pushed out when the Chinese came during the Ching Dynasty. Favorable winds that change direction in summer and winter made Hoi An and ideal entry for Chinese sailors from Hainan Province. The Chinese were followed by the Dutch and Japanese. The area is famous for cinnamon, sandal wood, pepper and other spices. Over the centuries the river filled with silt. The town was abandoned as the port which moved north to Danang. Fortunately, the ancient houses remain and Hoi An has become an attractive tourist attraction. We stayed at the beautiful Anantara Hotel in Hoi An.

Our mini-bus took us over the mountain to Hue where the weather was cool and rainy. The mountain range creates a weather barrier making the north much colder. Hue was the capital of Vietnam during the Nyugen Dynasty which was the height of the Vietnamese Empire . The French came in early 1800’s. While there was a king the French held the power. On our first day we went by cyclo(bicycle rickshaw) to the old section of Hue where we visited three homes over 100 years old. An 88 year old woman lived in the first home which was built by her grandfather. Tru’s comments were about the significance of ancestor worship in Vietnam. Next we visited Chinese man who was the ninth generation of his family living in his house. Finally we visited a beautifully restored home of an architect who after the war decided to rebuilt his grandfather’s home in its historic style.

Andrew at the Citadel in Hue, Vietnam

In Hue the Citadel is the sprawling royal complex of palaces and temples where the king lived with his 300 wives and concubines, eunuchs, solders and bureaucrats, until the French were driven out by Ho Chi Minh in 1945. The French returned in 1946 but were expelled in 1954.

There had been extensive bomb damage from American bombers which Tru, our guide, blamed on the Viet Cong for hiding there. . The highlight for the day in Hue was dining at the Les Jardins De La Carambole Restaurant immediately outside the walls of the Citadel. The restaurant is located in a house built during the French Colonial period beautifully restored by its French/Vietnamese owners.

 

The tragedy for Hue was the Vietnam War when the Americans bombed the Citadel to rout the Viet Cong. Thankfully with international support the Citadel is being rebuilt and significant progress has been made. In Hue we said “Goodbye” to Ser Haut and Eric, Andrew’s friends from Singapore who flew to Ho Chi Minh City. The next morning Don flew off to Bangkok and we prepared for our journey on the Pandaw Angkor river cruise boat for our next adventure.

Cambodia and the Kymer Empire

With this first post of 2016 I am planning to write about each of the four Indochina countries that we visited: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar(formerly known as Burma). We started in Thailand before New Years but I decided to combine our time in Thailand as the fifth post since we will actually be in Thailand longer in February than we are at the start of the trip.

Our trip started on December 27, 2015 when we flew to Peking, China where thanks to a mechanical problem in Washingnton, DC we missed our connection in Peking for Bangkok, Thailand. Even though we were able to catch a plane two hours later our luggage didn’t make the transfer. It finally caught up to us 36 hours later at the Hilton Millenium Bangkok. However, following a practice that I began more than thirty years ago we took clean clothes appropriate for the weather in our carry on luggage. That enabled us to have clean shorts, Tee shirts and underwear for the first day when temperatures were over 90 degrees compared to 40 degrees which we left in the USA.

On Saturday January 2, 2016 we flew from Bangkok to Phnom Penh International Airport. Landing we immediately recognized that we had moved from a developed country, Thailand to a “poor, developing” country, Cambodia. The airport had six or seven gates and the visa process suggested anything but orderly. That is not to say people were not pleasant because they were. There was just bureaucratic disorganization. We were met outside luggage by our driver who took us to the IRoHa Garden Inn in the middle of Phnom Penh. The drive from the airport was through the typical confusion of roadside stands and motor bike repair shops. Motor bikes outnumber cars two-to-one but there are still plenty of cars parked in every conceivable space – sidewalks are particularly popular.

The hotel was a walled oasis in the midst of third world confusion. The soft-spoken staff of luggage attendants, desk clerks and waiters were sweet and charming. We checked in and swam in the pleasant pool before meeting our guide – Panha- and one other tour member – Peter from Toronto. Cambodia food is similar to Thai food but not as hot and spicy.

An energetic acrobatic performance at an outdoor theater was a fantastic opening for Cambodia visit.

 

 

 

Our first day of touring could be called Ying and Yang. The first stop was the royal palace where our local guide, Sam, told us about the magnificent two centuries represented by golden buildings flanked by beautiful gardens. The traditional Cambodian architecture was built during the 90 years of French colonial occupation which ended when the French left in 1954. After leaving the palace we drove through the city and saw signs of improvement for the more than 2 million inhabitants of Phnom Penh.

 

 

Our next destination told a story of the thirty years of terror in Cambodia. First we went to the horrific “Killing Fields” where more than 20,000 were killed during the reign of Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979. Sam sat our group under a big shade tree literally on top of the graves and told us the story of the place before we saw the 900 excavated skulls and assorted bones assembled in the memorial. It was impossible to walk over the twenty acre site without seeing bones being pushing up by the earth. The site marked the final step in the torture and extermination of paranoid Pol Pot’s fear of spies and the CIA.

We returned to center city to the infamous Tuol Sleng Prison where the 20,000 prisoners were detained and tortured before they were trucked to the “Killing Fields” for their death by clubbing; killing with ax or hoe, shooting or in the case of babies smashing their heads against a tree in front of their mothers. The torture and imprisonment of Cambodians by Cambodians is hard to believe until you see the hundreds of pictures that the guards and prison officials meticulously took of each prisoner.

The story is more horrific because there are hundreds of killing fields scattered throughout Cambodia where half of the population was killed by the Khmer Rouge before Pol Pot escaped to the forest in northern Cambodia to live until 1998. The estimate is that 3-4 million people were killed. The population of Cambodia is now very young because virtually two generations of Cambodians were killed. Our tour guide Panha who is thirty-four is the offspring of a mother and father whose original spouses were killed.

During the day I thought about the extermination by Hitler’s regime and the more recent genocide in Rwanda of the Tutsi and Hutu. The Cambodian people we met are sweet, gentle people. They are attempting to catch up to a modern world when theirs was frozen for forty years until 1998. Cambodia has a constitutional monarchy and a developing parliamentary system. The first anticipated open elections are scheduled for 2018. The Chinese influence is strong because the greatest number of tourist come from China and most of the infrastructure financing is Chinese backed.

We closed our eyes because of the number of trucks, vans, tuktuk’s and motor bikes that crowd the narrow two-lane roads as we were driven south from Phnom Penh to Kampot and Kep on the Gulf of Thailand. These two towns have the charm that the French must have seen when they built their getaway homes there more than 80 years ago. The colonial architecture of their homes and shops remain but today are home to upscale restaurants and bars. On the Kampot River we took an evening sunset cruise in an old fishing boat past backpacker cabins perched on poles along the river. On our return we had a comfortable, tasty dinner at the RikiTikiRavi restaurant. The Dutch owner, Denise, recommended tasty Cambodian dishes including banana blossom salad and fish amok. Our overnight destination was the peaceful Knai Bang Chatt Resort.

We took tuktuk’s to Kep for a boat ride Rabbit Island about 4.5 kilometers from the mainland. The island is a daily get away from the mainland because the beach and the water are clean for swimming and snorkeling. Our hosts from the hotel took all the equipment for a delicious barbeque lunch of grilled crab, shrimp, squid and a local fish. Fresh pineapple, watermelon, papaya and mango capped the meal. Later dinner was five-star seafood spectacular in a restaurant that looked definitely two-star. We wouldn’t have gone in if our guide hadn’t recommended it. Food was outstanding.

We flew to Siem Reap and were transferred to our hotel, the Shinta Mani. The hotel was truly beautiful with flowers and water features throughout. The staff was omnipresent and always smiling. Siem Reap is the gateway city to Angkor Wat. Our two days in Siem Reap were taken up with tours of the many temples built between the 9th and 13th centuries in the years of the Khmer Empire which included Cambodia, Laos, parts of Vietnam and Burma. Angkor Tom was the capital of the Empire until the king and his army were defeated by Siam(Thailand) in the 13th century. The capitol was then moved to Phnom Penh.

Penha gave us an orientation to Buddhism and Hinduism which are the two prominent religions of Cambodia. The population is mainly Buddhist today but apparently the historic kings(often referred to as god-kings) decided what religion would be followed. The reigning king built temples to honor the gods of the religion he had decided the country would follow. The practices of the two religions to an outsider seem similar so switching from one to the other was done without the strife we see in the Islam today.
Without doubt the most spectacular temple is the Angkor Wat temple built toward the end of the empire. It survived when it was abandoned in the 13th century. The jungle returned to hide the many structures until it became known to the western world in the 19th century. Unlike many historic structures like the Egyptian pyramids and Greek and Roman ruins where the stones were cannibalized for other buildings this did not happen to the great temples around Angkor Wat. People including the royalty lived in wooden houses on stilts and didn’t need the massive stones used in temple building for other buildings. The wooden structures didn’t survive but the massive stone temples are remarkably well preserved except for the effects of wind and rain erosion.

While I had heard the name Angkor Wat as early as a freshman world history class in 1965 I didn’t understand what it was or the scale of the temple. The main temple sits in the middle of a moat two hundred yards wide and one and half kilometer square. The rectangular outer wall, which measures 1025m by 800m, has a gate on each side, but the main entrance, a 235m-wide porch richly decorated with carvings and sculptures, is on the western side. The central temple complex consists of three storeys, each made of laterite, which enclose a square surrounded by intricately interlinked galleries. The Gallery of a Thousand Buddhas (Preah Poan) used to house hundreds of Buddha images before the war, but many of these were removed or stolen. The corners of the second and third storeys are marked by towers, each topped with symbolic lotus-bud towers. Rising 100 feet above the third level and more than 150 feet above the ground is the central tower. (Description from Lonely Planet Guidebook)

 

The main temple complex took 300,000 workers and 6000 elephants over fifty years to build and it’s not finished. The limestone was quarried 53 kilometers away and the stones some weighing 5 tons were floated on cypress barges pulled by elephants on a manmade river to the construction site. My description cannot begin to convey the enormity of the structures built in the name of the Hindu god, Vishnu.

We were certainly not alone for as many as three million visitors a year come to Cambodia and most come to Angkor Wat. While most people come from China and South Korea there are plenty of western faces but most have backpacks on.

Our departure dinner we had to fix ourselves and our pleasure is captured in this picture. Under the guidance of two expert Cambodian cooks we fixed a dinner of coconut cocktail, mango salad, fish amok, caramelized bananas, and white rice (of course). Tuktuks were waiting to return us to the hotel for a short night’s sleep before leaving for the Vietnam.