I woke up feeling melancholy, knowing today would be my last backpacking through Vietnam. I’ve gotten accustomed to the vibrations of life on the road: rolling my clothes into tight bundles and wedging them into my backpack, taking my daily malaria prophylactic, checking out of one hotel and simultaneously booking a hotel for the next city, knowing how to get to the train station, knowing the general fare to places so cab drivers don’t rip you off…and on and on. All these things help get you into a hum and a rhythm that you don’t have when you’re stationary. I’ve only been gone for two weeks, but Stephen and I have said, ad nauseum, that this trip feels like its been at least a month long. I’m sure the fact that we’ve travelled to eight different cities and covered over 1,200 miles has contributed the sense of prolonged time.
Although I’ll miss the thrills and excitement of a peripatetic lifestyle I’m also looking to coming home. There was a point in my life when I considered if life on the move was the way I should live the rest of my life, and this trip, more than any other I’ve ever taken, drove home the point that while I love adventure and thrill-seeking…New York City is my home.
But I digress – today we headed to the Cu Chi tunnels.
‘The tunnels were used by Viet Cong guerrillas as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to American forces, through which they secured American withdrawal from Vietnam and ultimate military success.’
Americans, frustrated by their inability to defeat the Viet Cong in these tunnels resorted to massive campaigns of B52 carpet bombing, napalm bombs and agent orange. As war historians describe it, the result was that, ‘The Cu Chi area and nearby area became the most heavily bombed, gassed, and defoliated area in the history of combat.’
We departed from Saigon at 8:00 in the morning. Since it’s a two and a half hour drive from Saigon, we stopped after driving for an hour and half for a ‘smoke and bathroom break.’ While we were waiting Stephen and I ordered two iced coffees…and now I need to go on a little diatribe about the difficult with ordering coffee in Vietnam!
The coffee itself is absolutely delicious, but how they prepare it is not always ideal. In decent restaurants you can get the coffee served with plain, unsweetened milk. The street vendors, and lower quality places, only have sweetened condensed milk.
I’m not sure if this story is true…but…one of the German tourists I had breakfast with the morning before explained why the Vietnamese use sweetened, condensed milk with their coffee (as opposed to, say, regular milk and sugar like most countries). As the story goes…to support a fellow communist country Russia purchased all the excess sugar being produced by Cuba (US trade embargo severely crimped their distribution). Although this act of largess breathed life into the Cuban economy and fortified the link between the brethren countries, it left Russia with massive quantities of sugar that far outstripped the demand. To deal with this Russia put the sugar into condensed milk and then force-exported it to weaker communist satellite countries. The Vietnamese, needing something to do with all this sweetened condensed milk, experimented with putting it in their coffee and the idea stuck. Again, I have no idea if this is an actual story, but thought it was interesting and thought I’d pass it along. For people not accustomed to their coffee being so sweet it’s a little bit much. Eight out of ten times I ordered coffee I got stuck with the super sweet stuff and it kind of ruins the drink.
Anyways, back to Cu Chi Tunnels. We kept driving through the thick vegetation and lines of Grouper trees surrounding the Cu Chi tunnels…hard to believe almost all the plant life was destroyed during the allied bombing / chemical warfare campaigns in the 1960’s.
We pulled into a parking lot chocked full of cars (I’d heard the Cu Chi Tunnels were like a tourist conveyor belt, and regrettably, they were). Because of the proximity to Saigon, the significance of the tunnels during the war, and the ingenuity and engineering they required (all with a paucity of modern technology) the tunnels are one of the more alluring tourist destinations in all of Vietnam.
When we stepped of the bus I turned to Stephen. ‘Do you hear that?’
‘What?’
‘That pop pop pop.’ I said. ‘Listen.’
In the background we could hear people firing M16, M60 machine guns and AK 47s. Their staccato pops and explosions in the background gave the area a menacing and foreboding feeling.
Our guide walked us around the compound first showing us one of holes that led to the labyrinth of tunnels below. It was so small that Stephen could barely fit…I didn’t stand a chance, nor would I want to really, just looking at the thing made me claustrophobic.
At one junction they had made the tunnels a little bigger so the tourists (read: fat Americans) could get the experience of traipsing through the passages. Stephen and I went below and crawled in a space a meter high, a half-meter wide and six meters underground. As we were crawling around I fought the visceral urge to freak out. You’re cramped, there are people in front of and behind you…far below the surface.
The reason I mention this fear is that I absolutely CANT imagine the VC doing this during war when they were surrounded by poisonous centipedes, scorpions, vermin, GIs are throwing grenades in the hatches, B52’s are dropping massive bombs on top of you…Dying in one of these tunnels after it collapsed from a grenade or a B 52 bomb would be a horrible death…buried alive...
Even worse than being a Viet Cong in those tunnels was being a GI ‘Tunnel Rat’ charged with going into the tunnels and rooting out the VC. Eventually the program was cancelled because GI casualties were too high.
As we walked through the forest the guide showed us lots of interesting things – the ventilation for the tunnels are built into massive termite hills that pop up every twenty five meters or so, rendering it nearly impossible to distinguish between termite hills and ventilation areas. We saw the weapons factory where the VC disassembled American bombs and then reconstituted them into anti-tank mortars, hand grenades and mines. They were very resourceful people. We saw the pangee traps that the VC used to maim and kill GIs. Afterwards Stephen and I were able to fire an M16 and AK47. These guns are some of the most lethal killing instruments ever devised, each of them used as weapons to slaughter millions of people. For that reason I wanted to know what it felt like to pull the trigger. It was fascinating, and eerie holding the weapons that I was accustomed to seeing children soldiers in Sierra Leone or Al Qaeda operatives using.
After we’d finished shooting we walked past a guy firing an M60 machine gun. I’ve never been around a piece of artillery that big, but when it went off its power seemed to suck air out of the forest as if there was not enough oxygen for both you and the machine. I couldn’t imagine being shot at, or shooting other human beings with that thing.
After shooting and crawling through tunnels we ate tapioca root dipped in sugar, salt and peanuts and drank tea, the meal that sustained the VC during their ten year war against the US.
During lunch I had a conversation with our guide. He told me his father was a major in the south Vietnamese army. After the war his father had to go to ‘re-education’ school. His father was sentenced to ten years in this ‘re-education.’ The first time our guide saw his father was when he was eleven. He returned back from the re-education with only one finger on his right hand.
After we finished eating I asked him if a lot of the southerners disliked Ho Chi Minh (who is more venerated in this country than I’ve ever seen a leader venerated in any country I’ve visited). He said a lot of Southerners still dislike him and what he stands for and that the country would be better if it were technically capitalistic as opposed to socialistic. That’s why most people in the south call Ho Chi Minh Saigon, whereas most people from the north call it Ho Chi Minh.
The aphorism, ‘history is written by the victors’ is applicable here – if Ho Chi Minh had lost the war I’m sure the US would have killed him (a la Saddam Hussein) and his legacy would have been that of a communist dictator willing to sacrifice the lives of millions of northern Vietnamese to uphold his communist ideology.
We drove back to Saigon, went to Ben Thanh market, looked at antiques, got iced coffee, went to a museum that was closed…and finally to the Pho Binh noodle shop which was a good twenty five minute walk out of the city, but served as the Viet Cong secret headquarters in Saigon. It was in that noodle shop that the Viet Cong planned the 1968 Tet offensive that dramatically altered the perception of the war throughout the world. All the chairs and tables are the same as when it was the VC headquarters.
The waiter brought over two books – one was filled with information on the noodle shop and its famous proprietor and the other was filled with messages from people from around the world.
Most people thanked him for what he did, but being an American I felt I couldn’t write something ‘thanking him’ for killing American GIs. My perspective is that the GIs in Vietnam were mostly good ol’ American kids who were caught up in the worldwide struggle between communism and capitalism. Although there were some bad eggs (My Lai disaster), most were not vicious killers bent on destroying a nation.
So, although I guess I can understand why so many people thanked the proprietor for helping to end the war earlier, as an American I could not write anything.
The Pho Binh soup shop was officially our last stop in Vietnam. We walked back to our hotel, through the throngs of motorbikes spewing exhaust in the air. Our concierge let use the cold shower in the back of the hotel (which was a god send, we got filthy crawling around in tunnels), we hung out for an hour and then it was off to the airport.
As the plane took off I looked out the window as the lights of Saigon slowly faded beneath me. I was hit with the same pang of sadness I get when I leave any country where I have learned and grown as a person. For me, by meeting people that are completely different than myself, with different value propositions, perspectives and lifestyles, I am reminded of how myopic my little world is. Getting outside that world helps shape and define me as a person as much as any other thing I do in my life.
The trip was also a great bonding experience for Stephen and I. A trip we will never forget that we did, but more importantly we did together. There is a saying in Africa, 'If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel with a partner.' And travel far we did. Stephen had knack for both humorizing and intellectualizing many parts of the trip and I'm thankful for that.
As the plane banked left above the whispery covering of clouds, for some reason, I was brought back the night I celebrated my birthday in Danang. A conversation I’d forgotten about popped into my head. After the bar patrons sang me happy birthday a small man with a shaved head walked over to me. He explained that he was the new chef at the restaurant. Originally from Italy, he’d been working at a restaurant in Saigon when he was discovered and brought to Danang.
‘How old are you mate?’ He asked.
‘Thirty.’
‘Ah, thirty. You’re still a pup.’ He smiled. ‘When I was eighteen I had the world figured out. When I was twenty five I realized I didn’t know everything. When I turned thirty I realized I knew very little. When I turned forty I realized I knew nothing.’ He flashed a crooked smile, ‘At fifty four I’m just finally starting to understand this life.’
I nodded at him. I’ve grown so much in the last decade, and more specifically the last three years, and I’ve realized life never was and never will be static, it will always be dynamic. Changing. Challenging.
‘Alla goccia!’ He said to me, ‘To the last drop!’
We drank our respective beers. His Vietnamese girlfriend walked over and said she had to leave.
‘I’ve got to go mate, but I want to give you your first piece of advice as a thirty-year-old.’ He looked me in the eyes, his demeanor became serious. ‘If you are not waking up each morning and devouring life, you are not living.’
With that he grabbed his girlfriend's hand and walked out the door.
So my parting suggestion, to all of you who have followed along on another great journey in my life, is this – eat voraciously and savor each bite.
With love and thanks,
Joe
