Several friends who in 2006 read my travel blog entries when Alan and I went to India had been waiting in anticipation for the stories of the Travelling Children when we recently visited Indochina. Sitting in the tiny maze-like Internet shops among fellow travelers and my Indian brethren was something I relished doing almost daily back then. However, I found myself completely lacking in inspiration while in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) and Siem Reap.
I’m not sure what Alan and I expected on this short sojourn. We knew it was going to be different to our sometimes audacious treks through what Donny smilingly refers to as our ‘homeland’, but we embraced the unfamiliarity with enjoyment. We giggled at the thought that it gave family and friends a respite from our obsessive attachment to the Indian sub-continent.
We arrived in Saigon with just one suitcase containing both our carry-on cases, an insignificant amount of clothes - many of them disposable, toiletries and of course several kilos of chocolate. Chocolates as you all know make excellent little gifts in Asia but let me explain to the uninitiated Alan’s concept of disposable clothes. He means tops, shorts, skirts and underwear that have seen better days which we could throw out at the end of the holiday. Heaven forbid if we should have an accident - of course my mother did warn me to always be prepared for such a calamity by not wearing holey un-mended underwear. But I have lived with Alan for 24 years and I love being a part of some of the strange yet practical ideas he’s suitably tailored into my life. Saving my old underwear for holidays has become one of them.
We took a taxi from the airport and of course being seasoned in the ways of taxi drivers thinking that tourists are unsuspecting in the taxi industry tales of ‘meter broken’ or that the hotel of our choice had burnt down overnight, Alan wheeled our lone suitcase past a multitude of them until he came upon the first honest-looking driver. The man had a lovely smile and even though he spoke very little English, he engagingly pointed out the various places of interest we passed on our short but traffic-filled ride in air-conditioned comfort.
The Spring Hotel was highly recommended by the bible. (Hello,
you know the one … Lonely Planet Guide, holy book of travelers across the world.) The young man at the desk was all smiles and very helpful. He asked a kindly looking doorman to show us the two rooms that were available. Unfortunately, they were heavily booked and could only provide accommodation for a night. But you know the Travelling Children never allow such things to be thought of as an inconvenience - if we had to move, it just meant another adventure.
I’m not sure what Alan and I expected on this short sojourn. We knew it was going to be different to our sometimes audacious treks through what Donny smilingly refers to as our ‘homeland’, but we embraced the unfamiliarity with enjoyment. We giggled at the thought that it gave family and friends a respite from our obsessive attachment to the Indian sub-continent.We arrived in Saigon with just one suitcase containing both our carry-on cases, an insignificant amount of clothes - many of them disposable, toiletries and of course several kilos of chocolate. Chocolates as you all know make excellent little gifts in Asia but let me explain to the uninitiated Alan’s concept of disposable clothes. He means tops, shorts, skirts and underwear that have seen better days which we could throw out at the end of the holiday. Heaven forbid if we should have an accident - of course my mother did warn me to always be prepared for such a calamity by not wearing holey un-mended underwear. But I have lived with Alan for 24 years and I love being a part of some of the strange yet practical ideas he’s suitably tailored into my life. Saving my old underwear for holidays has become one of them.
We took a taxi from the airport and of course being seasoned in the ways of taxi drivers thinking that tourists are unsuspecting in the taxi industry tales of ‘meter broken’ or that the hotel of our choice had burnt down overnight, Alan wheeled our lone suitcase past a multitude of them until he came upon the first honest-looking driver. The man had a lovely smile and even though he spoke very little English, he engagingly pointed out the various places of interest we passed on our short but traffic-filled ride in air-conditioned comfort.
The Spring Hotel was highly recommended by the bible. (Hello,
you know the one … Lonely Planet Guide, holy book of travelers across the world.) The young man at the desk was all smiles and very helpful. He asked a kindly looking doorman to show us the two rooms that were available. Unfortunately, they were heavily booked and could only provide accommodation for a night. But you know the Travelling Children never allow such things to be thought of as an inconvenience - if we had to move, it just meant another adventure. The first room was a suite and it was lovely in a mid-range Asian hotel trying to look western sort of way, the second was one I have never had an opportunity to observe first hand. It had the usual king-sized bed, an ample dressing table, a sitting area and TV, and all semblance of a window - only to reveal a brick wall behind the curtains. “I want this room Alan, I’ve never been in a bedroom with a fake window!” The doorman laughed at my amusement, and he told me the money we saved would buy us a lot at Ben Thanh Market. I liked him immediately. As we checked in, the young man at the desk told us that if nothing became available, they would move us to another hotel the next afternoon at a time convenient to us - something that friends and relatives who are familiar with the Travelling Children would guess, we DID have to do.
There is a lot of construction work going on in Saigon, everywhere you look some new building or complex is rising – it reminded us of Singapore during the 80’s. Towering yellow cranes and giant Tonka like earthmovers competed with the reverberation of drilling and banging sounds. Dust from the earth and cement that filled the humid air made me mechanically reach for my Nasonex spray, as agile men and women climbed up the bamboo scaffolding with apparent ease and no safety persuasions in place.
Saigon also has to be the world’s capital of motorbikes and scooters - 4 million in a city of 8 million people. We stood on the uneven pavement outside our hotel, under a noodle-like web of dusty black overhead power cables in the slightly up market leafy area of Dong Khoi, both of us silently observing as to the left of us, and to the right, before us and behind … life in Saigon went about its daily grind. I tell you folks, Asia is so exciting.
Scattered between Pho Noodle houses and motorbike repair places were endless little shops selling rows of shiny lacquer-ware, copies of famous art-work... some better attempts than others, dress shops, tailors, shoe and scarf shops, hat and helmet shops – nearly everything you could possibly imagine was on offer, including marijuana from the odd pusher. Add to that the sophisticated looking homeware establishments with very arty window displays – the kind that
would make me catch my breath and wickedly beckon me to enter only to hit me callously with prices in US dollars that would make me retreat in disbelief. Cruel.We also discovered a generous sprinkling of wonderful cafés and restaurants among these streets. Let me say this now so there is no confusion ever - Vietnamese coffee is to die for and the air-conditioned cafes are nirvana to bedraggled tourists unaccustomed to the suffocating humidity. Vietnamese food is also a delight and is more than just Pho and Vietnamese spring rolls. The variety of textures, the smells and the way the different flavours hit your palate is an experience we will always be more than willing to encounter and partake of again and again. We sampled as many dishes as we possibly could fit on our table at each meal. Alan of course, led and ate the way. Relishing the variety of make-your-own rice paper rolls for example where the ingredients arrived separately on several platters, we used our hands to make them up, dipping them generously into the sauces and shamelessly scoffing them down. We know how to eat.
And then there is Ben Thanh Markets. It is one of the oldest surviving structures in Saigon and is a huge wet and dry market. We were advised by our friendly doorman to visit it first thing in the morning as it was then not as hot or crowded. We handed him some chocolate as we ventured out the next day at 7am. Ben Thanh is wonderful and we found ourselves delighting in the process of checking out prices, getting to know stall holders and establishing little relationships with some of them as we became return visitors … several times during our stay.
Tourists cannot visit Saigon and not visit the Cu Chi Tunnels and Cao Dai Temple. One a reminder of the ugly war and the other, the beauty of religious peace. Cao Daism is a religion that fuses the religious philosophies and teachings of most of the world religions. Founded by the mystic Ngo Minh Chieu in 1926 its philosophy appealed very much to me. The main tenets include believing in one God, the existence of the soul, karma and reincarnation. To reach heaven and escape samsara you had to perform certain duties … no killing, no lying, no over luxurious living, no sexual abuse and no stealing. Sound familiar? T
he priests and followers were so welcoming and we were allowed to walk freely around the temple and take photos. It filled me with so much joy to see images of the Buddha and other Eastern religion deities with Jesus … all having a place side by side in Heaven, with God being represented by an all seeing Eye. It was one of the rare occasions in my life where I did not need my camera, even though I could feel all the photographic opportunities around me. I handed the camera to Alan and whispered “Go for your life, babe!” Instead, I took a mental picture as I said my prayers, and I liked the way it made me feel. I knew stories from most of these separate religions and I started to think of the sameness that they shared. My friend Ganesha was not up there, but I included him in my thoughts. Mass started at mid-day and we stayed for a small portion of it. It was beautiful. *bbsigh* Cao Dai - if only all religions could be as open and inclusive as this, how quickly peace might come to stay.
Next stop, Cu Chi. Consisting of only 80,000 residents during the Vietnam War, Cu Chi was an area of intense fighting and destruction. The underground network of hand-dugged tunnels, some of which were several storeys deep ran from South Vietnam to the Cambodian border and in the town of Cu Chi alone there were 250 kms of tunnels.
The history is gruesome and I will not even attempt to go into it for many others have written about Cu Chi, including first hand experiences of the war. I will mention however that I had apprehensions of crawling through a tourist-friendly, widened section of the tunnels initially, but our guide was truly wonderful. This very educated man had watched helplessly as his house burned down and his son was slaughtered during the heart-wrenching times the Saigonese had seen. He, who lost his family to the communists then, was today earning his living telling stories of the courage and the tenacity of the Cu Chi people. His own courage and his forgiveness made me want to have some understanding of the ‘enemy’ and their years spent underground. That they used scrap metal from the very same bombs that had been dropped on them to make the sharp instruments of death used in their ingenious and cruel traps, made me feel ill and filled my eyes with tears. I felt deeply for the young American and Australian soldiers who found death so gruesomely in that mosquito infested foreign jungle. It was too horrible, yet I could not help but feel admiration for the Cu Chi people. Their strength and their determination to achieve the impossible left me in wonder.
Deafening rifle firing continues to fill the air, as there is a shooting range on site for those who wish to fire an AK-47 or other weapons. Why would you want do that? Alan and I sat on a stone seat under the trees, hand in hand quietly listening ... we could hear the cicadas and crickets between the shots. There was an intensely sad feeling all around – I kept staring at the ground before me, my mind seeing it drenched with the blood of fallen soldiers from both sides of the conflict, and the Cu Chi cooking, eating, making their weapons and their babies deep beneath. I knew I would carry what I had already seen and learnt with me forever. Now, I had to crawl through for I would never have really visited Cu Chi until I did. Our guide was right.
One more thing I would like to mention. We have heard of Agent Orange of course, the defoliant/herbicide that America sprayed over South Vietnam during the war. We knew that it caused cancer and terrible deformities and organ dysfunction. But I cannot tell you how it made me feel to see some of the victims first hand and realise that children are until today being born with horrendous deformities in areas that still contain the residue. I never felt like running from the worst of the disfigured lepers in India, but seeing victims of Agent Orange made me feel that way. My immediate reaction therefore was not to think of it. It is only now that we are back home that I have allowed myself to think and I have started to Google and research the topic, each time with a lump in my throat. Here are some pictures, but I must warn you, they will break your heart.
he priests and followers were so welcoming and we were allowed to walk freely around the temple and take photos. It filled me with so much joy to see images of the Buddha and other Eastern religion deities with Jesus … all having a place side by side in Heaven, with God being represented by an all seeing Eye. It was one of the rare occasions in my life where I did not need my camera, even though I could feel all the photographic opportunities around me. I handed the camera to Alan and whispered “Go for your life, babe!” Instead, I took a mental picture as I said my prayers, and I liked the way it made me feel. I knew stories from most of these separate religions and I started to think of the sameness that they shared. My friend Ganesha was not up there, but I included him in my thoughts. Mass started at mid-day and we stayed for a small portion of it. It was beautiful. *bbsigh* Cao Dai - if only all religions could be as open and inclusive as this, how quickly peace might come to stay.Next stop, Cu Chi. Consisting of only 80,000 residents during the Vietnam War, Cu Chi was an area of intense fighting and destruction. The underground network of hand-dugged tunnels, some of which were several storeys deep ran from South Vietnam to the Cambodian border and in the town of Cu Chi alone there were 250 kms of tunnels.
The history is gruesome and I will not even attempt to go into it for many others have written about Cu Chi, including first hand experiences of the war. I will mention however that I had apprehensions of crawling through a tourist-friendly, widened section of the tunnels initially, but our guide was truly wonderful. This very educated man had watched helplessly as his house burned down and his son was slaughtered during the heart-wrenching times the Saigonese had seen. He, who lost his family to the communists then, was today earning his living telling stories of the courage and the tenacity of the Cu Chi people. His own courage and his forgiveness made me want to have some understanding of the ‘enemy’ and their years spent underground. That they used scrap metal from the very same bombs that had been dropped on them to make the sharp instruments of death used in their ingenious and cruel traps, made me feel ill and filled my eyes with tears. I felt deeply for the young American and Australian soldiers who found death so gruesomely in that mosquito infested foreign jungle. It was too horrible, yet I could not help but feel admiration for the Cu Chi people. Their strength and their determination to achieve the impossible left me in wonder.
Deafening rifle firing continues to fill the air, as there is a shooting range on site for those who wish to fire an AK-47 or other weapons. Why would you want do that? Alan and I sat on a stone seat under the trees, hand in hand quietly listening ... we could hear the cicadas and crickets between the shots. There was an intensely sad feeling all around – I kept staring at the ground before me, my mind seeing it drenched with the blood of fallen soldiers from both sides of the conflict, and the Cu Chi cooking, eating, making their weapons and their babies deep beneath. I knew I would carry what I had already seen and learnt with me forever. Now, I had to crawl through for I would never have really visited Cu Chi until I did. Our guide was right.One more thing I would like to mention. We have heard of Agent Orange of course, the defoliant/herbicide that America sprayed over South Vietnam during the war. We knew that it caused cancer and terrible deformities and organ dysfunction. But I cannot tell you how it made me feel to see some of the victims first hand and realise that children are until today being born with horrendous deformities in areas that still contain the residue. I never felt like running from the worst of the disfigured lepers in India, but seeing victims of Agent Orange made me feel that way. My immediate reaction therefore was not to think of it. It is only now that we are back home that I have allowed myself to think and I have started to Google and research the topic, each time with a lump in my throat. Here are some pictures, but I must warn you, they will break your heart.
It is hard to continue, but I cannot leave you on such a low. For as long as there is life, there is hope and with hope, there is joy. Here are some of mine.
A lovely lady from the Cao Dai temple who never for a moment let the smile in her eyes dissappear as she spoke to us.
This gorgeous little boy waved excitedly as we drove by. I wanted to bring him home with me. 
Waking up each morning knowing a strong and wonderful Vietnamese coffee was on the breakfast menu was a grand way to start the day.
Daniel Craig and the massive Omega advertisement that appeared just as I was whinging about the humidity. Daniel looked so dangerously sexy, the ad should have come with a warning.
I promise to return with stories of Cambodia in my next entry.
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