A Soldier’s Journey
A vet revisits Vietnam more than 40 years later and discovers a country much changed, yet much the same
By John Wood
Westways July/August 2011
Halong Bay, Vietnam
“What you doing here?”
I looked up at the Vietnamese man standing above me near the departure gate at Singapore’s Changi International Airport. He didn’t look angry, but he didn’t look genial either.
I was waiting to board my flight to Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon, as everybody still calls it), my first visit since my Army tour in 1967. After the war, many veterans have returned for closure. I was coming back to open my heart. The question was, would I be accepted or rejected? “I’m going to Vietnam,” I said.
“Why?” he shot back.
I’m a tourist,” I said. I introduced myself in Vietnamese, hoping that would break the ice. He introduced himself in English. This wasn’t going well.
“You in Vietnam before?” he asked.
I nodded.
“When?” he demanded.
“During a very bad time.”
He stepped back in shock. “Bro, you don’t look older than 40!”
I stared at the floor for a moment before his words sunk in. I looked up, and he was grinning from ear to ear. He hadn’t been angry. He hadn’t even been thinking what I’d been thinking. He was just being Vietnamese—curious, friendly, open. Just like I remembered.
As I stepped off the plane at Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat airport, it all came back: the steam-room humidity, the tarmac full of aircraft. This time, however, instead of Hueys and F-4s, there were Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific 747s. Instead of noncoms shouting to line up, hostesses in pink ao dais welcomed us. Instead of climbing onto a dusty, armed jeep, we stepped aboard a bus draped in a Pepsi ad.
Vietnam is booming again, but thankfully not the way it did before. From entrepreneurs wanting to make a buck to retirees looking for a new destination to backpackers seeking adventure, everyone’s coming back to Vietnam. With its pristine beaches and bays, mountain highlands and river deltas, and cities glittering with culture and neon, Vietnam is colonial France wrapped around an American flag atop an Asian dragon inside the pages of a Graham Greene novel.
Traveling solo, I took in the big three on my 14-day sojourn: Saigon in the south, Hué in the middle, and Hanoi to the north.
I’d read that Saigon’s Ben Thanh Market was the largest souvenir emporium in town, so I flagged down a motorcyclist (the cheapest way to get around town), and he zoomed me there in five minutes for less than a buck. Inside the city block–size indoor market, a cacophony of vendors hawked their wares along a warren of Alice in Wonderland passageways. The real action was in the “wet” portion, where every imaginable food was offered, particularly if you like it live and wriggling: eels, frogs, snakes, crabs, and fish.
I passed a gaggle of elderly women having a rip-roaring time chopping off fish heads. I greeted them with “Good afternoon, ladies” in my timeworn Vietnamese, and the place erupted—the same way it used to in the war. Waving their arms, they barraged me with questions: “What your name? Where you from? You married?”
One woman walked up and pinched me playfully in the side. Howls of laughter. Then, another woman got up and linked the first woman’s arms with mine—and I got it. I mimicked taking a ring out of my pocket, took her left hand in mine, and placed the imaginary ring on her finger. More laughter.
Bowing gracefully, I blew her a kiss, waved them all good-bye, and hightailed it around a corner. Lesson: Always wear a wedding ring at Ben Thanh lest women brandishing cleavers lure you into an arranged marriage.
The next morning I took a tour bus into the Mekong Delta, the country’s “rice basket,” a vast wonderland of canals, mangrove swamps, and rice paddies. At one stop, we toured a small factory that made colorful straw mats. At Can Tho, we boarded longboats for a languid glide into an exotic world of floating markets and river traffic. I saw every kind of watercraft imaginable: boats that looked like Davy Crockett keelboats, like the Monitor and the Merrimac, like dragons.
What astonished me the most was how friendly the people were. Boat occupants, upon seeing any foreigner, would scramble around madly, rush below their boat hulls, and bring up babies and wave the infants’ hands at us.
I got the same welcome two days later. I was in the old capital of Hué riding a rented bike along the bank of the Perfume River, where Nguyen emperors ruled for more than a hundred years.
“Excuse me, sir.”I turned. Poised on a bicycle 10 feet away was a young woman in jeans and a T-shirt, with long straight hair that hung below her waist.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“America.”
“Oh! I was wondering, could I ride with you? I would enjoy an opportunity to practice my English.”
Her name was Lan. We biked along the river for a while, and she queried me nonstop: “Where do you live? How many are in your family? Who is your favorite singer?”
Afterward, we arranged for a river tour on a private boat. (Such tours are readily available along the river and through most hotels.) We floated by imperial tombs and Buddhist pagodas built on hillocks overlooking the river. While we went ashore to sightsee at one stop, our boatman went ashore, too; he bought chicken, fish, and vegetables; cooked them on the boat; and handed us bowls just as we returned. It was the best meal I had in Vietnam. Total cost for the tour: $6 plus $2 for lunch. Oh, did I say Vietnam is ridiculously inexpensive?
When we parted that evening, Lan and I exchanged emails and promised to write. “Please come back someday, John,” she said.
I told her I most assuredly would try.
My last stop was Hanoi, a city we once bombed and where American POWs were imprisoned in the “Hanoi Hilton.” Everyone had welcomed me with open arms up to then. Hanoi would be the true test.
Quiet and languid, with shady, tree-lined lakes around every corner, Hanoi is ideal for strolling, biking, or watching residents practice tai chi in the mornings. In the French Quarter, I gawked at the ornate colonial architecture, each peeling, faded pastel building resembling a discarded wedding cake. In the “36 Streets” of the Old Quarter, where each street specializes in a particular craft, I gazed at cherry-red funeral banners along Hang Quat, bizarre paper products on Hang Ma, and creamy silks on Hang Gai.
I joined a four-hour bus tour from Hanoi to what many call the eighth wonder of the world: Halong Bay, a crystal-clear gulf containing thousands of skyscraper-size limestone outcrops, caves, islands, and karst sculptures that director James Cameron must have brought in from Avatar’s planet Pandora.
On my last night in Vietnam, I hung out at Highway 4 in Hanoi, a bar/café where a funky mix of locals, expats, and foreigners mellowed out on cushions around low tables, sipping liqueurs made from fruit and herbal blends. My waiter suggested I check out the rooftop view. Upstairs, a table overflowing with Vietnamese college graduates hailed me over.
Tell us a joke, they demanded in good fun. My favorite knock-knock left them in stitches. Sing us a song, they said. My lame “Hey Jude” got hearty applause. What do you think of Vietnamese people, they asked softly.
I paused. They were no longer laughing and smiling. They were staring at me intently. I told them that they were friendly, ambitious, strong, brave, and, most of all, forgiving.
When I finished, several of them had tears in their eyes. No one had ever told them these things, they said. In the past, they said, their country had done things they were ashamed of, and they needed to hear things they could be proud of. They weren’t the only ones who choked up that night.
As I departed the next day, I was once again, as I’d been more than 40 years before, overcome with emotions. The first time I left was bittersweet because I’d not only emerged unscathed from the most dangerous place on Earth when others had not, but I’d experienced a truly magical place and people. This time I was leaving with the comfort of knowing that whatever new paths I may amble in the future, there will always be one place eager to hold my hand. And yours.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------John Wood, a Los Angeles–based travel writer, served in Chu Lai, Vietnam, in 1967–1968. He’s currently a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines.
Your AAA Travel Agent can provide information about travel abroad, including cruises and escorted tours to Vietnam. Visit your local Auto Club branch, call 1-800-208-0556, or visit the Explore Travel section of our website. For general information about Vietnam, visit the website of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
A vet revisits Vietnam more than 40 years later and discovers a country much changed, yet much the same
By John Wood
Westways July/August 2011
Halong Bay, Vietnam
“What you doing here?”
I looked up at the Vietnamese man standing above me near the departure gate at Singapore’s Changi International Airport. He didn’t look angry, but he didn’t look genial either.
I was waiting to board my flight to Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon, as everybody still calls it), my first visit since my Army tour in 1967. After the war, many veterans have returned for closure. I was coming back to open my heart. The question was, would I be accepted or rejected? “I’m going to Vietnam,” I said.
“Why?” he shot back.
I’m a tourist,” I said. I introduced myself in Vietnamese, hoping that would break the ice. He introduced himself in English. This wasn’t going well.
“You in Vietnam before?” he asked.
I nodded.
“When?” he demanded.
“During a very bad time.”
He stepped back in shock. “Bro, you don’t look older than 40!”
I stared at the floor for a moment before his words sunk in. I looked up, and he was grinning from ear to ear. He hadn’t been angry. He hadn’t even been thinking what I’d been thinking. He was just being Vietnamese—curious, friendly, open. Just like I remembered.
As I stepped off the plane at Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat airport, it all came back: the steam-room humidity, the tarmac full of aircraft. This time, however, instead of Hueys and F-4s, there were Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific 747s. Instead of noncoms shouting to line up, hostesses in pink ao dais welcomed us. Instead of climbing onto a dusty, armed jeep, we stepped aboard a bus draped in a Pepsi ad.
Vietnam is booming again, but thankfully not the way it did before. From entrepreneurs wanting to make a buck to retirees looking for a new destination to backpackers seeking adventure, everyone’s coming back to Vietnam. With its pristine beaches and bays, mountain highlands and river deltas, and cities glittering with culture and neon, Vietnam is colonial France wrapped around an American flag atop an Asian dragon inside the pages of a Graham Greene novel.
Traveling solo, I took in the big three on my 14-day sojourn: Saigon in the south, Hué in the middle, and Hanoi to the north.
I’d read that Saigon’s Ben Thanh Market was the largest souvenir emporium in town, so I flagged down a motorcyclist (the cheapest way to get around town), and he zoomed me there in five minutes for less than a buck. Inside the city block–size indoor market, a cacophony of vendors hawked their wares along a warren of Alice in Wonderland passageways. The real action was in the “wet” portion, where every imaginable food was offered, particularly if you like it live and wriggling: eels, frogs, snakes, crabs, and fish.
I passed a gaggle of elderly women having a rip-roaring time chopping off fish heads. I greeted them with “Good afternoon, ladies” in my timeworn Vietnamese, and the place erupted—the same way it used to in the war. Waving their arms, they barraged me with questions: “What your name? Where you from? You married?”
One woman walked up and pinched me playfully in the side. Howls of laughter. Then, another woman got up and linked the first woman’s arms with mine—and I got it. I mimicked taking a ring out of my pocket, took her left hand in mine, and placed the imaginary ring on her finger. More laughter.
Bowing gracefully, I blew her a kiss, waved them all good-bye, and hightailed it around a corner. Lesson: Always wear a wedding ring at Ben Thanh lest women brandishing cleavers lure you into an arranged marriage.
The next morning I took a tour bus into the Mekong Delta, the country’s “rice basket,” a vast wonderland of canals, mangrove swamps, and rice paddies. At one stop, we toured a small factory that made colorful straw mats. At Can Tho, we boarded longboats for a languid glide into an exotic world of floating markets and river traffic. I saw every kind of watercraft imaginable: boats that looked like Davy Crockett keelboats, like the Monitor and the Merrimac, like dragons.
What astonished me the most was how friendly the people were. Boat occupants, upon seeing any foreigner, would scramble around madly, rush below their boat hulls, and bring up babies and wave the infants’ hands at us.
I got the same welcome two days later. I was in the old capital of Hué riding a rented bike along the bank of the Perfume River, where Nguyen emperors ruled for more than a hundred years.
“Excuse me, sir.”I turned. Poised on a bicycle 10 feet away was a young woman in jeans and a T-shirt, with long straight hair that hung below her waist.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“America.”
“Oh! I was wondering, could I ride with you? I would enjoy an opportunity to practice my English.”
Her name was Lan. We biked along the river for a while, and she queried me nonstop: “Where do you live? How many are in your family? Who is your favorite singer?”
Afterward, we arranged for a river tour on a private boat. (Such tours are readily available along the river and through most hotels.) We floated by imperial tombs and Buddhist pagodas built on hillocks overlooking the river. While we went ashore to sightsee at one stop, our boatman went ashore, too; he bought chicken, fish, and vegetables; cooked them on the boat; and handed us bowls just as we returned. It was the best meal I had in Vietnam. Total cost for the tour: $6 plus $2 for lunch. Oh, did I say Vietnam is ridiculously inexpensive?
When we parted that evening, Lan and I exchanged emails and promised to write. “Please come back someday, John,” she said.
I told her I most assuredly would try.
My last stop was Hanoi, a city we once bombed and where American POWs were imprisoned in the “Hanoi Hilton.” Everyone had welcomed me with open arms up to then. Hanoi would be the true test.
Quiet and languid, with shady, tree-lined lakes around every corner, Hanoi is ideal for strolling, biking, or watching residents practice tai chi in the mornings. In the French Quarter, I gawked at the ornate colonial architecture, each peeling, faded pastel building resembling a discarded wedding cake. In the “36 Streets” of the Old Quarter, where each street specializes in a particular craft, I gazed at cherry-red funeral banners along Hang Quat, bizarre paper products on Hang Ma, and creamy silks on Hang Gai.
I joined a four-hour bus tour from Hanoi to what many call the eighth wonder of the world: Halong Bay, a crystal-clear gulf containing thousands of skyscraper-size limestone outcrops, caves, islands, and karst sculptures that director James Cameron must have brought in from Avatar’s planet Pandora.
On my last night in Vietnam, I hung out at Highway 4 in Hanoi, a bar/café where a funky mix of locals, expats, and foreigners mellowed out on cushions around low tables, sipping liqueurs made from fruit and herbal blends. My waiter suggested I check out the rooftop view. Upstairs, a table overflowing with Vietnamese college graduates hailed me over.
Tell us a joke, they demanded in good fun. My favorite knock-knock left them in stitches. Sing us a song, they said. My lame “Hey Jude” got hearty applause. What do you think of Vietnamese people, they asked softly.
I paused. They were no longer laughing and smiling. They were staring at me intently. I told them that they were friendly, ambitious, strong, brave, and, most of all, forgiving.
When I finished, several of them had tears in their eyes. No one had ever told them these things, they said. In the past, they said, their country had done things they were ashamed of, and they needed to hear things they could be proud of. They weren’t the only ones who choked up that night.
As I departed the next day, I was once again, as I’d been more than 40 years before, overcome with emotions. The first time I left was bittersweet because I’d not only emerged unscathed from the most dangerous place on Earth when others had not, but I’d experienced a truly magical place and people. This time I was leaving with the comfort of knowing that whatever new paths I may amble in the future, there will always be one place eager to hold my hand. And yours.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------John Wood, a Los Angeles–based travel writer, served in Chu Lai, Vietnam, in 1967–1968. He’s currently a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines.
Your AAA Travel Agent can provide information about travel abroad, including cruises and escorted tours to Vietnam. Visit your local Auto Club branch, call 1-800-208-0556, or visit the Explore Travel section of our website. For general information about Vietnam, visit the website of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
No comments:
Post a Comment