Monday, April 24, 2000
I arrived in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City to a thunderstorm but by the time I checked into my hotel, the sun had come out and it was swelteringly hot ? the water had created a sauna effect. My guide took me to visit the Museum of Vietnamese History where the similarities between Chinese and Vietnamese art was quite striking. I was interested to learn that the Vietnamese used to write with Chinese characters until a missionary in the 17th century converted them to using a Roman alphabet so that reading materials were more accessible. Once again there is the emphasis on balance ? yin/yang, the dragon for the king and the phoenix for the queen, spicy with sweet etc. There is a room in the museum showing different costumes and houses from the mountain people. Most interesting was that the rich in the village, put their dead in coffins that they hang from the jungle trees. They stay for 3 months performing rituals and then leave the coffin hanging there. Apparently there can be quite a stench! Also many have houses on stilts. I thought perhaps they had flooding but he said it was for protection from tigers and leopards.
The market sells everything. Like the Chinese, Vietnamese eat anything – there were piles of tasty roasted sparrow and apparently porcupine, dog, frog are all on the menu. When my guide looks at a live animal, first thought is what it would taste like.
Saigon has a few lovely French colonial buildings like the Post Office and Town Hall. The women here are beautifully sylphlike wearing flowing outfits consisting of loose trousers and a fitted top which drapes to the ground with 2 free-flowing panels in the front and back. When they ride bicycles, they hold the front panel with the handlebars and the back panel flutters in the wind. Many young women wear gloves to their elbows to protect their skin from getting too dark. We drove past the US compound where the last helicopters took off 25 years ago. At the end of the week is the actual anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Many street corners have placards celebrating the ?Liberation of Southern Vietnam? as they call it. They are also starting to decorate the streets with flags.
I thought traffic in Bangkok was chaotic but on reflection, I think it was relatively sane – just too packed. In Saigon, there is complete disregard for any laws. The cyclos – chair for 1 person powered by a guy on a bike in the back (unlike Chinese rickshaws where the cyclist is in the front with a 2 seater behind him) simply stick to the middle of the road forcing cars, bicycles and the millions of motorcycles around him. Motorcyclists never wear helmets and children as young as a few months are taken on them. Vehicles don’t stop or slow for each other– they simply go around regardless of the side of the road. However, I felt safer in a cyclo than a tuk tuk because it goes slower and doesn’t fight the traffic. It’s also a very pleasant way to see the city – faster than walking but slow enough to look around.
There are also government placards everywhere which educate people about HIV and condoms. One has a cartoon of a smiling condom. They seem quite open about sexual topics here. My guide pointed out an old stone sculpture in the museum and said it represented ?sflaskjas aslfkajf? – not understanding him, I asked him to repeat himself which he did 3 times, each time a bit louder. I finally realized he was saying ?sexual organs? by which time I was quite pink. You pour water over the statue and pray for fertility. There are also many decorative motifs based on breasts, which represent abundance. It was a contrast to China where when I asked about birth control, the local lady got very flustered and didn?t want to go into too many details ? strange for a country which enforces a one-child policy. Vietnam allows 2 children. If you have more, you lose your job. The hilltribes or minorities in the countryside are allowed more.
At the moment, I am not able to update my website due to technical difficulties. But I have noticed that there are no internet shops in Saigon. Hotel business centers offer internet access here but it is not like Bangkok which has internet stations everywhere
On the plane this morning, I met the Senior Asia Correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. We had such a good time chatting that we agreed to meet for dinner in Saigon. We took a dinner boat up the river and had a delightful time. He is here writing on the 25th anniversary of the War. It was mesmerizing listening to the tales of the many countries he has lived in or reported on. The life of a journalist seems so romantic, but as he admitted, there are a lot of personal sacrifices.
Tuesday, April 25, 2000
Today I was taken by a driver and guide out of Saigon into the countryside. We drove through picturesque rice fields and little towns on a rough road. They have 3 harvests a year for rice grown in the south. This is due to there only having 2 seasons ? wet and hot or dry and hot. Vietnam is now the 2nd largest rice exporter after Thailand. I have never seen so many different kinds of rice.
I thought I was in the middle of nowhere far from any tourists when we pulled into a parking lot and joined a dozen tour busses. We had come to visit the Cu Chi tunnels which were used by the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War. I saw the vicious booby traps which were set in the jungle and crawled down into one of the cleaned up tunnels to see what it was like. Some of the fighters lived 11 years underground with limited stale air, coconut oil lamps, tight tunnels to prevent the larger Americans getting through if they found any of the camouflaged entrances. The Viet Cong were very clever about their guerilla tactics. I see why we lost. What a horrible senseless war.
This is the war room in the basement of the presidential palace where we had our advisors.
We then drove on to Tay Ninh near the Cambodian border which is the center of a religion that only exists in Southern Vietnam. The religion is called Cao Dai and is a mixture of Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucius and Islam. There are services 4 times a day. We arrived in time for the midday service. Priest in colored robes sat at the front – red for Confucius, yellow for Buddhists, blue for Taoists. Behind them were rows of lay worshipers- men on the right and women on the left all in white robes sitting on the floor and occasionally bowing their heads to the ground. The temple is painted in bright colours and has representations of Christ, Buddha, mythological creatures as well as the “divine” eye in the middle of a triangle representing heaven, earth and water. On the upper level where visitors can watch from, there is an orchestra of interesting instruments and a chanting female choir.
Rubber trees are tapped twice a day for the sticky latex-like sap that drips from the slashed bark into a bowl. Vietnam exports a lot of rubber.
Foot reflexology and body massage are very common in Thailand and Vietnam. There are shops everywhere ?there were even massage beds set up on the beaches in Thailand. Here massage is considered to be connected to religion ? one of most famous massage training universities is in the Wat Pho temple in Bangkok. There you find ancient paintings showing the body pressure points. In the evening, I had a foot massage. It was alternately blissful, painful and ticklish. It?s based on foot reflexology and extends from your toes to your knees using eucalyptus oil.
Wednesday, April 26
I bought a few souvenirs and decided to box and send them back to the States. I thought it would take about 10 minutes at the post office. My guide and I spent 1.5 hours and waited in line at 10 stations, filled out 6 forms etc. I have never seen such bureaucracy. My guide said they know it?s inefficient but they need to employ people somehow. The government is more or less bankrupt and have taken away benefits like free health care, education after 12 years old, help with housing costs etc. It?s hard to see why they bother calling themselves communists. The center of Saigon is full of neon lights and upmarket tourist shops. However, you notice that there are few banks and no ATM cash machines anywhere. Apparently, the banks do not have a good reputation as a few of them went bankrupt and did not pay back depositors. As far as I can gather, many Vietnamese keep their assets in gold or under the mattress. Mortgages are difficult to obtain. Now everyone gets everywhere by motorcycle. There are a few cars and bicycles but very little in the way of public transportation. My guide told me public busses are too expensive. I can?t quite figure out how people get to work if they can?t afford a scooter. Riding around in a cyclo at night, I did notice that a number of people sleep stretched out on mats on the street by the market.
We took a day trip from Saigon to the Mekong Delta about 70km away. There we took a boat ride past a series of islands to a village down a stream. After feasting on some of the fruits which grow locally – jackfruit, starfruit, papaya, mango, baby bananas, sour sop, custard apple, pineapple, etc, we walked past a few homes made of bamboo posts and bamboo leaves. They got electricity 4 years ago which of course brought television. This has enabled them to improve knowledge of farming techniques. The woman we spoke with had 5 children. They were all incredibly friendly. The oldest girl said she had to leave school at 12 because they didn’t have enough money for her to continue. They live from the many fruits that grow around their house and from embroidery. They posed for photos and were delighted when I gave them a few Polaroids