After a restless night with the humidity, I made an early start. First stop was the architecturally imposing post office – a former administrative edifice of the French colonial government, it’s high, vaulted ceilings and miles of gilt detailing are a testament to the rich cultural legacy left by the French. Far more disconcerting is the 30ft high portrait of Ho Chi Minh surveying all the comings and goings from a position high on the wall opposite the entrance. Almost an hour later, after signing innumerable forms and paying untold amounts of Dong for god-knows-what, I escaped having despatched a parcel of presents and coffee back to Blighty. Fortunately, my cyclo driver was still waiting to wheel me sedately to the museum. On arrival at the museum, I found myself falling foul of another cultural legacy of the French: the immutable, Vietnamese lunch-break. For a country that has evolved the most comprehensive system of relieving travellers of every available cent, it is a surprising truth that the only place you can spend money between 11.30 and 1pm is in a bar or restaurant. Anyone hiring a Vietnamese tour-guide for the day who doesn’t allow them time for lunch is viewed with the same suspicion as a backstreet, sweatshop owner in Bradford…only the worst kind of slave driver lacks the civility to take lunch it would seem. I settled for returning to the museum after lunch and a spot of internet action. I certainly didn’t want to rush through what I expected to be grim reminder of the brutality of war.
When the time came, I wasn’t really prepared for what was a harrowing experience. I care not a jot for the whys and wherefores of the Vietnam War (referred to by the Vietnamese as the American War). I’m not interested in who was to blame, who had the moral high ground or who committed the worst atrocities. The museum simply and succinctly gives out one clear message…war can only cause pain and horror – both for its participants and for the innocent bystanders so often involved against their will. I am not the President of a great nation or a general planning an assault on a fortified position. I will never have to make decisions that will affect the lives of hundreds or thousands of people. I don’t know how I could decide that carpet-bombing villages, defoliating forests or destroying crops could be the best option available to me. For that I am very grateful. In war, as the museum so clearly demonstrates, people die – often in gruesome circumstances. Some survive, only to produce deformed offspring due to chemical agents used by their enemies. Others survive, only to return to a country that despises their uniform and the cause they fought in it for. The number of American veterans from this war who later committed suicide is almost double that of those who died in action. Ultimately, the war achieved nothing except to brutalise an already war-weary nation and two generations of young Americans. Out of respect, I chose not to take any photographs…I think anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of the situation should see the exhibits in the museum with their own eyes…and the thought of capturing these images of death and torture was a little too macabre.
Perhaps the small ray of hope left over from this war, is the apparent lack of animosity towards Americans displayed by the local people. There has been harsh retribution towards and continuing repression of former members of the South Vietnamese armed forces (many of the city’s cyclo drivers are former soldiers who are punished by lack of residency permits – forcing former teachers or businessmen to scratch a living from and live on the streets), but the general attitude towards Americans is astonishingly friendly. If it is possible for the Vietnamese people to forgive (if not forget), then there is hope for the rest of the world.
Back at the street café where I had so fortuitously bumped into Robyn the previous day, I was pleasantly surprised to run into the two Swiss ladies who were also with us in Halong Bay. While Robyn had been on her way to Cambodia and the breath-taking sights of Angkor Wat, sadly these two were preparing to take their flight back to Zurich the next day. As they wandered off to pack their bags, I sat there musing that it would be poetic if I were to bump into Mark and Mel in the same spot. Not fifteen minutes later, they strolled by laden with rucksacks and bags and looking like they’d been on the end of a long bus ride. We agreed to meet up for some food and drink after they’d found a hotel.
At this point I realised that I’d left a floppy disk in a computer on the other side of town and, after picking up the offending article, I took the opportunity to stroll in a leisurely fashion back to our rendez-vous point. The vibrant street-life and bright lights nearly made me change my plans for leaving the following morning. I spent an amusing half-hour watching Braveheart (on an enormous widescreen TV in the window of a department store) with a team of uniformed street-cleaners. The two-cheek salute given by the Scots in the ‘Battle of Sterling’ drew great guffaws from my companions and we all cheered when the armoured horse were brought down by ‘spears as long as a man’.
We found a local eatery where the food and booze were both cheap and tasty and set-to catching up on Mark and Mel’s experiences with Tin and Tong. They had enjoyed the open-road as much as Russ and I did and had also had the luxury of seeing only one other tourist during their wanderings through the National Park at Cat Tien. Disappointingly, they hadn’t seen anything of the rare Rhinoceros that lives there in the jungle, but had an amusing evening night-spotting with one of the park rangers and lots of cunningly hidden tree-stumps and other natural booby-traps.
We ended up in the bar that had witnessed my mercurial pool talents the previous evening. Once again, I played one sublime game to depose the local shark (the girls are bloody good in Vietnam!) and then ignominiously descended into ridiculous farce against my next opponent. I would like to claim the effects of alcohol were ruining my natural ability – of course anyone who’s seen me play pool sober, will testify that the booze was probably helping me in that first game and that my usual monumental ineptitude was merely making a comeback.
We were all too pissed to be surprised when Fleur turned up at some point during proceedings. She had acquired a couple of new travelling buddies on her bus journey from Dalat and introduced us to Kirsty and Jo from Yorkshire and Portsmouth. The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur…drinking games made an appearance (bloody Aussies!), Oasis was sung, beer was drunk…I eventually made my excuses and crawled off to bed at about 2.30am. As I set the alarm for 6am, I noted with some anguish that the contents of my bags were strewn chaotically on the bed and floor…bumping into Mark and Mel had thrown my packing plans somewhat and I drifted off with the unpleasant thought of trying to pack with a hangover the following morning.
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