SAIGON

"Saigon. Shit." Those words - mumbled by a drugged out Martin Sheen in the opening scene of Apocaplypse Now - ran through my head as our bus lurched through the gridlock traffic that greeted our arrival in Ho Chi Minh City. First, lets clarify one thing: although the government likes to pretend that Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC for short) at the conclusion of the war in 1975, in reality, they're the only ones using the new name. So far as I can tell, this city will always be Saigon to the locals. And what a city it is. I guess I had been lulled into a false sense of serenity by the rest of the country (even in karaokeville Da Lat) because Saigon was a head-thumping rude awakening.

With a population of around 7 million and over 3 million registered motorbikes, to the untrained eye Saigon - the land knockoff zippo lighters - is an unqualified chaotic mess. That's not to say that I haven't enjoyed the last few days here - I certainly have - but Saigon has yet to win my affection like Hanoi or Hue have. Unfortunately, it likely won't have a chance - first thing tomorrow I'm plunging into the Mekong Delta for a few days before beginning the Cambodian leg of my journey.

Oh well, Saigon is one of those places you've got to experience - and I have. Like any good Asian city, Saigon is loud, dirty, and filled with exotic sights and even more exotic smells. However, unlike most Asian cities, there hardly seems to be any respite from the craziness. Motorbikes are screaming at all hours - just the prospect of crossing the street makes the idea of walking more than few blocks seem daunting. The all-encompassing noise of endless construction projects - jackhammers, dumptrucks, tractors - effectively wring all the peace and quiet from the local temples. Hotel touts and motorbike taxi drivers are on you as soon as you leave the relative safety of your alleyway hotel. And then there's the heat. Ahhh....deep breath.

Ok, let me back up a bit. Saigon IS a really cool place. The history here is unreal. I mean it's SAIGON after all. Everywhere you turn, there are reminders of the Vietnam War: the Presidential Palace, the old American Embassy site, the War Remnants Museum, the War Surplus Market, and even the people that you meet. Everyone over the age of 40 has an incredible story to tell about living through the war and it's aftermath. While it lacks much of the obvious old-time appeal that makes Hanoi so fascinating, Saigon has cornered the market on recently created history. In that respect, Saigon really is an amazing place. However......

Saigon strikes me as a wanna-be Bangkok, and I suppose someday, if the current construction boom is any indication, it may achieve that status. But today, it's a city with all of the negatives of Bangkok with very few of the positives. In all fairness, I've got to say that my visit can be described as cursory at best. You could never claim to "figure out" a place in a few days, and I certainly won't claim that now. I found a handful of amazing places (the Jade Emperor Pagoda is hands down, one of the coolest temples I've ever visited) and met a few great locals who took time to talk to me about their experiences in the city. The examples of French colonial architecture that remain are gorgeous (I mailed in my absentee ballot under the eye of Uncle Ho in the spectacular French-style central post office). I found a half kilo of weasel coffee to share with my friends when I get home - ask me about it sometime. I was hit on by my first hookers in Saigon. But I'm also leaving with a nasty heat rash and a dull headache. Maybe it's just all part of the Saigon experience. Shit.

Da Lat..."City of Eternal Spring" or cheese capital of Vietnam?

Well, I'll say this much, Vietnam continues to amaze me. Pulling out of a sweaty, steamy Nha Trang in the morning, I never would have guessed that later in the day I'd be fishing around in the bottom of my backpack for a jacket while hiking through a pine forest. As it turns out, Da Lat (at 1475 meters above sea level) is situated in the rolling, evergreen forested hills that constitute the roof of Vietnam's Central Highlands and after 7 hours in a bus, I couldn't wait to stretch my legs by tramping through the pine needles. Once again, the French, in their never ending quest to create some semblance of home, found the area with its (relatively) near perfect climate and familiar vegetation to be the ideal location for their vacation homes. Hence, Da Lat.

I'll be honest, I didn't know a lot about Da Lat before I got here but I had one hell of a pleasant image in my head. I knew that Da Lat was the primary wine-producing area in Vietnam. In fact, almost any Vietnamese wine you're likely to stumble across came from Da Lat. I knew there were lakes. I knew the weather was nice. I had also heard that Da Lat was the "Honeymoon Capital of Vietnam." While all that is true, I didn't realize that Da Lat may also be the cheesiest city in the entire country. Why? Well, it IS the honeymoon capital of Vietnam. It's also one of the biggest domestic tourist destinations in the country, with Vietnamese tourists outnumbering foreign visitors by 10 to 1.

I'll be the first to agree - make that argue - that tackiness is relative - God knows Americans can be a kitchy lot (check out your neighbor's Christmas display this year...Daniel). That being said,
the Vietnamese do a bang up job as well. From being helplessly funneled into a decrepit "amusement park" after touring Emperor Boa Dai's palace to the photographers who prowl the city with their horses in search of customers (not difficult to find) wanting dress up in ratty cowboy outfits, complete with fake six-shooters and very serious Wyatt Earp glares to the Gaudi-esque themed hotels complete with glowing-eyed kangaroos and grizzly bears with fireplaces for crotches (not making this up - I toured one hotel), Da Lat is one strange place. It feels like such a cool place - Vietnamese artists flock here, beret-wearing old men wander the streets, a genuinely decent cup of coffee is not hard to find, French music flows through the cafe speakers, the lake IS beautiful, the climate is perfect, even the market - overflowing with fruits and vegetables like you might find at home - is the best I've come across so far. And then, inevitably, there's the karaoke blaring from the clubs until midnight, the Vietnamese package tourists up from Saigon for the weekend, the constant nagging by the "Easy Rider" motorcycle guides, and yes, that creepy kangaroo with the glowing eyes.

Ah, Da Lat. Two days was plenty. Off to Saigon...

SUNNY Nha Trang

Pulled out of Hoi An in a down pour and, as we were getting settled into our bus, a Dutch guy told me that one of the pedestrian bridges crossing the river downtown was now completely submerged. I also found out that several of the buses heading in different directions were being held back due to flooding. Although the weather wasn't looking so hot our direction either, we shoved off into the dark. Sianara Hoi An!

For the next leg of the trip - down the coast Nha Trang - I opted for a "sleeper bus" instead of the train as I had originally planned. However, the suggestion that you might actually get any sleep on this "sleeper bus" was really just cruel joke. We were all assigned individual reclining seats/bunks that resembled a cross between one of those weird Japanese sleeping pods and a coffin. The pods were obviously designed for the Vietnamese-sized body and watching the six foot plus Germans and Norwegians on board trying to cram themselves into their slots was pretty funny. At 5 foot 8, I had it a little easier than most, but by the time I manipulated my body to fit within the pod and around my bags, I couldn't reach my camera to document the situation without popping something out of place, whether it be one of the rivets holding the bunk together or, more likely, a vertebrae. So there we sat/lay for 13 hours down to Nha Trang. Not so bad once your body started going numb, but then of course the stereophonic snoring began. Between one of the overweight Germans and an old Chinese lady below me, it was all I could do to drown the noise out with my IPod. Burned through a couple batteries listening to Tibetan chants in an effort to chill out. Sort of worked and I did manage a couple hours of sleep before we pulled into Nha Trang around 6 am.


I hadn't really planned on visiting Nha Trang until the weather turned so bad on the central coast. According to the guide books, weather forecasts, and for geographiclimactic reasons I can't explain, Nha Trang marks the boundary between the shit weather (scientific term) and the good. Surpassing all my hopes, by the time we pulled into town the surf was up and the sun was shining bright. I, of course, went straight to bed for a few hours to sleep off the memories of the sleeper bus. But when I got up and started exploring a bit, I was pretty excited to be in Nha Trang.

I'll admit right off the bat that I am NOT a beach person - unless 1. the beach is underwater and I've got a scuba tank on my back, or 2. I'm making a fool of myself trying to surf. Other than that, I can't stand the idea of just laying around dehrydrating in the sun and trying to look cooooool. But I was pleased to find that Nha Trang has more to it than just its admittedly beautiful beaches. When all was said and done, I spent a couple of days wandering around Nha Trang on foot and by motorbike. Cham ruins (the Anasazi were amateurs compared to these guys), the gritty fisherman's district on the north end of town, a ride south to Cam Ranh Bay, meeting Vietnam's most famous photographer (Long Thanh) at his gallery in town, and yeah, spending a bit of time on the beach. The highlight of the entire visit - besides simply drying out - was spending a mellow Sunday afternoon on the beachfront promenade with half the population of Nha Trang. Apparently, every Sunday, locals descend upon the beaches for picnics, swimming, soccer games, kite flying, cruising, and catching up with family and friends. The weather was perfect, the backdrop of Nha Trang Bay was spectacular, and with a armful of tropical fruit, I just pulled up a seat for some serious people watching.

All in all, Nha Trang was great - a little touristy in a second-rate Waikiki sort of way, but much needed. I'm even enjoying the new sunburn. Now it's time to head back to the mountains: On to the Central Highlands and Da Lat!

Water is Rising in Hoi An!

Woke up to a familiar sound this morning- rain pounding on the tin roof outside my window. Not necessarily unexpected so I just put on my standard rainy day uniform - Chacos, quick-dry shorts, t-shirt, rain jacket, military rain poncho, topped off with an umbrella - before heading out the door for a quick breakfast. My ride to the My Son temple complex was supposed to pick me up at the hotel around 8:00 but when I returned the girls at the front desk explained that the trip had been canceled due to flooding on the roads. Fair enough. With ten hours to kill before my night bus to Nha Trang leaves (assuming we can float out of town), I took my refund and headed back out into the storm.
I figured that 24+ hours of fairly heavy rain had to be doing something to the Thu Bon river so I went straight to the closest bridge to check it out. It must be the river guide in me, but I get the biggest kick out of watching a river in flood. Apparently, I'm not alone - a small group of local kids had assembled at the bridge to see what kind of goodies were being swept out to sea. The river had come up overnight - dramatically so. A line of ratty styrofoam boxes from the market floated beneath us on the current. Looking upstream I could see the water had risen into the homes and shops lining the river. I could also just make out the figure of a man busily tossing armloads of trash, including the type of foam boxes I had seen, into the stream - garbage disposal, Vietnam style.

I wandered a few blocks into town, bypassing the market on the water's edge, and made my way to the riverside promenade where I had been going for dinner each night. The owners of several of the cafes had told me about the flooding that occurs each rainy season (ie. now) and they weren't joking. The entire block was knee deep in water...and it was still rising. Small wooden boats had taken over for the motorbike taxis and people carried on with their business as best they could. Rats scurried for high ground and people pushed loaded bikes through water that rose to the tops of their tires. Scooters were stalling out as kids tried to ford the streams developing at intersections. Boat owners kept moving their bowlines further and further inland - a few were using sculptures in the city park as anchors. Tourists and locals alike crowded the few spots of dry land to get a look at the flood. And no one seemed overly concerned with the situation - lots of laughing, smiling, and shrugging of shoulders. The last big flood, I was told, occurred two years ago when the water had risen to the rafters of the ground floor shops and restaurants. Shopkeepers weren't evacuating their furniture and goods to the second floor yet.
After taking photos and walking (wading) around a bit I started back for the hotel to dry out.
Approaching the riverside fish/vegetable market, I could see that it was also knee deep in water and still as busy as ever. Against the steady hum of a hundred Vietnamese conversations, women continued selling vegetables on table tops literally only an inch or two above the rising river. Vendors, buyers, and gawkers (me) splashed through tight aisles as God only knows what sloshed and swirled in the water around our legs. My sandaled toes occasionally strained chunks of soggy vegetable matter from the water and the smells of the steamy fish market mixed with the surging river water started to make me nauseous. There was a perceptible current running through the market stalls and I laughed when I saw little old ladies peeling vegetables for sale and just dropping the rinds and skins in the water at their feet - knowing they would just drift away. The only problem is when the entire market starts doing the same thing. I can only imagine what must be floating into the South China Sea right now.

Update: With another hour or so to kill before the bus ride, I wandered back down to the waterfront for another look. It hasn't stopped raining and the river has NOT stopped rising. Another few square blocks are flooded out and, short of hiring one of the newly minted water taxis, I couldn't even get close to the spots where I took the photos above. Most of the market has migrated a couple of blocks inland to higher ground and hasn't even skipped a beat. Just another day in rainy-season Vietnam.

Humble Hoi An

As I tried to ferret out a little information concerning travel in Vietnam prior to my trip, I began to notice a pattern. Every guide book, every website, every blog, and every friend I spoke to emphatically recommended an extended visit to Hoi An. Now that I've arrived, I can see why.
Hoi An (formerly known as Faifo) is sort of an anachronism in modern day Vietnam. For one reason or another it was barely touched during either of the Indochinese wars and many of the buildings and homes in the river front neighborhood are hundreds of years old - a few have been opened to the public by their current seventh and eighth generation owners. More recently, it was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO meaning that active restoration and preservation efforts of historic buildings are on-going. In addition to all of that, it's just an amazing place to explore and hang out. The streets are narrow, the buildings are old and quaint, the food is delicious, and the people are pretty friendly (if a little aggressive when trying to attract customers to their shops or cafes). Hoi An is also situated in a great location - it fronts the Thu Bon river which flows into the South China Sea just a kilometer or two out of town. For several hundred years, Hoi An was one of the busiest ports in Vietnam and many of the oldest buildings were constructed as warehouses and homes for the Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Dutch, and Portuguese sailors who had to spend months at a time in Hoi An waiting for the trade winds to change direction and blow them home.

In addition to my Da Nang adventure up the coast I've been splitting my time equally between exploring the city, dodging rabid silk dealers, and hiding from the rain. This stretch of the Vietnamese coast has the most schitsophrenic weather patterns I've ever seen - one day it's blue sky and I'm getting sunburned to a crisp (I finally read the warning on my prescription bottle of malaria pills: "Avoid prolonged exposure to sun. Medication may dramatically increase sun sensitivity." Oooops..) and the next a mini-typhoon is inundating the city. Now, if there's one thing I hate, it's the folks I see on river trips who freak out because their vacation is being "ruined" by less than perfect weather. Well, tough shit. That's the way it goes, I think to myself. Now I'm putting my money where my mouth is by taking advantage of the good weather and sucking it up to deal with the bad (most of my clothes are now in varying states of "damp"). At least it's not cold.

If all goes according to plan - and the roads aren't completely washed away in this most recent deluge - I'm going to try and find an ancient Cham temple complex in the mountains outside town tomorrow morning before returning to catch an overnight bus down the coast to Nha Trang. I had considered stopping along the way, but unless the weather forecast changes it doesn't seem worth the time or effort to try and find my way to a couple obscure villages off the beaten path. Word on the street is that Nha Trang marks the southern extent of the Autumn monsoon season and things will start drying out a bit. We shall see...and if not, no big deal. It's just liquid sunshine, right?

Ohhh...Viva Da Nang!

Sorry, but I can't hear "Da Nang" without picturing Robin Williams in the movie Good Morning Vietnam as he belts out the (slightly twisted) Elvis lines "Ohhhh Viva Da Nang! Danang me Danang me, why don't you get a rope and haaaang meeeee?"

That being said, I made it to Da Nang this morning after passing through yesterday. Huh? Da Nang lies on the road (Highway 1A) between Hue and my new home for a few days, the seaside town of Hoi An. While I half-heartedly hoped to see Da Nang (if for no other reason than to put a face to the song), I really had no desire to stay there - it's just a big port city lacking much of interest. But once I settled into Hoi An, a glance at the map showed that Da Nang was just a quick 30km up the road. Why it took our bus over an hour to do that same stretch, I'll never know. At any rate, I decided to rent a motorscooter for the morning, follow a smaller coastal road up to Da Nang, have a quick look around, and cross Da Nang off my "been there, done that" list forever.

In the end, the drive to and from Da Nang was the highlight. Hoi An and Da Nang are separated by a thirty kilometer-long swath of coastline known to most of the world as "China Beach." China Beach or, more specifically the stretch nearest to Da Nang, was one of the largest in-county R&R locales for American troops during the war. It also spawned a mediocre 1980's tv drama that is better off forgotten. While the beach wasn't spectacular, I can certainly understand why soldiers looked forward to their few precious days there. Today, however, there is little to indicate that the Americans were ever here - save for a neighborhood of rundown beer joints, roadside restaurants, and the occassional massage parlor that are all probably in their 20th incarnation.

At its very northern edge, China Beach is bordered by "Monkey Mountain," a name given to it by the American troops getting plastered in its shadow. They thought its twin, jungle-covered peaks resemebled a monkey's head with ears. Its a beautiful mountain overlooking the coast and I managed to follow a recently built road across its face for quite a while before I was turned back by security guards at an ultra-swanky hillside resort. In fact, that's one thing I saw plenty of during my entire drive - construction of high-end luxury resorts. I can only imagine that in a decade (or sooner) there will be wall to wall resorts from Hoi An to Da Nang, which would be a shame, especially for those living in the few small villages currently scattered along the coast. But I can see why people are drawn to this part of Vietnam - great weather (so I hear), beautiful scenery, laid back beach-town vibe. There's money to be made and the developers are swooping in fast.

After crusing around Monkey Mountain, I made the obligatory pass through downtown Da Nang -getting lost more than once along the way - before heading home. Had a mini-crisis when I realized that the fuel gauge on my bike was stuck. I knew I was getting close to the bottom of the tank but had no idea how close - I managed to coast back into Hoi An on fumes. In the end, I'm glad I saw Da Nang and China Beach, but I'll be sticking to Hoi An for the next few days.

Honeymoon over?

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later - and, in the grand scheme of things, this really was a trivial incident - but it just goes to show what can happen when you've been lulled into complacency by easy traveling.

On my last afternoon in Hue, after an all-day rain storm had finally subsided, I needed to get out side and burn off a little pent up energy. Took a long meandering walk through the old quarter and was about to finish it off with a lap around the canals that ring the Citadel when I met "Thue," a local high school English teacher. Turns out he had a couple of days off because his river-side school had flooded and the cleanup was taking some time. At any rate, he had just wrapped up an afternoon of fishing in the canals and was ecstatic at the prospect of actually talking to an American. We chatted for a while before his wife came to pick him up on their motorscooter, at which point he insisted that we go to a nearby cafe to have a beer and talk. His wife had to do some shopping and would meet us at the cafe soon. Fine, I thought. I've got a couple of hours to kill and this is what travel is all about, right? Meeting the locals. So off we go.

He takes me to a quiet little restaurant a few blocks away, we chat and he orders a couple of beers. Cool, whatever. Then more beers. And a couple more. And another. I've got to be honest, this guy was a total lightweight. After an hour of matching him drink for drink, I knew he wasn't any sort of threat - at this rate, he'd be flat on on the floor long before me. Anyway, his wife eventually shows up - a very friendly woman, a little younger than me - and suddenly they begin ordering food. That's cool. I wasn't hungry but I was happy to keep them company while they ate.

Long story short, wife leaves - she has to get back to their two little kids at home - and the check shows up. Guess who suddenly doesn't have any money to pay the wildly inflated bill? Yep, my new buddy. I avoid making a big scene, knowing how seriously Asians take a loss of "face," and cover the bill. Thue promises over and over that he'll pay me back at his house. Yeah, right.

At this point, trying to maintain my composure (the bill was literally 5 times what it should have been - the staff must have assumed the white guy was paying and let me have it), we wandered to his house which was on my way home anyway. I'm pissed, he's dodging my requests for his 2/3 of the bill for a meal and drinks I never wanted, I'm getting more pissed. Suddenly my head is flooded with Africa flashbacks - where you really are getting screwed on a daily basis - and I can feel my temper rising. By the time we get to his place I'm equal parts fired up and completely over the incident. But I'm not leaving without putting up a diplomatic fight. So, I take his wife aside and present her with the bill from the restaurant and she suddenly feels bad (maybe her husband does this kind of thing on a regular basis?). She disappears next door and comes back with a few dollars. Not nearly enough to smooth things over but realizing it's all I'm getting, I decline a ride home and start walking back to the hotel.

Disecting the situation on my walk home, I instantly recognized that it wasn't the money that bothered me - it came to a lousy $20 (which, for perspective's sake, is at least two night's lodging). No, it was the fact that I was taken advantage of because I was a foreigner - first by the restaurant when they overcharged me, and second by Thue when he didn't argue against the outrageous tab, nor even consider paying part of it....after asking ME to join HIM.

But, of course, what it really came down to is that I allowed myself to be taken advantage of. I'm normally so much better at spotting this kind of shit and not allowing myself to fall into the trap. Two years of African-style boot camp may have made me suspicious of everyone's intentions but it also protected me from getting jerked around. And now look at me - I've gone completely soft! Trusting people.....ha.

By the time I reached the little alley leading to my place - after being cheerfully greeted by the woman who owns the coffee shop/travel agency across the way and the guy who runs the internet cafe next door - I was calming down a bit and putting it all into perspective. And after chatting with the front desk girls for a few minutes, I had mentally written off the twenty bucks and begun putting the incident behind me.

Whatever the restaurant staff did, it obviously wasn't personal. To them, I'm just another wealthy foreigner who can afford to part with a few dollars. Thue...well, I can't really explain his behavior or motives, other than he just saw me the same way - a white skinned, English-speaking meal ticket. Hmmm....not exactly the image I had hoped to portray. But, when all was said and done, it was a relatively inexpensive reminder that you DO have to stay on your toes. My image of Hue or the Vietnamese people has not been tarnished....but the bullshit detector has been activated.

The Tour

With more than a little trepidation, I did something that I've always sworn off in the past (with one regretable exception in China): I signed up for an organized "tour." I'll be blunt, I f***ing hate organized tours - and yes, I am completely aware of the irony. For the past 14 years or so, I've made my living leading organized tours down rivers. That's probably part of the problem. I just can't handle not being in the driver's seat, so to speak. And I hate being just another tourist, herded from one sight to the next. I repeat: I am completely aware of the irony. And it hurts.

That being said, I decided to bite the bullet and sign up for a tour of the DMZ (demilitarized zone) - a swath of land that stretches from the Vietnamese coast to the border with Laos. The DMZ is about a hundred kilometers long and ten kilometers wide, centered on the Ben Hai river. From 1954 until the Communist victory in 1975, it was the official demarcation line between the Republic of Vietnam (South) and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North) and, according to international agreement, the area was supposed to have been, well, demilitarized. Of course it wasn't, and the areas just south of the DMZ saw some of heaviest fighting of the war while the stretch just north of the DMZ suffered some of the heaviest shelling and bombing. Today, the former DMZ has been reclaimed by villages, towns, and farms, although UXE (exploded ordnance) is still a serious problem. I saw a few signs (the classic skull and crossbones) warning about leftover explosives. Billboards on the side of the road use cartoon characters to warn the public - primarily children - about the danger of picking up old landmines and bombs. Sad.

At any rate, while I thought I might be able to rent a motorbike and make my own way around the DMZ, the distances, rainy weather, and difficulty even finding many of the sites, convinced me to throw in the towel and submit myself to a tour. At $15 dollars for a full day, I figured I could eat the financial loss if the tour was crap. The lost 12 hours of my life would be harder to justify, but I eventually gave in.

The tour itself was typical: the DMZ tour mafia ran the show and we were shuttled from one "family" owned restaurant to another. The bus itself was alright, minus the blaring stereo, lack of rear shocks, and the a/c unit directly overhead that dripped like an incontinent old man for the duration of the trip. That just became funny after a while. Sort of. I was also surprised to discover that out of a group of maybe 25 foreigners, I was the only American. Lots of Aussies, Germans, a few Israelis, a funny Brit and his overweight Austrian girlfriend (who nearly had a panic attack later that day), and a chain-smoking Japanese kid, but no other Americans. I don't why I expected to see more Americans in Vietnam, but they've proven to be few and far between. Maybe that's a good thing (honestly, the one who stands out- a guy I met in Hanoi - was an overbearing, obnoxiously naive prick).

We managed to squeeze in quite a few sights during the day, considering the distances covered from Hue. Along Highway 9, which parallels the DMZ we stopped at an old Marine Corps. observation post called the "Rockpile." Set on top of a seriously steep limestone peak, we just looked up from the bottom - even Marines didn't climb this one, they were ferried by helicopter. A quick stop at a section of the Ho Chi Minh trail - which today is the fully paved Ho Chi Minh Highway (really). And finally a visit to the Khe Sanh combat base. The site of the bloodiest battle of the Vietnam war is now a lush hilltop covered in small coffee farms. All that really remains is the old airstrip and an expectedly biased museum display. I'm not really sure what I expected to find at Khe Sanh, but I wasn't prepared for the completely ordinary, overwhelmingly peaceful surroundings. I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, the Vietnam War was just a blip in the history of this country. The tropical landscape and even the Vietnamese people, in the form of the younger generations, are quickly reclaiming all that was destroyed by the war.

The second half of the day was spent touring Highway 1 which runs parallel to the coast line. We passed directly through the old DMZ as we crossed the flatlands that surround the Ben Hai - still sort of a no man's land of rice paddies and tidal flats. The final destination of the trip was the village of Vinh Moc, and more precisely, its tunnels. Vinh Moc was a small fishing village that just happened to find itself on the northern edge of the DMZ in 1954. For that, it suffered repeated bombing and shelling from American bombers and ships off the coast. To survive, the entire village went underground - way underground. At any given time 300 villagers (and North Vietnamese fighters) were living up to 60 feet below ground in a labyrinth of tunnels. There were rooms for living, hospitals, guard posts, meeting halls, bomb shelters, and even water wells all below the surface. Secret exits opened up into the demolished village above and directly on to the beach so that villagers could come out at night to work their rice paddies and care for their animals. Pretty amazing and most of it was open to walk (stoop) through - this is where the Austrian girl had here mini-freak out. Her boyfriend's attempt at humor to talk her down had most of us rolling, although she may not have appreciated it. Oh well.

After the tunnels we began the long drive back to Hue - 4 hours or so - and we returned after dark and in the thick of a new round of rain. My plans are to head south to Hoi An in a day - of course, the owner of the internet cafe that I've befriended mentioned that Hoi An is flooding a bit. Hmm...always an adventure.

A Couple of Days in Hue

Ok, so as I sit down to write this there is a pretty serious screaming match going on in the lobby of my guesthouse - I'm guessing between the owner and some family members, but I don't really know. Man, high-pitched, higher-decibel Vietnamese is grating on the ears. The German kid sitting at the computer next to me is chuckling to himself and stealing glances at the verbal warfare going on behind me. And it really was such a relaxing day.....

I've spent the last couple of days exploring the city of Hue on foot and by bicycle and I've got to say that (current screaming match notwithstanding) this is a place where, in another life, I could see myself settling down and staying for a while. The heart of modern-day Hue (pronounced "way," by the way) is the old city which is enclosed within the walls - 2 meters thick and 10km around - of the old citadel. "Old city," however, is more or less a misnomer since a hundred years of combined French, American, and Vietnamese aggression had destroyed most of the city by 1975, when the Communists permanently rolled into town. But Hue has been rebuilt, slowly but surely (including inevitable sprawl) - a process that has been financially subsidized due to its UNESCO rating as a world heritage site.

As soon as you ride across the bridge spanning the Perfume River and enter the Citadel via one of a dozen gates, everything slows down a notch. Although a good chunk of the population lives within the Citadel, it feels as though you've left the city for the country with its quiet lanes, small markets, ponds, canals, parks, gardens, and family farms. I don't want to make the Citadel sound like a paradise, because it's not. There are still pockets of poverty, visible damage remains from the war that ended 35 years ago, and God only knows what long-time residents of the city have been through. But, I'm quickly learning that the Vietnamese don't dwell much on the past and Hue is a testament to that attitude. A beautiful city with (once again) some of the friendliest people I've ever met. On a leisurely morning bike ride around the Citadel, I stopped counting how many people waved and said hello to me. At a construction site, no less than a dozen workers stopped what they were doing and asked me to take their photos (side note: after looking at the pictures again I noticed a few lewd gestures that sort of transcend the language barrier, if you know what I mean). I passed dozens of young boys playing marbles in the dirt on the side of the road and when I asked to watch, they gave me my own handful to keep. That's the kind of stuff that I'm growing to love about this country.

The highlight of Hue - and the reason for its UNESCO attention - is the "Imperial Enclosure." Essentially a citadel within a citadel (guide book's words, not mine), it was home to generations of Vietnamese emperors and structurally based on the Forbidden City in Bejiing. Temples, palaces, living quarters for the hundreds of eunuchs and concubines who served, and serviced, the Emperor. Man, what a life. In all honesty, there's not a whole lot left - the French destroyed most of it, and the Americans and Viet Cong finished off the rest. But a few temples and palaces have been restored and reconstruction is ongoing. I spent the better part of a morning just wandering around the complex and was amazed by the history, and destruction, associated with the place.

I've got a couple more days in Hue before moving on and there's still plenty to see and do. Should have a good story to share after my next adventure - Daniel, if you're reading this, I've signed up for another "DAY" like the one we had in Bejiing. Wish me luck.