Vietnam: After Hanoi

We drove east for four hours to Halong Bay, home to two thousand limestone islands in the gulf of Tonkin.

We boarded our cruise and made for a fishing village nestled in the shelter of several islands. There are a number of these communities dotted around the gulf that sprung up as places to service the fisherman but gradually ended up as permanent communities. All the dwellings are built on plastic drums lashed together with wooden beams to provide a floating platform. On this is built a usually modest dwelling of wood topped with corrugated iron. The one we visited had about seventy abodes, a meeting place and a school that was built with money donated from Kambala School, Sydney.

Mags’ new policy this trip is to say yes to everything. This is how I came to be standing on deck at 7a.m. for a lesson in Tai Chi. We managed remarkably well with the warm up moves but there was lots of creaking and groaning as the stretching increased, and then we were soon tottering and flailing all over the place as the pace increased. Must have looked hilarious, the instructor barely able to keep a straight face. We warmed down with a climb up one of the tiny limestone islands. Tiny, but still five hundred steps to the top where the view from the observation tower was worth the effort.

Another short flight to Hue in central Vietnam, pronounced Whey with a light Geordie accent.

Another city tour that took in the impressive Citadel, and a three walled fortress and dwelling for the kings of the Nguyen dynasty from 1802 to 1945. A quick stop at a monastery after a short river cruise where a monk who burnt himself to death in Saigon as a protest to the governments restrictions on religious freedom in 1963. They have strangely kept and preserved the Austin car that he used to travel to Saigon. We also stopped at the tomb of Emperor Khai Dinh where ten thousand workers died in constructing it, many from Malaria.

We spent a few bizarre hours in a Zen Buddhist retreat. A home built recently by a wealthy businesswoman from Saigon who retired here. She receives a few visitors now and donates the money to good causes. It was a beautiful, immaculate house built with iron wood, a dark, incredibly durable and beautiful material. It has four buildings forming a square around an ornamental rectangular pond. We had a pleasant vegetarian lunch provided mainly from their own gardens, and joined our host in some quiet meditation slowly doing laps of the quadrant with our hands coated and massaged with a mixture of banana honey, yogurt and herbs. I don’t know what Mags was meditating on, but all I could think of is what a sight we must all look.

 

We indulged ourselves in a three day stop at a beach resort in Hoi An, bordering a long stretch of golden sands looking out over the South China sea. We spent a half day in the town which was a major trading port in the seventeenth century and has a well preserved old quarter where motor vehicles are excluded, so making it a pleasant change to stroll around without being beeped at incessantly by motorbike riders.

I’ve observed that the further south we travel, the country feels less and less communist. And in central Vietnam, the natives are born capitalists. Just pause at a shop front and the proprietor or shop assistant well pounce, maneuver you into a half nelson and not release you until you’ve made a purchase. Consequently, there’s all sorts of tat now being shipped back to our place.

Another short flight to Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, but still referred to by most Vietnamese by its former name. We stopped on route from the Airport at Cu Chi tunnels. This is area famed in Vietnam for resisting the US in what is known here as the American war. The VC built miles and miles of tunnels underground that they used as shelters, living quarters, armories and a means of escape from the Marines and a way of outflanking them. It really was humbling to walk through a battle field where so many people had lost their lives and to see the huge hollowed out craters created from bombs dropped by B52s. We entered a short thirty metre section of one tunnel and had to squat low to proceed along it. It was very small and uncomfortable, my shoulders touching the sides of the walls. To spend hours and days down there would have been tortuous. Only one night in Saigon. Shouldn’t that be Bangkok? Anyway, enough time for a quick photo opportunity at two impressive structures built by the French; the post office and the cathedral, a derivative of the famous Notre Dam in Paris - and for Mags to enter into a lively debate with a local politician in the hotel bar. Lucky to escape imprisonment there.

We continued south to the Mekong delta where the mighty river spreads out into countless waterways, like the back of an old man’s hand, before finally emptying into the South China Sea. Here we visited a brick factory by boat where the clay from the river is shaped, dried and fired in kilns for days. The kilns are heated by burning rice husks and the resulting smoke hangs heavy over the surrounding area. On route to the next stop we changed transport to bicycle. Mags was a little apprehensive about this as it’s many years since we cycled; Mags reckoned it was thirty five years since she was last on to wheels. But anyway, it’s literally like riding a bike, and we were soon wobbling our way along the narrow lanes of the local villages – although most of the locals we passed couldn’t help smiling or laughing. 

After 20 minutes we came to a typical village where we chatted with a veteran from the Cambodian war with the Khmer Rouge. He spent five years at the front and, unlike most of his compatriots, came back alive and in one piece. The war started in ’79 , only four years after the American war, and lasted until 1989. We also visited a coconut factory, the area being famous for this fruit, and known colloquially as the coconut region. Every part of this incredible tree is used. There’s the juice, the flesh that is used to make milk, cream and oil, the outer husk is used to make mats, the inner shell is used as fuel, either directly or it is turned into charcoal. The leaves and trunks are used in building, and there’s even a coconut worm that lives inside the tree that is eaten as a delicacy. It’s very expensive, as you have to kill the tree to harvest it.

Next day, an early morning tour to the local floating market where farmers sell their produce wholesale on the river. Each boat ties a sample of what they are selling at the top of a large pole at the front of the boat. They stay at the market until they sell out, usually two or three days.

We pressed on by road further south to Chau Doc where a respected general who lived in the eighteenth century dreamed that a female deity told him that she was on the mountain and that if he would seek her she would keep the region safe. Well, being a general, he didn’t climb the mountain personally, but sent some soldiers. The boys came back with the intelligence that they had found the lady goddess in the form of a stone but that she was too heavy to lift. (A neat way of avoiding the issue by the men, I thought). The general had another dream where the lady says to him that she can only be brought down off the mountain by nine female virgins. As Mags said “We virgins always get the hard work”. Anyway, said virgins were rounded up and made their way upto the mountain. (No doubt escorted by the soldiers now frantically looking for a rock resembling a women so as not to disappoint the general). The lady was duly found and brought down to the village and installed in a temple. She is there today looking remarkably like a painted sculpture. We arrived on a holy day and, it being a Saturday, there were thousands of Vietnamese people all jostling to enter the temple and pay their respects to the Goddess. This site doesn’t attract many foreign visitors and we found ourselves quite an attraction. There was a real carnival atmosphere with street vendors everywhere and people clearly having a party. Inside the temple there were several signs in Vietnamese. Mags asked our guide to translate. They were the dos and don’ts of the temple, the “not allowed”. One stated “No superstition” Mags observed “But its all superstition, isn’t it?” Possibly not the wisest comment considering we were surrounded by the faithful, but thankfully only our guide spoke English and he misunderstood. “Exactly. The people pray for good luck, fortune, health and happiness but they are supposed to be just giving thanks to the Goddess for peace.”

Alas, our journey in Vietnam ends – and yes, the spring roles are sensational.