Cu Chi Tunnels

What's inside the ground? Oh, it's Will!

Having visited the Cu Chi tunnels outside Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), I have no doubt as to why America was defeated in Vietnam.

The Vietcong built hundreds of kilometers of tunnels. That is what I am popping out of in the video. They were narrow, dark and scary. Most Americans couldn't even fit into one. Many of the tunnel entrances were fakes with booby traps inside of them. It must have been a nightmare to be a soldier there.

We had massive firepower. The Vietnamese had massive ingenuity. They re-manufactured our bombs and other military detritus into dangerous booby traps- pits full of barbed hooks that maimed and slowed our troops. And these traps are really nasty. Imagine walking through a jungle or rice field, your face dripping sweat into your eyes. You are scanning the horizon for enemy soldiers. Of course, they look just like everyone else, so this isn't very effective. All of a sudden, your weapon and pack laiden body just drops through a hole in the ground. A swiveling peice of "ground" has just given way and you now find yourself in a pit with barbed metal spikes sticking into you. That is bad enough, but what is worse is that because they are barbed, you can't pull them out without tearing your flesh and skin further. And on top of all that, there are spikes also facing inward so that if you just pulled your foot out, you would ram it ino even more spikes. You have to be dug out and this takes hours.

We had bomber aircraft. They took our unexploded bombs or ordinances (UXO) and carefully, painstakingly cuth them open with hand tools to rebuild them into anti-tank landmines. They marked these mines and moved them around as the battlefield changed shape.

The biggest asset the Vietcong had was a home field advantage. They blended in with the population- no they were the local population in many cases and they had a lot of support. We bombed and killed and tortured and mutilated and deforested the South of Vietnam, and naturally, the villagers who bore the brunt of this abuse didn't seem to agree with the 'destroy a village to save it' philosphy.

The thing that strikes me most now, was how stupid the conflict was. A cruel dictator, Diem governed the south. We supported him (as had the French before they split and left us holding the bag) as he oppressed his own people and the anti-Diem movement grew. Deim's (and our) repression and exclusion of the communists probably falsly added to their stature as is often the case with insurgents. (There is a strong parallel here with groups such as the Taliban or the Iranianian revolution- while they fought the corrupt power structure they were cheered on bny the people. When they got to power, they ended up being as bad or worse than those they replaced.)

In the rice fields of Vietnam, I feel like it could be 1965 -or 1865 for that matter- and it seems so foolish that these power men in Washinton were scaring us into an idiotic war with this communist threat. I sit in the emerald green rice fields and watch a man in simple clothes and a cone shaped hat tend to his field and think 'is this the Vietnam the American government was so afraid of?'

The Ho Chi Minh Experience*

Workers pull weeds in front of the massive Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Theme Park* in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Thanks to Vietnam, I can now check visiting one of the great communist propaganda mausoleums of the world off my to-do list.

Ho Chi Minh (his nom de guerre meaning “Bringer of Light”) was the revolutionary leader of Vietnam’s struggle against the French, and after America got suckered into their lost war, America and the unpopular South Vietnamese government it supported.

Much has been written about this legendary figure, and I do encourage readers to check out more about him. What struck me, while visiting him in his final resting place though, was the amazing contrast between his life and death.

A simple man of great conviction to freeing the Vietnamese people, he lived in spartan dwellings and, by all accounts was humble and thoughtful. I believe it.

Uncle Ho, as the Vietnamese sometimes refer to him, has a statue, street and museum in his honor in basically any town of any size. In Hanoi, there is an enormous citadel devoted to him where he is kept. You see, even though he died in 1969, he is still on display in all his low light glory, tucked into blankets and incongruously wearing a suit, embalmed for as long as it is useful for the powers that be in Vietnam to have him there.

He had wanted to be cremated and spread across Vietnam. He said that it was a waste of farmland to build funeral monuments, as is the Vietnamese tradition. His wishes notwithstanding, he spends 9 months of the year on display and 3 months ‘vacationing’ in Russia where the world experts on dead communist leader preservation give him an embalmers’ spa treatment.

Unlike most other cultural attractions in Vietnam, it is free to see Ho and anything related to him. I suppose you can think of it as propaganda supported activity, similar to google’s ad supported services.

I waited in line for about an hour to see him. Guards in perfectly pressed uniforms ensured (twice) that no one had cameras or cell phones in the building. They hushed us so as to ensure the proper reverence for a man of his stature. The line moved into a massive granite cube, up some stairs and around Ho on three sides before spitting us out into a wonderland of Ho-artifacts.

I have to say, it was impressive to be in the room with such an important figure in our modern history. It was also, frankly, a little creepy.

On my way to the garage of one of the greatest men of the last century

Outside, the Zen-landscaped, park-like setting is dotted with ‘do not enter’ signs directing the visitor in a seemingly random and sometimes discontinuous path. It was actually quite a lot like a theme park, except instead of rides called ‘Twister Coaster’ or whatever there are things like ‘Garage of Ho Chi Minh’s Used Cars’ and ‘Ho Chi Minh’s Wooden Stilt House’ and, of course ‘Giant Hideous Stone Cube Containing Small Dead Man.’ Think Six Flags with bayonets, honor guard and a VIP corpse.

Uncle Ho's Cabin: A no-frills office in his two room house. Note the Karl Marx portrait above the desk.

So there it is: a simple two-room wooden house with a couple bookshelves and pictures of Communist greats where he lived compared with a cold grey monolith where people come to worship his body. Honestly, it is hard to reconcile the Ho Chi Minh of life with the Ho Chi Minh of death.

Random P.S.: If, within just a generation, such an exaggerated representation can be made of a modest man, I really have to wonder how realistic our centuries-old views of other great people of history, like leaders and especially religious figures can possibly be.

*There is not really a theme park about Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum. I totally made that up. But if there were, it would be called 'The Ho Chi Minh EXPERIENCE'

Vietnamese Trains: India, take note.

Detail from a burial tomb near Hue, Vietnam. Vietnam is set to bury India in tourist savvy.

India would really like to attract 10 million tourists by 2010. At least, that’s what I read in the newspaper in Bangalore in an article bemoaning the drop in tourism in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Well, India, I don’t know what to tell you to attract more tourists, but I have a few constructive ideas for how to get them to come back. First, we must look to Vietnam.

Seriously.

Vietnam and India share some significant features. They were both recently European colonies that became free from their masters after protracted struggles. Vietnam gained independence from France in 1954, only to be invaded by America shortly thereafter, while India threw off the British yoke in 1947. They are both poor and have many, many uneducated people. Both cover large distances- India is of course larger, but Vietnam is very long for it’s size, extending at least 2000 km down the edge of the coast. Both have large relative populations and high population density. I might add that they are also both inordinately fond of rice.

So how do they stack up in the tourist experience? Let’s look at the train system.

Recently, I booked some tickets from Hanoi to Hue, an overnight trip of 624 km. At the station, the normal sleeper class was full due to some holiday weekend, and because of our timetable, we happened to be moving during that weekend. Having been disappointed by the patient Vietnamese woman behind the glass, I looked down the plain-jane government counters to the end of the row where I saw a colorful sign for a high-end tourist train run by a company called Livitrans. This service, which attaches privately run train cars onto the publicly run train, cost slightly more than the normal first class service, but only by about 5%.

The beds are clean, the compartments private. Everything works, from the lights to the locking cabin door. The chains that hold up the top bunks are even wrapped in crushed-red velvet fabric. The mattresses are comfortable and clean and there are recessed halogen lamps that give a modern, sophisticated and comfortable feel. There is even convincing faux-wood paneling. The bathroom is spotless. An attendant (one per car) brings us jasmine green tea served in our own ceramic cups. There is a trashcan. It’s very comfortable. It is nothing like an Indian train.

Just try to get India to be this coordinated...

I have to say that I do love riding the rails in India. If I didn’t I might not take the time to write this. However, some improvements could definitely be made. Take cleaning, for example. It is done in Vietnam in a coordinated manner, but in India it is haphazard at best. I was once on a particularly filthy and electrically unfunctional Indian train and I was actually shocked to discover that it had been completely remanufactured less than a year prior. There are cleaning contracts awarded in the Indian system, but I think most of the money ends up getting skimmed off so not a lot happens. India has a throng of people who need jobs and could be converted into an army of cleaners for not very much money. Instead, there is an army of beggars- polio victims with twisted legs, people with terrible industrial accident birth defects, etc- who come through sweeping the coach of some detritus. This should not happen.

I applaud India’s online rail booking system- it is efficient and effective- though it is pretty clunky to operate. It’s functional if not pretty, so high marks for that one.

To be sure, Vietnam has some advantages over India in the organization department. Vietnam is a monoparty country that is at least nominally communist. It has a long history of pulling together as a nation for a common cause, defeating invading Chinese armies 13 times in the past 900 years (including 1979), which implies a level of organizational ability. India has never, to my knowledge, rebuffed any major onslaught from anywhere- they just don’t seem to care. India is a democracy, which is incredible if you try to imagine a process by which a billion people could ever manage to make anything happen. But still, a country that has tested an atomic bomb should be capable of clean bed linens.

The larger context here is that in order for India to be taken seriously by tourists from the developed world, there are certain standards that must be met. Cleanliness and quality in transportation is one. Fairness and transparency is another. I read that the Vietnamese government had previously exacted a harsh four-times ‘foreigner tariff’ on their trains, but they dropped it. Now everyone pays the same price. This is also true of Indian trains, but all government monuments, such as the Taj Mahal, charge foreigners 10-20 times more than locals. Now, with an official government attitude of discrimination and price gouging based on country of origin, it is little surprise that India is home to some of the world’s most unscrupulous and nasty tourist scammers. If the government would like to lead by example, perhaps singling out non-locals isn’t the best way to encourage a welcoming environment!

Notes from the Mekong

Laotian boy plays at a Buddhist Wat (temple)

‘My friend is having a birthday- we are making a party!’ Toby announces as he pops onto our wooden river-view balcony.

There are hastily patched electrical wires hanging across our porch, which we have ducked for the past two days. The wires are exposed and constantly at risk of arcing together, sending a bright green flare into the night. Somehow, the wires sneak through Toby’s dreadlocks and spark against his skin.

‘Yeah, that one is live’ I say, nodding to the neighbor’s porch light. The light flickers as Toby touches the bare wires again then yanks his fingers away. ‘Not too bad- maybe only 120 volts or something,’ in his very German-accented English.

We had met Toby on the songthaew (a truck with two rows of benches- literally ‘two rows’) ride to Ban Nakasan, the jumping-off point to the island Don Det where we were to reside. He has been on Don Det, our little emerald rice paddy island for six weeks so far. When we follow him to the party, he speaks in Lao to nearly everyone we meet, though he is having pretty much the same conversation again and again, presumably about the local spirit called lao lao that has intoxicated him. Toby is all natural threads and has a fascination with the conceptual simplicity of the laidback river island life.

He leads us to a bar where a sitting table of ten or so travelers is drinking and rolling cigarettes and grooving to sci-trance. Out of the din, Radish, an improbably skinny Gujurati-Canadian girl with dreadlocks and a layered, shimmering hippie skirt grabs Toby’s hand and says something about the indigo aura people and how glad she is that he knows about them.

The bar closes and the party moves to the nearby beachhead where electrical poles lay stacked. The promise of consistent electricity looms above us like the moon, but for now lights are out at 9 PM and from there it is all candles and conversation. Soon, I think, there will be video bars showing American movies and programs all night long, but tonight there is a campfire on the sand and guitars have been produced and everything is perfect.

After the circle around the campfire broke up, we found ourselves walking down the moonlight dirt path behind another group. A tall, blonde, curly haired Scandinavian plays guitar and the synchronic sound of our collective flip-flops keeps the time of a rendition of ‘Free Falling’ by Tom Petty that he sings so sweetly you would never expect from a 6’4” Viking descendent.

Don Det is a special place. Locals still live there because it just happens to be where they live. They raise their chickens among the modest wood and thatch bungalows and children come home from school at noon in their tidy uniforms to the family-run restaurant that also serves as the place to do homework. The island’s metronome is the sway of hammocks whose western occupants gaze for hours at the Mekong. It is the archetype of a perfect escape from everything for those of us fortunate to experience it now, before things change too much.

All too often, a place that was enchanting and magical loses its luster once workers arrive en masse to some palm tree island to resentfully serve cheap drinks to tourists. For now though, the Lao villagers have not grown jaded by these strange visitors and it is common for a group of Lao men to wave you down on the street to join them on a log in a clearing for a drink.

Sun sets over the Mekong River. View from our balcony, seriously.

New Crew!

I am pleased to announce that Paula and I have met up with Artie and Rebecca in Laos! After much theorizing as to whether the universe would align to see us in the same far-off country at the same time, we have once again shown email to an effective tool for finding people!

We have also been spending quality time at waterfalls and caves.

Will in Cave

Will with Dragonfly

Pretty Waterfall with no obvious subject

A little movie

When I was in Nepal, I was invited to record a surgery at a local hospital who has a connection to Boulder. I could not expect to get such amazing access in America to something like this, but in Nepal, somethings are actually easier, believe it or not! Here is my edited video I made. Please note that it is a graphic video of a medical procedure, FYI.



Attack By Bull