Disarming Vietnam december 3 - 13/2012

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Ho Chi Minh City

It is hardly possible to visit Vietnam while ignoring the hard times the country has had in the near past. The war we, young leftwing students, protested against in the sixties and seventies, is still in our mind. And likewise it is not forgotten by the Vietnamese themselves. But times are changing. Europeans, Australians, Asians and Americans are passing the remnants of the war in long queus, while guided by Vietnamese. The icons of war have become tourist stopovers. Like the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon), where the first Viet Cong tanks rolled in. Or The War Remnants Museum, where we see the impact of the infamous Agent Orange. At the time we could not believe the Americans could use this poison, which not only defoliated big parts of the jungle, but also mutilated the bodies of everone who came into contact with it, including their offspring. We see an endless raft of pictures with deformed bodies and faces. It is a nightmare. The Americans never paid reparations to ease the pain, we read in one of the captions.

'How is it for Vietnamese to meet Americans?', I ask one of the guides. 'In general we cannot see if someone is an American, an European or an Australian', he says. 'For us they are all tourists.' He is still young, so I ask him if there is a difference between his generation and the older one. 'Of course we are hurt', he says. 'We learn about the war at school. But actually we are not so busy with it anymore. It is over. But it might be different for the older generation.'

When we go to the Cu Chi tunnels at Ben Dinh, 50 kilometer out of HCMC we have an older guide. We hardly can understand his English. We suppose he is an ex Viet Cong fighter. He is so skinny. His belt hardly can prevent his pants slipping down from his body. He has big glasses with a black rim so that he looks like a teacher at a secondary school. He shows us with some pleasure the most gruesome traps in which the Americans were knocked down. How to kill Bill?, is the motto. It is also the core of the propaganda movie we are shown. 'The Americans sent dogs down into the tunnels, to find us', he tells. 'But we washed ourselves with soap of the Americans and wore clothes of captivated Americans. So the dogs thought we were their friends.' At the end of the tour you can shoot with kalasknikovs, the standard weapon of the Viet Cong. Three girls buy enthusiastically some bullets to shoot with. To get a better understanding of the atrocities of war, I suppose. On the way back our guide sets himself up as a Vietnamese variant of an American tv preacher. 'We are all so different, but still we are the same. We all get hungry, when we do not eat. We all have a father and a mother. So why to make war?'

My neighbour in the bus is an American. I guess he is 35. It is a big fat man with a loud voice. He has white gymshoes and in his ears are phones. While the Vietnamese Billy Graham is preaching, the American guy is whistling with the music on his I-pod. 'Everyone has to pay for the entrance to the tunnels', the Vietnamese tourguide had said. 'I have paid allready', said the American. 'I have paid for everything.' 'How much did you pay?' '160.000 Vietnamese Dong', was the answer. He presented his receipt to the guide 'That is eight dollar!, said the guide. 'And you wanted to have a free entrance and a free lunch for this money? And also a whole day driving around in the bus and a guide? No, you have to pay! Everyone has to pay! Also you!' Even now they do not want to pay, I think maliciously.

I ask the American if he liked the tour. He removes his earphones. 'Bullshit', he says. 'Just propaganda. It was wrong what America did. But I do not want to live in a system. I like to be independent. I am not a follower. I love America. I never like to live somewhere else.' He puts his phones in his ears and begins to whistle again.

The Mekong Delta

'60 million motorbikes we have in this country', says our guide, while we are driving out of the city. 'And every day three and half motorbikers are killed in HCMC.' Amazed we stare at the thousands of motorbikes. The drivers are highly skilled acrobats. Even more than in Thailand, where we live. Four passengers on one bike is quite common. Five is the limit. Sometimes a dog is balancing on the seat. Once we saw a cage behind the motorbike with an adult pig inside. The possibilities are endless. It is a big show. Unlike in Thailand everyone wears a helmet and no one exceeds the maximum speed. There are more differences. In Thailand we see often female drivers with a man at the back. Here the driver is almost always a man. And here they drive at the righthand side, while in Thailand they drive on an average at the lefthand side. The difference between both countries cannot be bigger. Thailand is richer and more religious. Everywhere are Buddhistic temples. In Vietnam we hardly see temples. And the temples we do see represent often a mix of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. (I guess there also Hinduistic elements.) We see even more churches than temples. And they are full in spite of the communistic one party governement. Religions tend to merge in Vietnam, like the Cao Daism, in which Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism unite with Islam and Christianity. (We visited their Great Temple at Tay Ninh, about 100 kilometer from HCMC.) Moreover Vietnam has the Mahayana Buddhism (with several Buddha's) while Thailand has the Theravada Buddhism (with only one Buddha). In Thailand we see on every spot the portrait of the king and his family; in Vietnam we see only a few posters of Ho Chi Minh with some socialistic slogans.

Both Thais as Vietnamese are friendly. Thais are always smiling whatever happens, Vietnamese are more direct. In the half year we live now in Thailand we hardly got contact with the Thais, while in the few days we are in Vietnam we have immediately contact. Vietnamese are disarming open, which makes them one of the nicest people we have met on our worldtrip. Still there was an incident.

'What are you doing here?', says our guide to two Chinese in our group. First we think it is a joke, but it is serious. He tries to smile, but in his eyes we see anger. 'I wonder how you came into our country', he continues. 'I do not want to be rude, but I just give information. The new Chinese passport is wrong. It contains a map in which it claims the territorial waters of Vietnam.' (and also of other countries). 'No problem, no problem', says the Chinese wife cheerfully. Her husband is just smiling. Another guide during another trip in Vietnam is very negative about the Chinese. 'The Chinese are far more dangerous than the Americans once were', he says.

Meanwhile we are travelling across the Mekhong Delta. It is full of people. No nature here. We hardly see birds. On the river the inevitable waterhyacinths are floating. We have a homestay and do a cookingcourse, which is more a chopping course. It is mass tourism.

Cat Tien National Park

After 2 hours driving from HCMC, we still see houses, alternated with ricefields. Once pristine jungle must have dominated the landscape. Is this the result of the defoliants the Americans used?, I ask myself. Forests disappeared and made place for grassfields, I read in my travelguide. Nothing else wants to grow here. 'American grass' as the Vietnamese call it. 'Ecocide', as the international community names it. But I do not see American grassfields. Only ricefields. Did the Vietnamese take the opportunity to extend their ricefields? 'Vietnam is far more densely populated than Thailand', said one of our guides. 'We cannot compete with them when it comes to the export of rice. We do not have enough room for agriculture.' Finally we see trees, though it is still no nature. Just monotonous rubberplantations.

But it changes as soon as we cross the Dong Nai River with a little boat. Suddenly we are surrounded by a primary rainforest, by numerous sounds of birds. Cat Tien Park is the homeland of wild elephants, gibbons, Asian black bears and Sunbears. During a nightsafari we see Jambar deers, Barking deers and a porcupine. 'Even the Javan rhino lives here, though they were seen for the last time in 2008', tells Jun, our guide. He studied forestry in Hanoi and will guide us around during two days. 'This part of the park is less defoliated than the eastside', he tells, 'because there was a prison here.' It is a semi-deciduous forest. It means that the trees loose their leaves during the dry season. We see enormous dipterocarpustrees, the buttresses of the Tung tree (Tetrameles nudiflora). One of them is 700 years old and survived not only the Americans with their defoliants, but also the French, the Portuguese and even the Chinese and the Mongols.

Next day we make a hike of 10 kilometer to Crocodile swamp and back. We hear the sounds of an incredible number of different birds. Jun is all the time playing with his mobile. At least that is what I think. But then I see he is displaying the sounds of the birds we hear, together with the English and Latin names. Most birds stay hidden, only a few birds we see. Like the very rare Siamese fireback. We see even a group of one female with three males. According to our birdguide pictures of the Siamese fireback are rare. Linda manages it to take two pictures. In the same guide we read the numbers are much reduced due to the clearing of forests. Maybe also victims of Agent Orange.

Finally we arrive at Crocodile swamp. We take a little boat and row over the lake. Every now and then we see the backs of crocodiles. 'They can get as long as 3 up to 4 meter', says Jun. 'Why they do not attack the boat?' Linda asks, 'we are an easy prey.' 'Oh, sometimes they do', says Jun, while he is playing with his mobile. 'Well, you could have said that earlier', I say. 'Mostly it happens at night', he says reassuring.

Dalat

As soon as we arrive in Dalat we get the feeling we are back in Europe. Suddenly we see fuchsia's and hortensia's, French houses, it is cold and we even see greenhouses. Greenhouses in the tropics! When we have a better look we see they are open. 'They just protect the plants against the sun, when it becomes too hot', says Djan, our guide. She is young and speaks very well English. Inside the greenhouses are gerbera's, roses and lillies. A Dutchman started it. Thanks to the volcanic soil the plants do not need extra nutrients. The climat is excellent for vineyards. 'Do they produce wines here?', I ask. 'We have a lot of wines', she says. She begins to count on her fingers. We have red wines, white wines...', and then she starts to giggle,...'well, that is it actually.'

Everywhere we see coffeebeans. They are drying in the sun on mats just on the shoulders of the road. When we visit one of the plantations we learn they produce arabica, mokka, robusta and weaselcoffee. The weaselcoffee is most expensive. The plantation has 50 weasels who eat the beans and shit them out. Apparently it changes the chemical substance of the seeds, so that the coffee get finer flavors. We see two of the weasels in a cage. I ask if they eat all harvest. 'No, only part of it', says Djan. 'They eat twice a day coffeebeans. Afterwards they get banana's.' The weasels really must be addicted , I think. Why to eat beans, when you shit them out again?

We often think they eat everything out there in Asia. Specially the Chinese are multivore in our eyes. Things are a bit different as we experienced when we visited a nursery for crickets. There are big boxes with millions of crickets. Normally you crush these insects under your shoes, when you find them in your house. But here they eat them. Linda walks immediately out. Also the rest of our group (a Chinese woman, a Birmese man, a Singaporian man and a young Vietnamese couple) does not stay long. When I come out the nursery everyone sits around a table. In the middle is a plate with fried crickets and some chilisauce. There are cocktailprickers. It looks rather like the collection of an entomologist, a showcase where the specimens are pinned in rows. 'Take it, if you want', says Djan. Everyone looks at me, full of expectation. I take a pricker, but then I see the wings, the legs and the eyes. I cannot do it. I loose my face if I do not take one, I think, which is almost suicide here in Asia. With a quick move I put a cricket in my mouth and swallow it. 'Actually I never eat them', says the Chinese woman. 'I do not eat them', says the Birmese man. 'In Birma we clean them first, we remove the wings, the legs, the head and the guts.' 'My wive is from Thailand', says the man from Singapore. She likes them. I promised her to take a bag with crickets with me. I myself do not eat them. In Singapore no one eats it.'

A long time I feel the crickets in my stomach that day. Even when we are at a silkfactory, I am still checking my mouth. Is that a wing between my teeth? An eye maybe? Meanwhile I look how the silkthreads come from the puppets, after they are cooked. 'They never will become moths', says Djan. 'What will happen with them?' I ask. I am afraid I know the answer allready.

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Comments

[Femmy]

Great!
O, o,o, I love it. I can travel with you like this, and it is great.

[Robin van Leijen]

Mooi verhaal weer! Jammer dat de Delta tegenviel. Ik kan me herinneren dat bij ons de tour erg toeristisch was maar de homestay juist niet. Dat was afgezonderd, intiem en hier zagen we echt de mooie kant van de Delta. Daar moet je net geluk mee hebben denk ik... Mooi dat jij dan als enige een Krekel naar binnen werkt haha!