Return to SE Asia

October 2018, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore

A half century ago I departed California for South Vietnam.

In October of 2018, for the first time since then, I went back. 
The trip took only a matter of hours. In November of 1967 it took me just a little longer.
I was a young ensign aboard the USS Jerome County (LST 848), a relic of World War II, when it was used for amphibious landings. In the mid 1960s, the Navy pulled her out of mothballs and sent her back to war.
Her shallow draft (15-feet aft and four feet forward) and large cargo capacity made her useful for plying the shallow coastal waters, bays and rivers of Vietnam.
More than a thousand LSTs were built in the early 1940s.  They were used for landings in both the European theatre and in the Pacific.
My ship departed San Diego on November 4, 1967.  In addition to our crew of six officers and 100 enlisted men, we carried 11 Marines, several trucks, amphibs, gear and supplies destined for offloading in Danang, South Vietnam.
Unlike the very nice Cathay Pacific jet that carried me and Dottie high above the Pacific at 600 mph, the Jerome County wallowed along at about eight knots (approx. 9 mph), often less.
Our ship didn’t have enough food, water and fuel to go directly to Vietnam, so our route took us to Pearl Harbor, then Guam, then Subic Bay, Philippines and finally, after 48 days, Danang, Vietnam. We arrived three days before Christmas. Along the way, we were becalmed several times because of mechanical failures.
There were no navigational satellites or high tech radios in those days. We navigated the old-fashioned way, with a sextant and compass. The only long-distance communication we had at sea was CW (low frequency morse code).
Because of breakdowns, we ran short of food and fresh water. We took to looking for squalls and then steering toward them to collect rainwater.
Boredom was the most common complaint. We only had a dozen 16mm movies on board, mostly B-grade westerns staring Rory Calhoun.
One of the bosun mate’s and I did attempt to fish off the stern while we were becalmed. We didn’t see a fish, let alone catch one.
The most exciting thing on that crossing was riding out a typhoon.  Our hollow, flat-bottomed, coffee-can of a ship bounced and tossed on the huge waves so violently that we had to tie ourselves to things to keep from being launched overboard.
Sleeping was impossible.  Baloney sandwiches and other cold food were all the cooks could manage. Pots, pans, and other kitchen items could not be trusted loose on any surface, let alone a hot stove.
All these memories came back to me at 35,000 feet above the Pacific as I lounged in my comfortable Cathay Pacific, Boeing 777-airline seat, while charming attendants served me cocktails and warm food and I watched the latest movies on the airline’s digital entertainment system.

Part II

Dottie and I have landed safely at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, after a two-stage, 20-hour flight from San Francisco. It had been 51 years between visits. The memories were mostly bad. Nevertheless,  I hoped to be pleasantly surprised.
Preparing for this visit, I re-read all of the letters I’d written from Vietnam in 1967 and ’68, which my parents saved for me. I also kept a journal during those times and re-read it. By choice and natural passage of time, what I’d experienced more than a half century ago was tucked far back in the recesses of my brain.  Reading the letters and journal brought them back to the front and reminded me of how naive I was then.
I went there as a young Naval officer believing the hype that we were saving the South Vietnamese people from the cruel tyranny of communism, and that they (the people) actually wanted us there. It didn’t take me long to be set straight. 
I wrote my first impressions in a letter I sent home on January 15, 1968. It included this observation:
“I am glad I wasn’t born Vietnamese.. These beautiful people are forced to struggle in poverty, disease… in a country wasted by war. They are caught in the middle of a political struggle they know little about and could care less for…And we’re not helping… We’re making it worse.”
Those were the first impressions of a 25-year-old with virtually no experience in the world outside his very comfortable California wine-country bubble, a bubble I happily returned to once my military obligation was done.
I was curious to know how those beautiful, struggling Vietnamese people are doing today, and wondering how they feel about what we did to them and their country back then.
Of course, the Vietnamese  who actually experienced it and survived will be as old as me.
I expect our hosts have designed an experience that will address at least part of my question.
Ho Chi Minh City sits on the banks of the Saigon River. I have done some research about fishing in the waters of the Mekong Delta, specifically fly-fishing.  Apparently there’s not much of that around here, but I was referred to a guy who specializes in a rather extreme version of it.  Where as, we stateside fly-fishers use the feathers of ducks and other fowls in our lures, he uses an entire baby bird.  I didn’t fish with him, but watched a video. While watching, I had to keep reminding myself that this guy was fishing to live, not for sport. 

Part III

Any assumptions that I might have had about Vietnam today resembling the country from my last visit more than a half-century ago were shattered during an initial short stroll from our centrally located, Park Hyatt Hotel.
Vietnam’s population is about 95 million. Most of them appear to be driving scooters and other vehicles on my street. Bullets and artillery may have been the biggest hazard in 1967-68, but today, crossing the street is more dangerous.
Ho Chi Ming City (formerly Saigon) is a booming Asian metropolis, the economic and financial center of the country. It is has a growing, dynamic, educated work force that is attracting lots of multi-national corporations to locate here.
The cityscape is marked by modern high-rise buildings, while glitzy clubs and restaurants cater to an increasingly cosmopolitan population. A young urbanite couple can buy a very nice two-bedroom apartment here for around $250,000 (USD).  Penthouses are selling for $1.2 million. 
Based on these first impressions alone, I’m thinking maybe the people of Vietnam have moved on.
More than half the population was born after the war ended. Today 40 percent of the people are 25 or under.  Only about six percent of the people are over 65, which means my chances of meeting someone who was here when I was are slim.
We’re off this morning to the “War Remnants Museum,”  where at least temporarily, I will be an additional remnant. Established in 1975, its original name was the “Exhibition House for US and Puppet Crimes.”  In 1990, its name was changed to “Exhibition House for Crimes of War and Aggression.” 
Are you picking up a theme here?
With the establishment of U.S. relations in 1995, Vietnam dropped the Crimes and Aggression and gave the museum is current handle.
Name change or not, the point is blatantly clear.  The exhibits include U.S. military equipment, like a UH-1 “Huey” helicopter, an F-5A fighter, a M48 Patton tank, a couple of bombers and unexploded shells.  In one building are replicas of “tiger cages” in which the South Vietnamese government kept political prisoners, and there are exhibits of human fetuses allegedly deformed by exposure to Agent Orange.
Our next stop was the former South Vietnamese governor’s palace, now called Reunification Hall.
In 1975 a North Vietnamese tank crashed through its main gate, ending the Vietnam War (which they call the American War by the way). 
According to the story, General Minh, who was the de facto head of South Vietnam, was in the reception chamber when the VC officers leading the assault entered the room. “I have been waiting since early this morning to transfer power to you,” Gen. Minh said.
“There is no question of transferring power,” replied the VC officer. “You cannot give up what you do not have.”
Reunification Hall is an ornate time capsule frozen at 1975. Two of the original VC tanks that broke through the gate are still in place.
Our final visit of the day was to the United States Consulate and former site of the U.S. Embassy.  It was attacked and overrun during the 1968 Tet Offensive and figures prominently in my memory even though I was 30 miles south of that city when all hell broke loose.
I was on a neighboring Mekong Delta river at My Tho, which was overrun the same night.  Attacks took place all over South Vietnam that evening and for several days and nights following. 
A visit to the embassy and a re-reading of my post-set letters brought it all back in a flash.

Part IV

I didn’t return to Vietnam after 51 years so I could re-live the war. However, it appears that first-day welcoming tours in the city formerly known as Saigon are designed to remind us.
After visiting the War Remnants Museum and the former South Vietnamese Palace, frozen in place at the time it fell to the north in 1975, our third stop on this first-day tour of Ho Chi Minh City was the United States Consulate, formerly our embassy.
There are many scenes  that come to mind here, not the least of which was the terrible days when the last helicopters left with the last Americans, abandoning many South Vietnamese citizens who had helped us.
More prominent in my memory however are the attacks that took place around midnight on 31 January 1968, during the Tet Offensive.
It was shortly after midnight that Viet Cong sappers began an assault on the Saigon embassy by blowing a hole in its exterior wall.  Close to 20 VC made it inside the compound and a battle ensued between the few Marines guarding it and the invaders.   Marine guards were killed in the first wave.  The VC managed to get inside the embassy building and held it until U.S. reinforcements arrived and took back the embassy after an all-night fight, killing all of the invaders in the process.
My ship was downriver from the embassy headed up The Tien Giang River (one of the branches of the Mekong) near My Tho, a large provincial city about 35 miles south of Saigon.
The whole town appeared to be in flames.  We could see artillery rounds exploding inside the city and hear and see tracers from small arms fire.
Battles raged on both sides of the river.  It was a hellish scene filled with smoke and fire and punctuated by explosions.  There was no easy way to tell who was friend or foe, and no safe place to be.  The supplies we were carrying to that base were needed, but we had no clear way to help our troops in the battle raging around it. We did not know their positions.
Base command ordered us to anchor in the middle of the river under black-out conditions and man our guns. Had we been attacked directly, we could have defended ourselves. 
We were reduced to the status of frustrated spectators, while overhead helicopters swarmed like angry hornets, spitting out machine-gun rounds toward the jungle so fast that there was no space between the the tracers, giving the impression that they were using ray guns from which glowing red-hot beams burned anything and anyone they touched below. 
Red, green and brilliant white flares lit the sky and tracer bullets criss crossed through he air around us and in the jungle on both sides of us. 
Our ship was incredibly lucky.  Not a single sailor was wounded that night. 
The attacks were repeated all over South Vietnam.  The Marines and soldiers in many outposts and in Saigon and cities like Hue, took the worst of it.
In a couple of days we’re due to take a drive south for a sampan tour of the Mekong Delta near My Tho. It’s a thriving city of close to 200,000 people with an economy that includes a significant amount of tourism. 
The last time I was there it was still burning.

Part V

After our stays in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), and our visit to the Mekong Delta, Dottie and I visited Hue and Hanoi. The latter included an overnight cruise on Ha Long Bay.
Hue, the former capital of Vietnam until the early 20th Century, was where several generations of the country’s royalty lived in the “Forbidden Purple City” inside the walled fortress known as the Citadel. This was also the scene of some of the most brutal fighting during the Tet offensive in 1968.
Compared to the traffic jams and frenetic atmosphere of Saigon, Hue appeared relaxed. Its residents seem content sharing their historical legacy with visitors who make this stop halfway between Saigon and Hanoi.  Much of what was damaged during the war has been restored and a tour of the once forbidden city palace included some recounts of what happened there in 1968.
Hanoi, on the other hand, was nearly a mirror image of Ho Chi Minh City, showing no signs of the tons of bombs we dropped on it during the war.  There is building going on everywhere. Commerce is booming and there are thousands of people on scooters in the streets and thousands more shopping along the narrow, old-city blocks, made even narrower by market stall after market stall.
While Hanoi’s famous street markets were crammed, crazy and chaotic, there were also many new high-rise business buildings, high-end retail stores, beautiful parks and signs of gentrification, including luxury hotels for the country’s growing tourism industry.  We visited Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, where his embalmed body can be viewed on certain days of the week (but not on the day we visited). And we saw the modest home from which he directed the decades-long successful effort, first against the French and lastly against the USA, to win independence for his country.
Like apparently every one of the thousands of visitors to Hanoi, we made the two-hour drive east to Ha Long Bay for an overnight cruise among nearly 2,000 limestone islets of every shape and size imaginable and overgrown by tropical vegetation.  The bay is beautiful and the islets make for a very dramatic scene. Our Orchid Cruise boat, with nice hotel-style rooms, followed many dozens of others in a virtual conga-line of ships, jamming this UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site and making it somewhat unnatural by its overwhelming popularity.
I did get to fish for squid off the stern of the boat after dinner. Unfortunately, the squid weren’t biting.
On the way to the airport, we stopped at the Trung Tam Giao Luu Van Ho Dan Gian Folklore Center, a village dedicated to preservation and continuation of an ancient Vietnamese form of block painting. There, we met Nguyen Dang Che, an artist in his 80s who is the 20th generation of his family to create the Dong Ho folk block art.  Next to his studio is a school in which village youngsters are taught this art form.  As we were talking to Che, the school day ended and dozens of beautiful children, ages eight to ten, gathered around us to shake our hands, say hello and practice their English.
In their bright, welcoming smiles and gestures I was reminded once again of why I was so beguiled by the Vietnamese people more than a half-century ago.
Regardless of good intentions and the mistaken belief then that we were saving them from Communist tyranny, I felt guilty for the part I played in the horrible devastation that war caused them.
To have had the opportunity to return, to meet so many genuinely friendly, sweet and welcoming Vietnamese people and to see the youngest of this young united country so clearly full of joy and life gave me the sense that those of us who were sent here, so young ourselves so long ago, have been forgiven.
As our plane lifted off the runway in Hanoi bound for Laos, it was clear that the burden I’d carried for 51 years was lighter by considerable measure.

Part VI

First impressions of travelers to a new country aren’t always reliable indicators of what one can expect, but from the moment we arrived in Laos, Dottie and I fell in love with its people. 
In fact, what impressed us most about all five of the countries in Southeast
Asia that we visited during our recent trip, was the naturally open, friendly, kind and welcoming nature of the people.
One example:  While waiting in the Hanoi airport to board our plane to Laos, I browsed the airport shops for a case for my glasses, the snap on the one I brought having broken off.
The shops had vast selections of many gift items, but nothing quite so pedestrian as a glasses case. The proprietress of one of the shops, after showing me several types of little purses that were just not the right size, put up her hand, gesturing me to wait for a moment.
She went over to her cash register, picked up her own glasses case, and handed it to me, indicating I could have it. She would not take any money for it. Of course, I thanked her, but it was such an unassuming act of kindness, I wanted to hug her. However, unsure if that would be appropriate, I found something in her shop to buy, just so she would at least have made a sale.
Every time I open that case, it reminds me of the best part of our experience – the people who beguiled us with their sweetness everywhere we went, and especially in Laos.
It began with our arrival when we were greeted by virtually everyone we encounter with a sort of prayer gesture known as a “nop,” usually done with both hands pressed together in a prayer in front of your body and accompanied with slight bow or nod and a smile.
It was, of course, how our guide Chou greeted us as we exited the airport baggage area, and how we were greeted at our lovely hotel, The Avani, in Luang Prabang, and everywhere thereafter.  It was the gesture that went with hello, and thank you.
There is something quite disarming about this practice. It is more personal than a simple verbal greeting, and oddly more intimate than a handshake.
It was early evening when we arrived, so after settling into our room, we decided to take a stroll through the special “night market,” located just across the street from our downtown hotel.  After 5 p.m., several blocks of the main street are cordoned off for pedestrian traffic only, and hundreds of local vendors spread their hand-crafted wares on the sidewalks and tables, in hopes that visitors like us will do some serious shopping, which we did.
The people of Laos have good reason to dislike Americans. From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of bombs on that poor little country, making it the most heavily bombed country per capita in history.  The bombings were part of the U.S. Secret War in Laos to support the Royal Lao Government against the Communist Pathet Lao and to disrupt arms traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  The bombs destroyed many villages and killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.  And a third of the bombs did not explode, leaving Laos contaminated with many dangerous remnants, which killed an additional 20,000 people since 1973. More recently we have taken steps to remove and destroy the unexploded bombs, but each year they still cause dozens of casualties.
Nevertheless, the people welcomed us warmly.  They were friendly, engaging and quite interested in knowing all about us, and open to sharing their life stories in return.

Part VII

Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is nestled in northern mountains of Laos. It is the former royal capitol of this primarily Buddhist country. A lush, green, peaceful place on the banks of the mighty Mekong River, it is attractive to visitors and noted for its beautiful scenery and glittering gold temples.
The Mekong, which begins in the Tibetan plateau many miles to the north, was high and muddy upon our arrival, but not too high to be used by locals as the primary transportation corridor for other parts of the region.  Small passenger ferries busily transferred residents from one side to the other, while barges, fishing boats and a fleet of visitor craft moved north and south.
Laos is a poor country and people work hard for their basic necessities.
We saw many examples of their enterprise once boarded our small boat on the first morning for an upstream cruise to a small village known for its many handcrafts.
In spite of the strong current and muddy water, I saw lots of local fishermen tending their nets and pulling in their lines as they harvested the day’s catch.
Recycled plastic water bottles are part of their tackle.  They attach a line, weight and baited hook to the empty, capped bottled and place it in a likely spot.  We saw hundreds of these fish markers set near the bank along our way.
Our first stop of the morning was at an open-air distillery set up under a tin roof on the riverbank just above the high-water mark.  The proprietor appeared to be doing a booming business making rice-whiskey with very crude-looking paraphernalia, including a 55-gallon drum.
He offers tastings of his wares, with or without the snake.
To add some kind of extra zing to some of his beverages, including rice wine, he adds snakes (including cobras) and/or scorpions. We chose the one sans snake.  It tasted a lot like the Italian “moonshine” we know as grappa.
Just upriver from the distillery, we visited a thatched hut village in which women were weaving and creating the many colorful scarves and blankets that they sell in the open-air markets in the city.
Many of the women had small children playing nearby.  Unfailingly, we got a smile and a wave from each person we encountered.
Our next stop was formerly a 16th Century monastery set in steep vertical cliffs of limestone. The Pak Ou caves, popularly called the “Buddha Caves,” are filled with thousands of Buddha sculptures in various sizes; some are made of wood and centuries old. It’s a popular tourist stop, but well worth the two-hour cruise upstream from Luang Prabang.
Vanh, our guide for our stay in Luang Prabang had been a Buddhist monk for five years. He was born in a poor mountain village and chose to leave home and join a monastery at the age of 13.  While the life is hard with strict rules, he said he received a much better education, including learning English, than he would have gotten in his remote village. Many boys choose this path out of poverty, and apparently there are no hard feelings against those who choose to leave life as a monk after taking advantage of the educational opportunities.
While Luang Prabang is a small modern city, the mountain villages we visited, including those of the H’mong and Khmu minorities, are not.
The roads are dirt, as are the floors of the thatched huts in which people live and work.  But even in the most basic of dwellings there was at least one electric outlet to which a television was connected.  We noticed small satellite dishes nestled among the lush tropical growth surrounding the homes.
We also visited the two-room schoolhouse where the children of the villages received their basic education.  The teachers welcomed us as guests in their classrooms and we were able to converse with the children, who all knew at least a few words in English.
Without exception every man, woman and child we met during our stay in Laos seemed interested in talking with us and wanted to know where we were from and if we were enjoying their country.
It was with some regret that we bid farewell to the people we met in Laos and boarded our plane for Siem Reap, Cambodia, and the world-famous ruins of Angkor Wat.

Part VIII

It was 5 a.m. in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Dottie and I were following our guide Mr. Sohun (pronounced “Sun”) in total darkness down what appeared to be a deserted dirt road surrounded by jungle.
Sohun had picked us up at our hotel at 4:15, taken us to get our photo I.D. passes for Angkor Wat at a central pass office, then he and our driver took us off into the jungle.  Our quest was to be in position to photograph the sunrise over Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous at Angkor, built as the funeral temple for Suryvarman II, who ruled there from 1112 to 1152.
As we trudged along, I inquired, “Where are we?”
“This is the back way.  We avoid the crowds,” Sohun replied.
So, we marched on, hoping not to step on a night-hunting cobra or fall into a bog full of crocodiles.
Suddenly a large shape, materialized out of the darkness, silhouetted by a million stars – the imposing walls of Angkor Wat.
Sohun led us around the side of the enormous temple to where several thousand tourists had already set themselves up, shoulder to shoulder, on the shores of a pond in front of the temple entrance.
Shortly after elbowing our way into the gathering, the eastern horizon began to glow red and orange.  Then, the grand, surreal essence of Angkor Wat appeared before us, and in a mirror image reflected off the pond.  A cacophony of cricket sounds created by thousands of photographers followed, until the sun itself rose from behind the ruins.
As dramatic as the sight was, I couldn’t help yawning and looking to see if there was a Starbucks nearby.
We spent the next several hours walking up and down ancient stone steps in awe of the skill and intense labor that it took to build this massive structure to host the remains of just one person.
Walking about one temple was excellent exercise, but by the time we made it through a few others, including nearby Angkor Thom and the Ta Phrom temple, built in 1186, it was early afternoon. The temperature was in the 90s with humidity to match. 
Awe gave way to “Aaah! This heat is killing me.”
Nearly 11 hours after rising in the dark, we made it back to our room at Phum Baitang, an amazing hotel resort built in the style of a Cambodian thatched-hut village surrounded by rice paddies and water buffalos. There, we fell into a sleep nearly as dead as that of the original Angkor Wat inhabitant.
There is a whole lot of Wat to see in Siem Reap, but the ancient temples and ruins are not the only highlights.  Once again, we found the best parts of our experience were the people (of Cambodia), unfailingly friendly, considerate, and interested in engaging with us.
 
Part IX

Dottie and I completed our adventure in South East Asia in Bangkok, Thailand followed by a couple of days in Singapore.  Of the two last places, we much preferred Singapore.
Bangkok is a very big, busy, crowded city. Even the rivers and canals that are central to the city’s transportation system are jammed with barges, tourist craft, floating restaurants and ferries of every shape and size.  In fact, there are so many boats on the water that it is nearly as rough as a windy day on the ocean.
The streets and highways are also clogged as are the sidewalks.
The day of our arrival, there was a huge, multi-story, modern shopping center holding its grand opening just a few doors down from the Peninsula Hotel, which was where we were staying. The streets were so jammed with people and traffic our car from the airport had to take us to a ferry landing on the opposite side of the river. Then we took a boat to our hotel.
Bangkok is interesting, the food fantastic and we really enjoyed the Buddhist temples and Royal Palace tours.  But the chaos, plus the warm, humid climate wore us down quickly.
In Singapore, the climate was warm and the population huge, but everything was neat, clean and very orderly.  This very modern city seems almost like a science fiction spaceport. There are lots of very modern high-rise business buildings and spectacular hotels.
And the streets, sidewalks, storefronts and parks are spotless.
A former British colony, this island-city-nation was established in 1959 with Lee Kuan Yew as it’s first prime minister.  This incredibly dynamic and brilliant leader is credited with transitioning Singapore from the “third world to first world in a single generation.”  A graduate of the London School of Economics, with a law degree from Cambridge, he forged a system of  effective and incorruptible government that ours could learn something from.
The economy of this little nation is booming and attracts many multi-national companies to establish a larger presence there.  The downside includes some rather harsh restrictions on personal and press freedoms. The highly educated, multi-national workforce seems to thrive nevertheless.  Virtually all of the people we spoke to seemed very proud of their city.
What impressed us most was the total normalization of a multiracial, multi religious citizenry.  There are Catholic and Methodist churches, on the same block with Buddhist temples, Hindu temples and mosques.  We witnessed a wedding in a Hindu temple between a Buddhist woman and a Hindu man, which our guide said was quite common.
A major Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, was holding a conference in Singapore during our visit, and Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, and his entourage where staying at our hotel, The Fullerton.
Prime Minister Yew also loved flowers, particularly orchids, and a trip to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, include the National Orchid Garden, is worth the trip just by itself.
Of course we also visited the fantastic Gardens by The Bay with is Supertree Grove, lush gardens and domed conservatories.
There was a lot to see and do, that we didn’t get to because we ran out of time and energy.  Dottie and I agreed that Singapore is one of the places we’d go back to if the timing was right.
In three weeks we managed to visit nine cities and learn to say hello, goodbye, please and thank you in five languages.  We saw many ancient sites, and marveled at the rapidly expanding free-market economies, even in what are supposedly communist countries. 
We enjoyed the variety of foods, and the unfailing top-level hospitality of our host hotels and guides.  And most of all, we loved meeting the citizens of each place we visited.  Everywhere we went, the people were engaging, kind, generous and sweet.
If you’re considering a trip to Southeast Asia, we highly recommend it.