Good Morning Vietnam and Cambodia

by David Whiting

We decided to treat ourselves to a really good holiday in 2006. We chose a tour of Vietnam and Cambodia from the brochure of Thomas Cook. It includes all hotels, breakfasts, flights, sightseeing, and pick-up from home and return home at the end of the tour. The following notes are some of my impressions from our trip.

In Hanoi, there are more motorbikes and cycles than other vehicles, not surprising when we learn that the tax on a car is 215%. Roads are adorned with gigantic advertising hoardings. There are speed limits but they are ignored by many, as are the rules of the highway if any: traffic travels in any and all directions at once; how there are no accidents is a miracle! And to cross a road, pedestrians just walk - traffic won’t stop but will avoid them. Drivers use their horns continually, often without reason, day and night. But the danger isn’t all on the road - at My Tho, an elderly man in our group tripped over the uneven pavement, sustaining nasty cuts which needed hospital treatment. Tourists need to be wary of uneven surfaces of roads, paths etc.

One late afternoon, we were taken for a cyclo ride for an hour through the busy streets. Cyclos are cycles with front seat passengers; it is terrifying to be driven so close to traffic rushing by. Cyclo riders work 15 hours a day, 7 days a week. Roads between the various locations are not well maintained; the 170km journey from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay took three hours.

In Ha Long itself, we boarded a junk. There was room for 36 but the 8 of us (including the guide, Phiem) had the junk to ourselves. Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and contains over 1600 limestone islands of all shapes and sizes, with caves, eagles, jellyfish and other wonders. We cruised among some of the islands, where many of the scenes of the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun were photographed. We returned to Hanoi in time to catch the rush hour chaos!

In Cambodia, on one of the world’s largest lakes, Tonle Sap, we stopped at a river station and boarded a flat bottomed boat. The river was narrow, shallow and very busy. One boat was stuck crosswise and had to be pushed by people power and by another boat to clear the way. We passed a floating school - the classrooms, gymnasium etc are on boats, and the children travel to school by boat from the floating villages on the lake. Apart from being residences, some of the boats serve as shops, fish farms - we stopped at one which keeps alligators, sold for their skins - souvenir shops etc.

The people in Cambodia have a higher ratio of cars than Vietnam, but many are imported and can be left or right-hand drive. Only the main roads are tarmacked, side roads are dirt tracks and often extremely bumpy.

Around Hanoi, the fields are full of crops, mostly rice, but also sweetcorn, sugar and others. Many people working in them are dressed in ‘coolie’ hats; we saw many water buffalo and cattle. People weed and kill insects by hand to reduce crop damage. The majority of Vietnamese people wear masks to cover almost their entire face, partly to guard against pollution but more against the harsh sun’s rays.

Health care is free in Vietnam for children only up to their 6th birthday, then everyone has to pay. We pass numerous cemeteries, at least one in every village. Many tombs are very elaborate. Even farms have private graveyards. Three years after burial bodies are dug up, the bones cleaned and reburied. Superstition says this benefits the offspring. Houses are almost all 4m wide; each property is allowed 80 sq m. Houses are built according to the owner’s finances. Tax is paid according to the width of the frontage. Pigs, water buffaloes, cattle etc are tied to the backs of motorcycles as they are transported alive to slaughterhouses.

Our aforementioned cyclo ride ended at Hanoi’s water-puppet theatre, founded in 1969. Nine puppeteers and six musicians perform for almost an hour. Puppets are operated by pushing sticks underwater from behind a screen. The show depicts scenes from Vietnam’s life, culture and legends. It is not very sophisticated, childish even at times, and visibility for the audience is poor, but it is a colourful, enjoyable show.

In the Cambodia countryside, we passed through several villages. Many houses are temporary dwellings made of odd pieces of timber on stilts, held together with rope. People are terribly poor, some have no shoes and some of the children are naked.

We saw a number of sights relating to Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot and their roles in their countries’ histories. In Hanoi, a major attraction was the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Ho Chi Minh’s successor had him embalmed, contrary to his desire to be cremated, and a great marble mausoleum was built 1973-5. There are strict security procedures and we had to follow a red carpet (made of plastic) around his body. Nearby are the bright yellow Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh’s ‘House on Stilts’, a simple two-storey house which shows how simply he lived, a pond where the carp came to Ho Chi Minh whenever he clapped his hands; the One Pillar Pagoda, a small temple built in 1049 in a lotus pool; and the Ho Chi Minh Memorial Museum, which portrays various events in his life and the history of Vietnam.

40km north-west of Hanoi are the Cu Chi tunnels, which cover an area of 420 sq km. They were complete underground towns, dug by hand, and included 200 infantry units. The tunnels were built when it was too dangerous to live above ground. The people planted rice while wearing rifles on their backs. The first basement was used for dwellings, the second level to move from place to place, the third level for hiding; the second and third levels were only accessible by crawling. There are ventilation shafts every 15m. Wells were sunk for water. Some escape tunnels led into the Saigon River.

The Cu Chi park is an open air museum. One can see how the villagers worked and lived, even a school. Various forms of traps are on display, used to maim and kill. They used pieces of American weapons and unexploded bombs for their home-made weapons. Some of the tunnels can be explored, about 40-50m long, but one can only bend low and they are pitch dark so a torch is essential. The Americans had a base about 5km from Cu Chi; the guerrillas dug a tunnel under the base and the Americans only found out about it three months after the war ended.

In Cambodia’s Phnom Penh is the Genocide Museum. This refers to the recent history under the Pol Pot régime, when there were no schools, religion, markets, cars, singers etc. Pol Pot - his name was an abbreviation for Political Potential - was responsible for the deaths of around 3 million Cambodians. People were taken prisoner for 1-6 months torture. We visited one such prison, number S21, previously the Tuol Sleng school and now the museum which opened in 1980 with the photographs of victims in order that they could be identified. Tourists only started coming here in 1999. Of the 20000 prisoners, only 7 survived. Alcatraz was a luxury hotel compared with S21. The photographs show prisoners being tortured and after death.

Afterwards we visited Choeung Ek, the nearest Killing Field to Phnom Penh, 16 km away. 129 mass graves have been identified, 86 have been opened so far revealing 8985 skulls. The prisoners from S21 were brought here; the wooden prison has been dismantled and the wood used for local housing. A grim thought - people are living in houses which witnessed torture and executions. A modern stupa has been built to contain the victims' skulls. Pieces of bone and clothing are still clearly visible in the earth.

90 minutes from Hanoi by plane is Hue, a small city with a population of 500,000, with broad streets. Hue was the capital of Vietnam 1802-1945. 13 Emperors ruled from here, following the rules of feudal lords. There is a 'forbidden city' on a slightly smaller scale than that of Beijing; it was badly damaged by American bombing during the Tet offensive in 1968.

We visited the Forbidden City, commencing with the Imperial Palace, dating from 1836. At the entrance stands a fortress, part of a 10km wall with ten gates around the City. Southern Vietnam used to be inhabited by Champa people who originated in India. In the 14th century, when the Champa disappeared, the province was given to the Vietnamese king. Danang, Vietnam’s fourth largest city with a population of 1 million, has a Cham Museum, built by the French in 1915-16 to contain relics. It was not realised until 1930 that the items belonged to the Cham civilisation. 44 Cham sites have been recognized across the country.

We also saw My Son, a holy area built by the Cham people for their kings after their death. A Cham folklore show was in progress with music and dancing (under cover) when we arrived. The site itself is in a valley surrounded by mountains; by 10am, the temperature is 45C/113F.

A pass issued by the Cambodian tourist police is required to enter the ancient Angkor site, capital of the extensive Khmer empire from the 9th to 15th centuries. Valid for 3 days it costs $40 and requires a passport photograph. 1000 years ago, the city of Angkor had more inhabitants than London. When the Khmer capital moved from Angkor to Phnom Penh in 1472 only Buddhist monks remained. There are more than 100 temples.

We passed the principal temple, Angkor Wat, en route to our first visit at Angkor Thom, which means big city. There are many standing columns and relief sculptures of Apsaras, dancing girls.

We then visited the Bayon Temple, rediscovered by the French in 1860 when it was almost completed enclosed by jungle. The site was cleared in 1907-13. There are 49 towers each with four faces of the smiling Buddha facing in each direction. The walls of this temple are covered in bas reliefs depicting life in Khmer times.

We continued to the Elephant walk, with its dozens of carved elephants and a late afternoon view of the magnificent Angkor Wat.

The itinerary said we would see the sun rise at Angkor Wat. This meant a wake-up call at 4 am and a 5 am departure in pitch darkness with packed breakfasts.

We were among the first of many hundreds to arrive for this magical dawn at 6.15; unfortunately, it was not worth an early start as it was cloudy! We heard the sound of frogs fighting in the trees and that of cicadas which became deafening.

After dawn we continued to visit Angkor Wat, an ancient Hindu site, built 1113-50. The centre consists of four towers around a central higher tower. The top level can be climbed but the steps are very steep.

The walls are adorned with reliefs of apsaras, warriors, scenes from Khmer mythology, their 37 heavens and 32 hells, etc. Each of the eight galleries is 44 metres in length. Many of the stones are massive, weighing many tons.

It is a marvel how they were brought here, cut precisely and assembled nearly 900 years ago. This temple is the symbol of Cambodia and even appears on the national flag.

First published in VISA issue 68 (August 2006)