Bound for Vietnam Read online

  I took a cyclo, the first pedicab I had seen in this country, from the boat to the train station. The streets of Haiphong are wide, it was a heavenly, sunny day with a gentle breeze and it was altogether delightful to be pushed about in something that resembled a hybrid of a wheel barrow, a bath chair and an oversized pram. That is, after I had overcame the initial feeling that I looked a complete fool in it. Vietnamese cyclos have seats that tilt back, so that you either have to perch uncomfortably on their edges, or loll back like the Sheik of Araby. I am a loller by nature, so I had no difficulty with this part. The problem was that the cyclo had no sides or top, only wooden arm rests, and I was projected out in front of the vehicle like a roo bar to cushion the driver if we hit anything. I felt like the ultimate air bag. This was not too bad here, where the traffic was light, but later in Saigon it became nerve-racking. I would see doom approaching me in the form of a thousand whizzing motorbikes as the rider pushed me, his buffer, feet first across a wide, busy intersection against the flow of the oncoming traffic. Bikes would graze past and ricochet off me as the traffic and I came together in the middle of the road in a panic-inducing danse macabre. I noted that cyclo riders were invariably young (maybe they don’t live long enough to get old) and cheerful. They should be, they didn’t have a lot to worry about!

  The Haiphong train station was an airy colonial building and there were no crowds or barricades. The cyclo rider carried my bags into the station and waited to see that I was able to buy a ticket before he left. At the counter an obliging woman served me and I met a young New Zealander – the first westerner I had come across since Yanshu. The train to Hanoi, with its cheerful blue and yellow carriages, stood alongside the station platform, but it was several hours before departure time, so I looked after Tony’s bags while he walked to the market to buy provisions.

  He returned with a delicious stick of French bread and cheese, salami, pork paste and fruit, all of which had cost two dollars. We bought drinks at the kiosk bar in the main hall where the locals waited and moved into the ‘Tourist Waiting Room’ – a place set aside from the proletariat – to have a picnic. The Vietnamese government also discriminates against foreigners. They had tourist prices, a device probably copied from the Chinese, but at least they offered you something extra for it. The Tourist Waiting Room, which was situated on one side of the station building, was not very big, but this was something I now appreciated. It was also extremely comfortable, with good-quality leather armchairs set around a large coffee table that was graced by a tea set and thermos. A luggage storage unit covered all of one wall. An antique wooden cabinet with bevelled edges and an elegant patina, it would have looked great in any house. A female guard kept us company in the waiting room. She was soon joined by many of her friends, workers in railway uniforms, and they had beer all round – several times. I hoped none of them was driving the train.

  But the train station had no toilet. You had to walk across the road to a public convenience in the square which was al fresco in every way. Not only was it roofless and open to the elements, but it had no partitions for privacy. There were not even any holes in the ground. You squatted on a sloping tiled floor behind which a ditch ran away downhill.

  The ticket seller had sworn that there was nothing available on this train except hard-class seats, so Tony and I boarded the train with hard-class tickets. But the carriage our seats were in actually turned out to be soft class. Bliss. Everyone had a seat and no luggage clogged the aisle. All surplus baggage was in the conductor’s den. He seemed to be running an unofficial freight business on the side. He also seemed to be giving his friends free or subsidised rides; three of them were squeezed in with the freight.

  A gaggle of French tourists, who had obviously mis-spent several hours waiting for the train in the pursuit of the grape in some hostelry, were seated near us. They had not been terribly attractive to begin with, but as the booze got to their bladders and they rocked and rolled down the carriage in search of the toilet, they became ludicrous. One man looked like a dim-witted dancing bear and a woman wore shorts. She did not have the figure to wear them anywhere, but she should have been forcibly restrained from wearing them in Vietnam where this fashion is seen as flagrantly immoral. It often appeared to me that many tourists on short package trips did not bother to find out anything about the culture of the countries they were to visit – unlike most individual travellers who need to do so for self-preservation.

  Darkness soon fell and I couldn’t see much from the train windows. A metal trolley trundled through the carriage aisle dispensing tea from big tin kettles and two hours after leaving Haiphong we crossed a massive bridge over the Red River. Then we were running into Hanoi.

  10 Hanoi

  Life began in Vietnam in the Ma River valley, south-west of Hanoi, about 500,000 years ago. By the third millennium BC, the Lac Viets, who were the direct ancestors of modern Vietnamese, had developed a highly complex and sophisticated society. In 111 BC the Red River area in the north was invaded and subjugated by Han Chinese, who named it Nam Viet, The South Land. It took a thousand years, but finally in 939 AD, a Vietnamese general ousted the Chinese and laid the foundation for the independent state of Vietnam.

  Another thousand years followed, this time of independence, until the French came – first missionaries in the seventeenth century, and then, in the nineteenth century, merchants who wanted to set up trading posts. The Vietnamese resisted with guerilla warfare, but by 1893 the French had secured the entire Indochinese Peninsula.

  When the Japanese invaded Indochina in the second world war, the Viet Minh guerilla fighters, who were led by Ho Chi Minh, turned their anti-colonial nationalism against these new imperialist enemies. The French collaborated with the Japanese and were allowed to continue ruling Vietnam, so the Viet Minh fought both the French and the Japanese with aid supplied by China and the United States.

  After the war, Ho Chi Minh set up the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi and became its first president. When the British permitted French rule again in the south, war erupted between the north and the south.

  In 1949 the US responded to a French request for help in the war, but in 1954 the Viet Minh defeated the French. Vietnam was then divided into the communist north and a puppet government, that was controlled by the US and which persecuted communist sympathisers, in the south. US strength in Vietnam gradually increased and by 1962 bombing and artillery began which sometimes wiped out entire villages. Millions died. In 1975 the Viet Minh won the American war and the country was united. The US placed an embargo on the country, which was not lifted until 1994. Twenty years later the Vietnamese bear no grudges.

  A line of cyclos waited in front of the Hanoi railway station. Being gently pedalled through the spacious, tree-lined streets in the tepid softness of the night air was lovely. There was no wind, just the breeze made by our movement among the sparse traffic. I followed Tony to the Trung Guest House where he had previously stayed and which he highly recommended. The ingenious child-like girl who was in charge of this establishment greeted Tony warmly. At first she said, ‘Dormitory okay for Tony. No room for you.’ Then, as it was late and I said I was tired, she phoned the boss and came back with, ‘Okay, room for you.’

  The Trung guest house was another of those tiny places. Thin but tall, its three storeys had been altered and added to wherever possible. Hanoi obviously had no town planning officials to inhibit such expression. The Trung was weird, but agreeable and extremely cheap. My six-dollar room was merely a cranny that had been created in the corridor, but it was clean, comfortable and had a good bed. In a former existence it had been the space under the stairs and the ‘roof’ sloped down over the bed that had just managed to compress itself into the length of the room. A tiny table alongside the bed and a hole in the wall that had been fitted with two shelves was the sum total of the furnishings. The room was partitioned from the passage by colour-bond silver garage metal to waist level and opaque glass from there. A sliding door
completed the picture. There was no window. A small exhaust fan in the partition over the foot of the bed pulled air in from the dormitory next door and saved the occupant from asphyxiation. There were gaps where the metal did not meet the wall and the construction was very rough and ready.

  This little house was so safe that you did not need to lock anything except against your fellow-travellers. The room keys hung where everyone could get at them and you just helped yourself. An honour box stood by the phone and, remarkably, you kept your own tab in an exercise book that had your room number on it. It was up to you to enter how much you owed for food, drinks and laundry. One visitor went to Halong Bay for three days and was told to pay when he got back. Such trust was astounding, especially after China’s paranoid conviction that all travellers only came there to steal the bed linen.

  The Trung’s dormitory contained a row of two-tiered bunks that made it look like a railway sleeping carriage. The communal sitting-dining room at the front of the guest house was furnished with good-quality, carved Gothic chairs, settee and table. One corner was occupied by an altar that was always well supplied with burning joss sticks, fruit and flowers. A tiny kitchen with just enough space for one person to stand in was attached to one side of the room. Food was served through a hatch in the wall, but the only way to enter the kitchen was through a doorway in the street which you had to go out the front door to reach. The staff at the Trung were genuine people who didn’t do things for you just because you were paying them. They reminded me of the Balinese. The hotel owner was a gentle and charming doctor of medicine. Her business cards not only advertised the hotel’s allures, but offered ‘free health care’ to guests. She said her husband, who was also a doctor, could supply me with some more anti-malarials. I met him later. A gracious man in army uniform, he told me that he was not practising medicine now. He was studying computer programming. I was glad to hear it. The tablets he gave me were Chloroquine and everyone knows that Vietnam’s mosquitoes are resistant to it. I found it intriguing that although he wore an army uniform and must have been officially a communist his wife burned joss on her altar.

  The Trung staff consisted of Ngon, a beautiful and serene woman who did the cooking and cleaning and who said she was thirty-nine, but looked more like seventeen and Tham, the joyful and very competent roustabout who lived on the premises and slept on the settee in the front room so that she could let the guests in at night. She vowed she was eighteen, but she looked about twelve. I would like to have bottled whatever ran in the genes of these two females.

  The first morning I appeared alongside Ngon as she bent over the wash tub. Looking up, she saw me and said, ‘Oh! Beautiful.’ It was fresh paint, that’s all, and I said so, which made her laugh and laugh.

  I toddled out to inspect Hanoi by cyclo. Slowing winding through the streets on a glorious sunny late autumn day was pure bliss. The colonial building that housed the post office looked nothing like the stereotype of these places. Its semi-circular façade was approached by an impressive flight of steps. Inside a massive wooden counter stretched the width of the room and comfortable lounge chairs surrounded a low circular table in its centre. But there were no customers, the place was empty. Although the post office had an official money-changing facility, it was also where the illegal black market money merchants, who loitered outside on the steps, accosted likely clients. They would even follow you inside and sit down companionably beside you in the easy chairs to make their offers. I was joined by two of these sharp operators who, despite the presence of the staff and the uniformed guard, openly flashed wads of dong at me as they solicited my custom.

  Opposite the post office, peace can be found in the busiest centre of town in the tranquil park that surrounds a wonderful big lake. Called the Restored Sword Lake, it has a legend similar to that of King Arthur and his Excalibur. Crowning a tiny island in the middle of the lake and reflected in its waters is the elegant three-tiered Turtle Pagoda that seems to rise from the mists of the lake. It can be reached across the curved Rainbow Bridge, whose entrance is guarded by two towers, The Pen and Ink-slab Towers. One is pointed in the shape of a brush, the other is a hollowed rock in the form of a peach that is supported by three frogs. On the fifth day of the fifth month, the morning sun makes the shadow of the brush point dip deep into the centre of the peach ink-slab.

  Revelling in the glow of the dazzling day, I wandered around the lake looking at the wares of hawkers under the brilliant flame trees and willows. I bought bananas from a woman swinging along with two baskets of fruit on her shoulder pole and was forced by necessity to patronise a public loo. It was not free. I was charged Tourist Price, 2000 dong, to use a grotty hole in the ground.

  I was resting on one of the many lake-side seats when an enterprising street kid who was selling postcards approached me. I told him that what I really wanted was Lonely Planet’s Guide to Vietnam which wasn’t available in the shops. He said I should meet him there the next day. I did and he had acquired a second-hand one for me.

  Hanoi, ‘The City in the Bend of the River’, has been inhabited since neolithic times, but by 1010 AD it had been established as the capital of the country. Originally just a collection of villages clustered around a walled palace on the Red River, from 1902 it was the capital of French Indochina. Most of North Vietnam is mountainous, so the Red River delta, which is the fertile rice basket of the country, is of vital importance. The river originates in the Chinese province of Hunnan, forms part of the Vietnamese Chinese border and then empties into the Gulf of Tonkin.

  I found Hanoi, with its air of a provincial French town of the 1930s, incredibly interesting. I loved the colourful red and purple bougainvilleas and the lovely old buildings. Some restored, some crumbling, they were a mixture of mellow-toned oriental, eighteenth and nineteenth century European styles and the now familiar narrow, three and four storeyed houses.

  On my second day at the Trung I moved up to an exclusive eight-dollar room. You had to be slim and agile to reach this garret. The tiled staircase leading to it went up almost vertically from one side of the communal front room. Inside, a sloping ceiling came down to meet white-washed walls, one of which contained a metal framed piece of opaque glass. This opened into the dormitory below and was the room’s only window, as well as the air supply. I had to climb onto the bed to get at my clothes. They hung on a hook board which was nailed to the wall that the bed was against. I wondered why it had been put in such an inconvenient spot when plenty of other wall space was available.

  This was the only room I have ever been in where I could not see the door when I was in bed. It was below floor level. On the far side of the room an unprotected flight of steps led to the wooden louvered door that opened onto the outside staircase. The door and entrance were so narrow that a fatty would not have got in. Shiny green and red ceramic tiles covered the floor and the stairs. It wouldn’t have done to sleep walk or stumble about in the dark. Outside, another flight of stairs went up to the bathroom at such an acute angle that I had to jump to get across to them. None of the stairs had rails.

  The bath and toilet were pristine. But the toilet roll holder was fixed to the wall at head height when standing up and the shower was positioned over the bath at a level that required you to sit crosslegged sideways in the bath to get under it.

  I visited the History Museum, one of Hanoi’s stunning old buildings. Colonial elegance on a grand scale, it was surrounded by huge trees and green gardens of palms and frangipanis. A three-tiered entry hall soared to a peak from which a stupendous chandelier was suspended. From the tiled floor graceful columns rose that were the same soft golden tone as the walls. Wooden-framed French doors were strategically positioned between the exhibits to give views of the garden. The original hand-made glass in the doors gave the garden a wavy, unfocused look that added authenticity to the building’s antiquated aura.

  I strolled along the museum’s spacious open halls. This day the weather had changed and it was very cold inside the h
igh-ceilinged building. I had hoped to see some of the fine antique porcelain that Vietnam is famous for, but I was disappointed. There were a few pieces labelled ‘From a sunk boat in the bottom of the sea’; but it was poor quality stuff that had been degraded by its long immersion. Among the historic exhibits I was treated to were ‘Implements of French Aggression and Oppression’, which included the guillotine, handcuffs and photos of an execution by firing squad. Further on I came to a door bearing the sign, ‘Vistors are prayed not to enter’.

  In the streets of Hanoi I saw much evidence of free enterprise. Vendors sat on footpaths with goods on bamboo trays or they pedalled and peddled. It was amazing what you could buy off a bike: clothes, plastic buckets, clothes pegs, hats, umbrellas. At the guest house, Ngon the cook did not need to go out to shop; the kitchen supplies – bread, fresh baked long sticks or rolls and meat and vegetables were all brought to the door in two baskets that hung either end of the sellers’ shoulder poles.

  Noisy propaganda dogged me still. In Hanoi there was no escaping it. It not only blared out from the street morning and evening, but was mobile as well. Every now and then I came across a man wheeling slowly through the streets and markets on a bicycle while he played a tape recording of the harangue through a megaphone.

  Hanoi streets had few cars, but there were many bicycles and motorbikes. Cyclos were the way to get about. Almost everyone and everything was transported by some form of pedal power. Once I saw a full-sized dressing table, complete with two attached cheval mirrors, mounted on a bike and another time I saw a woman with a wire-netting chicken coop on board. She was selling miserable-looking live chooks –meat on the hoof, or bike – door to door. Another woman had a cargo of live ducks, with their feet tied together, in a wicker basket on the back of her bike, while a large murderous-looking knife lay across the handlebars.