< Disclaimer> < Return To Issue Article Index >

An American In Vietnam  US$1 equals 16,170.0 Vietnamese dong ~ by Peter Kauffner

This article is from the best of International Living - Subscribe To International Living Magazine  ~ Get The Facts ~

You don’t walk in Vietnam. You ride - a motorcycle, a bicycle, a pedicab... Yes, there are sidewalks, but to the Vietnamese, a sidewalk is a place to park your motorcycle, to eat (sitting on a low plastic stool), to sell your wares…a place to do almost anything except walk. In Vietnam, an entire family can ride on a motorcycle at the same time, daddy driving with mommy sitting behind him carrying junior, who is somehow able to sleep soundly despite the roar and honking of rush-hour traffic. No one wears a helmet, and few are without the scars of accidents. Not a good idea to leave your bike unattended in this country - it might get stolen. Most Vietnamese pay someone to watch their motorcycles when they’re not using them, but others save money by sitting on their bikes all day long. Motorcycle taxi drivers even eat and sleep on their vehicles while waiting for fares. Cavorting Couples Saturday night in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), men drive their dates to the waterfront and park. In open areas of the city, you see rows of couples sitting on their bikes, talking and kissing.

Still, a former New Yorker, I like to walk sometimes. This raises the ire of the motorcycle taxi drivers, who shout “Motorbike! Motorbike!”or “Motorbike you!” at me every few minutes. Meanwhile, I struggle for the nearest Vietnamese equivalent to, “No, I prefer not to ride in your deathmobile today.” 

Actually, to call these guys “motorcycle taxi drivers” is to glorify their behavior, as often they’re not taxi drivers but just guys on bikes who happen to be passing by.

Planning my trip to the Mekong Delta village of Thanh Phong, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous when I realized what a lengthy bike ride it would require. I could have rented a car but thought that would attract unwanted attention. So I set off on an off-road adventure I won’t soon forget.
.

Thanh Phong is only 75 miles from Ho Chi Minh, but the village is far from major roads and in a remote part of the undeveloped Mekong Delta region. My trip there started with a two-hour bus ride to the city of Mytho, on the edge of the delta. I had heard horror stories about Vietnamese buses but was pleasantly surprised to find that the national bus company now operates used buses recently purchased from South Korea. 

In Mytho, I caught a boat. No trouble there. There are as many people selling boat rides in Mytho as there are guys selling real estate in Orlando.

One of the travel agencies in town directed me to a ferry boat…and Sang, a driver who spoke some English. The trip from Mytho to Thanh Phong took three hours and required riding not one, but three ferries.

We traveled off road through banana and coconut groves, lush forests, and villages that time forgot. Children guided farm animals by the side of the dirt road, which later narrowed to a single-lane bicycle and motorcycle path lined by huts made of bamboo, board, and thatch.
..

This won’t be so off-the-beaten-track much longer. The whole of southern Bentre Province, which includes Thanh Phong, is a hive of construction work. Brand-new buildings dot the landscape, and workers with heavy equipment are at work on new bridges. Grand Prix Biker Back on the main road, my suspicions about Vietnamese motorcyclers were confirmed. A bike in the oncoming lane veered into our lane, attempting an impossible pass. With a family of four bearing down on us, I flinched in a futile attempt to use Sang as a steering device and—WHAM—the foot rest of the oncoming vehicle whacked my foot as it passed. Sang moved over to the right and stopped while the other driver continued his Grand Prix driving style. “He is really crazy,” Sang said, as I got off and hobbled around. I checked my foot, and it looked okay, although by that evening my middle toe had turned blue. After a minute or two, I got back on, and we continued toward Thanh Phong. After the third ferry, the road turns to dirt with deep ruts. The forest disappears, and there are paddies and thatch huts on both sides. A sign marks the border of Thanh Phong commune.

Maybe I should back up. What was I doing here?

Thanh Phong gained notoriety in April 2001, when former Senator Bob Kerrey confessed to having committed “an atrocity” when he led a commando raid on the village during the Vietnam War. I was interested in seeing the place myself and maybe finding out what effect the event had on today’s residents.

If you’re not familiar with the history, Kerrey’s U.S. Navy SEAL team killed up to 21 villagers in the raid, which occurred on Feb. 25, 1969. One victim was an old man, the others were women and children. Kerrey claims his team fired only in response to enemy fire, but this claim is disputed by a member of his own team, as well as by Pham Tri Lanh and Bui Thi Luom, survivors of the massacre. Kerrey received the Bronze Star for his conduct that night. He is now president of the New School University in New York.
.

Not Anti-American So as not to keep you in suspense any longer, I will address the most common questions people ask about Vietnam.  First, no, living here (I’ve been here for ?? years), I don’t encounter much anti-Americanism. My students at Vietnam National University talk about former North Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh as if he is a god (IS HE STILL ALIVE? I HAVE TO ADMIT MY IGNORANCE. I DON’T KNOW. BUT IF HE’S DEAD, THIS SHOULD BE IN PAST TENSE), but they don’t express much in the way of political opinion beyond that. When I asked why she liked Ho, one student responded, “He could speak six languages and drove out the French.” (Apparently, this is a version of Ho’s life redacted to avoid offending the American teacher.) As far as current government policy goes, everyone seems to be a happy camper. They may have no choice, however. Several people I talked to seemed frightened when I asked political questions and told me that the police arrest people who discuss such issues. The first family Sang and I met in Thanh Phong commune invited us into their house and served us tea. Eleven villagers gathered around, laughing and smiling as Sang translated my questions. Nguyen Van Ri, the head of the household, explained that he had “only seven children.”

Boats near the town of Mytho

.
Ri, 45, was once a woodcutter, but now earns his living raising shrimp and fish. A year ago, the family moved into a newly built modern house, which cost them about $13,000. Before they moved to the new home, they had only a battery-powered radio. Now they have a television. Unlike every other television I saw in Ho Chi Minh and Mytho, this one was turned off.

One older woman said she had been burned by napalm as a child during the war. The others said they were too young to remember anything from that time.

No one in the family had ever heard of Kerrey.

Generally, the villagers are friendly and without grudges. When I showed interest in one of the daughters, her mother laughed and said, “No, take this one” and offered me her eldest daughter. I declined the offer.
.

Downtown Thanh Phong Traveling on, we passed some graves, more paddies, and the commune’s volleyball court to arrive at the center of town. This is was Thanh Phong village proper, judging from an old U.S. army map I consulted later. (Modern maps for sale in Vietnam have little detail, so as not to give away military secrets.) In 1969, the village had about 100 residents who lived in four or five communal huts strung out along the shoreline. Behind that, there was only forest. On my visit, I saw family huts, storefronts, a restaurant, a police station, a primary school, and a post office, all of which looked like they were built years ago. Only a few patches of forest remained near the shore. Feverish Development The village of Thanh Phong is in the throes of feverish development, with earth-moving tractors and houses under construction all over town. There is a brand-new church and recently erected monuments to commemorate the commune’s role in the war. These monuments do not relate to Kerrey’s raid, but rather to Thanh Phong’s status as a center for seaborne gun running. A plaque describes the commune as the southern terminus of a “Ho Chi Minh Seaway” by which the Vietcong rebels in South Vietnam received weapons from North Vietnam. I find no suggestion in historical literature that the commune played a major role in weapons smuggling. We finally stopped at a café - that is, a counter with some plastic stools on the dirt in front of it. Villagers gathered around as soon as we sat down. They still live in thatch huts and raise shrimp and do manual labor, earning about $1 a day, they told me.  “People move here, but they are rich people,” said one. “They come here to do business. The villagers are still poor.”

My interview was cut short when several policemen arrived and directed us to follow them to the station across the road and behind some trees. The police chief told me he didn’t want me talking to people or taking pictures. Although the monuments and the write-up about Thanh Phong in literature put out by the provincial tourist office suggest that the commune is being prepared for tourism, the local police do not seem to be on board yet.

“Tell him I talked to the Bentre tourist office before I came,” I said to Sang. “I told them I would come here and talk to people. No one told me that there would be any problem.”
The chief was unimpressed. “He says that if you want to talk to people, you need to get permission from the police before you come,” Sang told me.

After an hour or so, the police returned my passport. Thinking it was time to leave, I got up and walked out. But then the police took Sang’s identity card and told us we had to wait for an officer from Bentre City to come and interview me.

While we waited, I teased the children who stood outside the office gawking at the exotic beast who had suddenly arrived in their village and entertained Thanh Phong’s finest with the wonders of digital photography.

When the officer from Bentre arrived, he began by speaking to me in Vietnamese, apparently trying to trick me into answering in Vietnamese, in the manner of an interrogator in a spy thriller. However, as I have cleverly neglected to learn the language, I was able to remain one step ahead. 

The officer’s primary concern was that I might have been talking about politics with the villagers. I told him I was interested in writing only about the daily life of the local people, and he seemed satisfied. He asked to see my pictures and to listen to the tape I had made.

“You should always travel with a guide,” the officer warned. “It is not safe. Many people hate Americans.”

The Delta After Dark

After spending a total of six hours at the station, I was finally released. The delay meant I would have to do something much more worrisome than meeting people not fond of Americans - I’d have to bike across the delta after sunset.

The now invisible ruts tossed me around like I was on a roller coaster ride. When we got to the paved road, the ride became even less comfortable. The private homes we passed were unlit, presumably not wired for electricity. Rural stretches were as dark as caves.

As we approached a turn, flames leaped up from a spot straight ahead, creating a spectacular fiery show. It was a motorcycle wreck by the side of the road. The driver was attempting to put out the fire with a small bowl of water. He had apparently taken the turn at too high a speed. By the time I got to Bentre and checked into a hotel, I was exhausted from worry. 

Bentre, by the way, the provincial capital, played a cameo role in the Tet offensive as the town the U.S. Army had to “destroy in order to save.”

The next day I went to the tourist office, but now they wouldn’t tell me anything and referred all my questions to the “people’s committee” (provincial government). When I arrived at the people’s committee building, I noticed that it is also the police headquarters. Not interested in dealing with the police anymore, I took the bus back to Ho Chi Minh.

Traditional Dress

The traditional Vietnamese dress, called an ao dai, is beautiful. The high school girls wear a blinding white gossamer ao dai as a uniform. To keep it clean, they wash it by hand every day. Shop clerks and bank tellers wear less revealing ao dais of various colors. Otherwise, you don’t see the traditional dress all that often nowadays.
.

< Send a Letter to the Editor > < Subscribe> < Submit An Article >< Disclaimer>